Mike Woodson Hate

[LACtdom]

I don't know anything about the situation but I hear things in the forums like:
"Woodson is telling blake to abandon his post game"
"Woodson is making us play more ISO"
etc.
Does anyone have sources for this information?

I just want to point out:
Doc is the head coach which means he has final say. If Woodson has a scheme, Doc must either agree with it or not have a better idea. If Woodson really is accountable for 100% of our offense then why do we even have Doc? Does Doc provide our awesome defense? If you say "we need Doc because he is a great player's coach" well the players just held a meeting without him so... Let's just make Woodson head coach.

Our defense is worse than our offense but I don't see much hate for the defensive assistant coach.
We never win the rebounding battle and we never rotate properly. After a couple of rotations our players will just stand under the basket while the opposition shoots an open 3.

I do not like Woodson one bit but I think some of his hate may be undeserved and I think our problem is much bigger than an assistant coach. My point is not to stick up for Woodson but simply remind everyone that the buck falls with Doc because he is the head coach.

[og15]

I've seen it too, boggles my mind. How are we going to blame the assistant coach when the head coach is the one that should have the final say? It's not like Doc is some rookie coach learning the ropes. If Doc is allowing the assistant coaches to do something, then it is on him.

[MartinToVaught]

Woodson is the offensive coach. The offense is stagnant with horrible sets; we are running the same system that got Woodson fired in ATL and NY. How is it unreasonable to criticize Woodson for being bad at his job?

[Wammy Giveaway]

Woodson being an iso coach is not the alarming fact. Here's the real alarming fact:

Mike Woodson won his NBA Championship with the 2004 Detriot Pistons as an assistant coach.

Larry Brown must have done something right with Mike Woodson. What was he able to do with Mike that Doc is currently having trouble with?

[LACtdom]

This is what I love:
Doc gets hammered for giving minutes to players who are missing shots (which he can't control).
Doc doesn't get hammered for our poor offense/defense (which is ultimately his job since he is coach).

[og15]

Woodson is the offensive coach. The offense is stagnant with horrible sets; we are running the same system that got Woodson fired in ATL and NY. How is it unreasonable to criticize Woodson for being bad at his job?

Doc is the head coach and hired Woodson. Sure, criticize Woodson, but ultimately it is Doc's fault if he not only hired an offensive coach that isn't good at offense, but also let's him run whatever he wants without checking him. What's Doc supposed to be doing, just managing players? Woodson is running the offense, Frank the defense, is Doc just watching?

Woodson being an iso coach is not the alarming fact. Here's the real alarming fact:

Mike Woodson won his NBA Championship with the 2004 Detriot Pistons as an assistant coach.

Larry Brown must have done something right with Mike Woodson. What was he able to do with Mike that Doc is currently having trouble with?

Woodson was originally supposed to be a defensive coach even, not an offensive guy. Those Pistons teams certainly didn't win primarily on the strength and fluidity of their offense though.

[MartinToVaught]

Woodson is the offensive coach. The offense is stagnant with horrible sets; we are running the same system that got Woodson fired in ATL and NY. How is it unreasonable to criticize Woodson for being bad at his job?

Doc is the head coach and hired Woodson. Sure, criticize Woodson, but ultimately it is Doc's fault if he not only hired an offensive coach that isn't good at offense, but also let's him run whatever he wants without checking him. What's Doc supposed to be doing, just managing players? Woodson is running the offense, Frank the defense, is Doc just watching?

If I do a consistently **** job at work, should my boss fire himself? After all, he hired me.

Hiring Woodson was a mistake by Doc and anyone with a brain saw it coming at the time. But I don't understand the resistance now to correcting that mistake and holding Woodson accountable.

[og15]

Woodson is the offensive coach. The offense is stagnant with horrible sets; we are running the same system that got Woodson fired in ATL and NY. How is it unreasonable to criticize Woodson for being bad at his job?

Doc is the head coach and hired Woodson. Sure, criticize Woodson, but ultimately it is Doc's fault if he not only hired an offensive coach that isn't good at offense, but also let's him run whatever he wants without checking him. What's Doc supposed to be doing, just managing players? Woodson is running the offense, Frank the defense, is Doc just watching?

If I do a consistently **** job at work, should my boss fire himself? After all, he hired me.

Hiring Woodson was a mistake by Doc and anyone with a brain saw it coming at the time. But I don't understand the resistance now to correcting that mistake and holding Woodson accountable.

Who said Doc should fire himself? That comparison makes no sense.

You guys don't realize that by placing all this blame on Woodson, you're also essentially calling Doc an idiot.

If you had shown historically to be poor at a specific job (Woodson at coaching offense), and a project manager hires you for that job because he thinks differently. In addition to that the project manager intimately works with you in carrying out the work and actually has the final say in everything you produce and decide for the project. Still, despite the previous idea of others that you suck at it, and despite him being in the position to say no and change anything he wants, he agrees, approves and implements it (despite it supposedly being bad). So now, when that project is presented, are we going to say the final product is primarily the fault of the guy who had to get everything he was doing approve and should have been checked and corrected or the guy who hired him, agreed to and approved all his ideas and decisions, monitored the daily work and implemented his decisions? That is showing that he is a poor project manager.

I don't care what happens to Woodson, or if anyone thinks he sucks, it is irrelevant to me. The reality is that if Doc was blind to it this whole time and allowed sucky offense to be coached, then he's just dumb and himself doesn't know what good offense is.

[MartinToVaught]

Okay, fine, Doc's an idiot. Now can we please hire someone who understands ball movement and floor spacing to run the offense? D'Antoni is available. It really doesn't matter to me whose "fault" it is, I'm just already tired of this offensive system because it's not going to win anything when it matters.

[og15]

Okay, fine, Doc's an idiot. Now can we please hire someone who understands ball movement and floor spacing to run the offense? D'Antoni is available.

I have no disagreement with that

[Neddy]

well if i had a choice between mike woodson and mike D'Antoni, I take the pale skinned mike in a heartbeat.

BTW im not white so please save your race-relation criticism. it's a light hearted pun on this heavy situation. Mike D is just better than Mike W when it comes to offense.

what about just signing Mike D without firing Mike W? his contract is guaranteed anyway and if we have to pay him, it looks better for us to reassign his duties such as player development assistant (which is a BS job just like Ned Colletti being a special adviser to Stan Kasten) and just make Mike D run the offense.

I do however feel, that it takes more than a few in-season practice session to implement anyone's offense and it probably is out of a real possibility at this point. but if we must hire Mike D, I thinks its only right we don't fire Mike W to do it.

[LACtdom]

This may sound weird but i'm actually loving what's happening. If we kept producing ugly wins we would have gotten to the playoffs and exited again leaving nothing special. By losing miserably to a fellow division team it has lit a fire throughout the organisation so now maybe we will actually DO something about how poorly we have played.

[LACtdom]

Side note: Doc wanted to be head of basketball operations because he wanted FULL control over everything including staff.

[Neddy]

This may sound weird but i'm actually loving what's happening. If we kept producing ugly wins we would have gotten to the playoffs and exited again leaving nothing special. By losing miserably to a fellow division team it has lit a fire throughout the organisation so now maybe we will actually DO something about how poorly we have played.

I have to say that i feel exactly the same.

we were winning games we didn't exactly dominate. it was time for a reality check for this team to grow. Im glad this ugly defeat came so early in the season that our guys are forced look themselves in the mirror and forget the hype and work on what is most important for us to move forward to become a winner.

right on.

[Wammy Giveaway]

Okay, fine, Doc's an idiot. Now can we please hire someone who understands ball movement and floor spacing to run the offense? D'Antoni is available.

I have no disagreement with that

I have a concern with that. If Doc does get Mike D'Antoni, will the Clippers basically become, to the eyes of the media, a no-defense all-offense team? There's this notion that teams who have offense-only coaches as their primary leaders means they'll fail instantly in the playoffs, see Phoenix Suns. But it'll be interesting to see the father of Seven Seconds go up against his disciple.

My Preventions metric does show that the Clippers play defense, albeit weakly. Based on the first four games:

Clippers: 22.5 shots for 55 points, 12 possessions, 6 assists, 6.5 delays, 10.5 assignments helped on
Opponents: 23 shots for 54.8 points, 6.8 possessions, 3.5 assists, 4 delays, 4.8 assignments helped on

[mttwlsn16]

Why not just resort back to what Al G's offense had us doing? It can't be that difficult. Our team isn't stupid, not like they forgot what made them the #1 offense last year.

[mkwest]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9O4j5_koxU[/youtube]

Around the 26 second mark, Doc is asked about the roles of his assistants. Lawrence Frank & Brendan O'Connor are looked at as defensive coaches with Woody & Sam offensively. They all share notes, but each have basically been given a primary focus by Doc.



The defense is horrendous and I don't think anybody is trying to say anything otherwise. You can't really have any sort of high expectations when a team is rebounding and defending the ball like we have.

We were pretty efficient on offense last year (i.e. highest points per possession, highest ppg, 2 in FTA/FGA etc.). So far, we've have taken a decent step back despite having most of our key guys returning. Last season, even with the shortcomings on defense, I'd could count on the offense. Now, I can't count on that either. This team in its present condition is a mess.

This may sound weird but i'm actually loving what's happening. If we kept producing ugly wins we would have gotten to the playoffs and exited again leaving nothing special. By losing miserably to a fellow division team it has lit a fire throughout the organisation so now maybe we will actually DO something about how poorly we have played.

I don't necessarily love it (the struggle), but I'd rather it happen now than later. No point in thinking that you are better than you are only to get smacked back to reality.

[QRich3]

Woodson is the offensive coach. The offense is stagnant with horrible sets; we are running the same system that got Woodson fired in ATL and NY. How is it unreasonable to criticize Woodson for being bad at his job?

What system is that? He is running the same system Gentry was running last year, lots of pick&rolls of Paul/Blake with shooters spreading the floor and DJ trying to sneak in for the lob, with some pet plays like Blake isolating in the left block and Redick going through screens, mostly. Is there any actual plays you think are Woodson's idea or are you just making up his mythical powers to do what he wants when nobody knows where that comes from or how it reflects in reality?
The problem is execution. If Blake doesn't move the ball to the open cutter in one of those isos and instead takes a contested jumper is that Woodson's fault? if DJ is asleep and goes to set his screen late which affects the whole possession, is that Woodson's fault? If CDR is also asleep and forgets to cut into open space is that Woodson's fault? those are real problems I see with the offense, I haven't seen any new sets that caught my attention and I can blame on the coaches.

I'm guessing that you, like most people on this forum (specially the GB) go by reputation, and Woodson has a bad reputation (undeserved imo) from his time in NY. Did you see NY's offense in 2013? they were a top 3 offense with a really sh*t roster, with Raymond Felton and 40-year-old-cant-make-a-shot-to-save-my-life Jason Kidd running things. And they were beautiful to watch, lots of ball movement and open shots. Then his team started playing to their talent level the season after that, and morons on the internet blamed the coach as they always do.

The system is exactly the same as last year so far, from what I've seen, if you don't like Woodson's face that's your problem not his.

By the way, Clippers have the 11th best offense but the 8th worst defense so far. Once again, like for the past 5 years, the offense is not the problem.

[og15]

Thanks QRich for being the bearer of "bad news" in terms of the game scape goat. I was going to say it earlier but I was like who cares, whatever.

The offense isn't drastically different. For Blake the biggest difference had been his reads. Backing down and shooting jump shots are reads in the offense, the offense won't say "you must shoot or must back down".

Outside of that, Redick shooting his career percentages would give the Clippers about 3 more ppg, a top 5 offense so far averaging about 106 ppg, 111 Ortg.

Soo...how bad is the offense really?
Woodson has issues with pace as an offensive coach, but the pace has been okay so far also.

My point with "if Woodson is the problem then Doc is the problem" is that I don't believe Doc is an idiot or a bad offensive coach. So the was to highlight that this is an offense with more than one head in it and we can't judge it's efficacy or lack thereof from 5 games.

[MartinToVaught]

I'm guessing that you, like most people on this forum (specially the GB) go by reputation, and Woodson has a bad reputation (undeserved imo) from his time in NY. Did you see NY's offense in 2013? they were a top 3 offense with a really sh*t roster, with Raymond Felton and 40-year-old-cant-make-a-shot-to-save-my-life Jason Kidd running things. And they were beautiful to watch, lots of ball movement and open shots. Then his team started playing to their talent level the season after that, and morons on the internet blamed the coach as they always do.

That 2012 Knicks offense was a massive early-season fluke. They rained threes at an unsustainable rate, they got unsustainable performances from J.R. Smith and 40-year-old Kidd. As soon as the threes stopped falling midway through the year, it was back to iso Melo, iso J.R., iso Melo again. By the first-round playoff series, 43% of the plays they were running were isolations for Melo - and they nearly blew a 3-0 series lead to the Celtics and got exposed by the Pacers. Last year, IIRC, the Knicks led the league in isolation plays. And of course, there was iso Joe in Atlanta. Now it's iso Blake. Woodson has earned his reputation because of his coaching style and his teams' results. You might get a few possessions of ball movement with him, hell, maybe even a streak of games, but he will always eventually revert back to me-first isoball, which doesn't win in this league anymore.