Jordon was a superstar, yet he didn't get anywhere until Jackson was coaching him... and I personally think Phil Jackson's the most overrated coach in the history of coaches.
The Lakers had both Kobe and Shaq for a year before they won a title (again, with Jackson).
Pat Riley couldn't coach the Heat to beat a paper bag, and retired to the front office; his inexperienced replacement coached them to one game shy of the East Finals, a year before Shaq joined the team. (That's Stan Van Gundy, IMO one of the most underrated coaches ever.)
NBA History is full of teams who performed better for one coach than another. The Hawks supposedly have one of the top 8 lineups in the Eastern Conference; I've heard as high as 5th or 6th, after the Bibby deal (by non-Hawks fans).
Has this last roadtrip been rough? Sure, 4 in 5 nights, 5 in 7, against a tough group of teams, 4 of them playoff qualifying teams, with a PG who's had 1.5 non-gameday practices with the team during his entire time with them (which started with said roadtrip). Yes, 1-4 is better than it might have been. But it's worse than it should have been, the Hawks could have been 3-2 with some better decision-making that Woodson even admitted to blowing in his Immediately-After-the-Game press conferences, before he could even use Film Study to figure out. Hindsight is 20/20, but Woodson's shortsighted. He needs to go. There's a chance that they won't improve with a new coach, and may get worse; but I consider the odds to be in the Hawks favour of improving.
NICE PICK UP
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Hawkamanic81
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The Lakers were a playoff team before Phil came abord. MJ would have likely won alot of games without Phil (probably not as many titles) but the Hawks are 10 games under .500 in a conference that might be the weakest it has ever been. On top of that, there is nobody on the Hawks roster that is even close to MJ, Shaq, or Kobe.