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Very simple question. Do you mostly blame our players for our losing? Or the coaching?

Can't it be both? I mean, I think the roster has a lot of problems but we have been calling for a real point guard for a while. For the first time with this group, we have seen the whole team be effective at something on offense. We still have a bunch of problems, and the players all have their flaws, but Woody isn't good at certain things and playing from ahead is one of them so after a game like last night's, people are gonna be on him.

Of course it is both that deserve blame. The question is who deserves more blame. From the posts on this board it appears Woody is by far the main culprit in the eyes of Hawks fan. I disagree with this as I think it is the player since pla yers win games. Which is why they are paid so much.

I mean, I think the roster has a lot of problems

That is irrelevant to this poll since the players themselves didn't put together the roster. Shelden didn't pick himself at 5. Marvin didn't pick himself at 2.

If the roster is flawed then how could it possibly be the players fault, or even Woody's?

If he wanted to put the blame on BK then he should have included him in the poll.

The real question is why the team isn't playing up to it's potential. Is it because the players are playing poorly or because they are being poorly coached. I believe the latter.

it's both, the coach should have been able to come up with something to stop the bleeding (allowing the same play to work twice in a row) and the players needed to man up and make some baskets (stop watching joe do iso's all day) all in all everyone had to look themselves in the mirror and ask if they wanted to make the playoffs. its performances like that leave you one game out of the picture. now they have to win in phoenix just to make up for the game they let slip away for no reason whatsoever. i don't care where you were picked in the draft. you good enough to play in the league then you are good enough not to lose a 20 pt lead.

JoshB914 wrote:Of course it is both that deserve blame. The question is who deserves more blame. From the posts on this board it appears Woody is by far the main culprit in the eyes of Hawks fan. I disagree with this as I think it is the player since pla yers win games. Which is why they are paid so much.

BK is already universally hated on this board.I think just about 98% of Hawks fans have wanted BK fired for over a year now. I believe coaching in the regular season is overrated but we are not maximizing the ability of this roster. We are one of the most undersized and athletic teams and yet we are in the bottom third of the league in pace. The sad thing is that the Hawks do look to run and often find themselves having double digit leads in the 1st half only to slow the game down and let the other team chip away at the lead as we struggle to score in the half court. It happens in nearly every game we have he lead.

Question:

Do you think Woody is telling these guys one thing in the first half and another in 2nd? Is he a genius in the first three quarters and a Idiot in the 4th? Or do the players get 20 point leads in spite of Woody then say...."Hey maybe we should listen to coach......this 20 point lead isn't working out"? Nah....I think the blame lies with management......why can't we get a defensive presence on D in the middle?......why is our top offensive weapon forced to play the other guys top offensive weapon on D when we could easily get a defensive spec. to relieve that burden? Why don't we have a spot shooter? Everybody else has one, but us.......

Sultanofatl wrote:Question:

Do you think Woody is telling these guys one thing in the first half and another in 2nd? Is he a genius in the first three quarters and a Idiot in the 4th? Or do the players get 20 point leads in spite of Woody then say...."Hey maybe we should listen to coach......this 20 point lead isn't working out"? Nah....I think the blame lies with management......why can't we get a defensive presence on D in the middle?......why is our top offensive weapon forced to play the other guys top offensive weapon on D when we could easily get a defensive spec. to relieve that burden? Why don't we have a spot shooter? Everybody else has one, but us.......

I'm confused as to what you are saying. Are you saying that the reason we habitually give up leads is because we don't have a good D? We have the 7th best D in the league...

Its pretty obvious that the team slows down when we have a big lead going into the second. Its not because Woody is dumb either, it worked really well for the Pistons teams he coached on because they had a methodical point guard and a bunch of shooters so you could kill the shot-clock every time and still have an OK shot at getting a J to fall. Woody has never coached to this team's strengths and admitted to it.

Now do I think our big man depth is terrible? Yes, I've gone through game threads and pointed out games that I thought we could have won if Shel had given us last season's 5 and 5. Do I think we need a shooter? Sure, Joe is a great shooter and I think we could run some more iso's through Josh (if we are gonna run so many) but a shooter wouldn't hurt if we aren't gonna play Sal. Do I think we need a point guard? Hell yeah, I wanted us to draft Conley or trade Chill and the 11 to T.O. for Jose. At this point though, we know what we have on the roster and we what they can (play a quick opportunistic D and then outrun anyone down the court) and can't (play a consistent half-court game based around Joe Johnson isos) do but we tend to fall into the rut of what we can't do whenever we get a lead.

I'll readily admit that coaching is only one of our problems but you can't watch games and say that it isn't a big one. killbuckner, I know you are going to come in and say, "I'm fine with Woody being fired just so scapegoating..." but can you honestly watch games like last night and say that there wasn't a definable shift in philosophy towards the end of the game... that didn't work?

Slowing the game down may make sense if you actually have a decent half court offense. We can't afford to play like that because we our half court offense is probably the worst in the NBA.

It's both. We don't have the players to run like Woody want to. The other teams have just to understand how they can stop this team, we can't execute enough possible systems because the roster is bad-built.

D21 when has Woody ever said he want's to run? This is the guy who played under Bobby Knight and was on Larry Brown's staff in Detroit. He has always emphasized rebounding and defense even when the players said that we would be a running team this year.

If anything this team was not built for success in the half court. We don't have a point guard that is good enough to run a set half court offense(BK's fault)....no low post presence..and no outside shooters. To top all that off we have the most undersized front court in the entire NBA.

HoopsGuru25 wrote: To top all that off we have the most undersized front court in the entire NBA.

That's not true, we have a bigger front-court than PHX and GSW... both are elite teams.

conleyorbust wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



That's not true, we have a bigger front-court than PHX and GSW... both are elite teams.

I'm not saying you can't win with an undersized front court. I'm saying it's pretty hard to win(or atleast have a decent offense) when playing a slow pace with an undersized front court. PHX and GSW are both in the top 5 in pace and we are ranked 22nd. The Hawks are not doing a good job of playing to their strengths and other good teams are.

conleyorbust wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



That's not true, we have a bigger front-court than PHX and GSW... both are elite teams.

That's true. But Steve Nash and Baron Davis will help with an undersized front court. And I wouldn't consider GSW an elite team.

Just to recap the results of this poll: the vast majority on this board think that Woody is the MAIN reason we are losing and not the players. That scares me. Some serious homerism going on here if you think this team is good enough to be a consistent winner.

Just to recap the results of this poll: the vast majority on this board think that Woody is the MAIN reason we are losing and not the players. That scares me. Some serious homerism going on here if you think this team is good enough to be a consistent winner.

What is really scary is that you can look at the poll results and reach that conclusion.

The poll results point to a very simple truth. The people here believe that the players are performing better than Woody. That is all the poll is saying.

The fact that the roster is flawed is completely irrelevant to this poll. And just because everyone doesn't share your irrational hate of JJ, which was evident even last season, doesn't make us homers.

the wording of the question has a lot to do with it. I don't think its AJ's fault that he isn't that good. Its not Marvin's fault that he isn't at all a 3 point threat. Its not Josh Smith's fault that he doesn't have top notch ballhandling skills. I simply think the roster construction has set the team up for failure- but that doesn't mean that with a little more "poise" that the team would be doing significantly better. I don't think that getting a new coach would make nearly as much of a difference as getting a legitimate starting PG- but thats a different question.

tontoz wrote:

Just to recap the results of this poll: the vast majority on this board think that Woody is the MAIN reason we are losing and not the players. That scares me. Some serious homerism going on here if you think this team is good enough to be a consistent winner.

What is really scary is that you can look at the poll results and reach that conclusion.

The poll results point to a very simple truth. The people here believe that the players are performing better than Woody. That is all the poll is saying.

The fact that the roster is flawed is completely irrelevant to this poll. And just because everyone doesn't share your irrational hate of JJ, which was evident even last season, doesn't make us homers.

QFT.

We run in the 1rs half then give away games in the second. If this isn't Woody's fault, then I know nothing about basketball.

In my opinion, the blame lies (in this order):

1) ASG (does this really need to be explained?)
2) Knight (beyond the atrocious personnel moves, he put together a team built to run but failed to obtain a point guard capable of running, plus he has them coached by a coach with the complete opposite philosophy)

Woodson is a distant third. He's a solid developer of young talent and teaches solid defense. It's not his fault the front office put together the wrong type of team to fit his style of coaching. Also, it's hard to blame the guy for not running more when we've never had a point guard capable of pushing the tempo. Hard to blame the players at all, they're all extremely young and like someone said above, they didn't pick themselves.

LL Cool Scott wrote:2) Knight (beyond the atrocious personnel moves, he put together a team built to run but failed to obtain a point guard capable of running, plus he has them coached by a coach with the complete opposite philosophy)

I have always wondered why a GM and his hand-picked coach saw things so differently. I don't think they've been on the same page since day 1 and it hurts in the win column. You think he would of picked someone with at least a compatible vision of basketball.

Some of us just need to step up and admit we aren't good. We have two guys on our team that would start on a contender. And maybe three of four more that would contribute. To make Woody the scapegoat for a sub par roster seems like we're in denial.

Every time we lose we hear three things: Woody sucks, Zaza is terrible, Lue sucks. Everyone wants to blame guys that play ten minutes a game and the coach. But we all ignore the obvious weaknesses of JJ, Marvin, any PG on the roster, and Smoove. I know you guys don't want to see it, but we aren't a good team. And we need to fix EVERYTHING (including the coach).

It really scares me that every time we blow a lead everyone jumps on Woody. As if the players on the floor never had anything to do with it!