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Let me preface this by saying I am not a big fan of his as a coach. But I feel that there may be legit reasons for keeping him.

It's important to realize that it doesn't appear ASG is going to pay top dollar to get a proven coach in here. D'Antoni appears to be headed to NY, and I'd expect that means that Avery will land in Chicago. Larry Brown is in Charlotte and Carlisle in Dallas.

That means we will likely go with an assistant as our HC. And after what happened in Charlotte with Vincent and Milwaukee with Krystowiak (sp?) I don't feel good about that. We can't afford to bring someone in here for one year and have them be a complete flop thanks to no experience as an HC, and I don't have any confidence in ASG or BK to make the right hire among guys like that. Can you imagine if we ended up with a Vincent or Krystowiak as coach next year? It would be one step forward with the playoffs and then two steps backward next season. Those teams both appeared primed for much better seasons and now Charlotte is in limbo and Milwaukee is probably going to tear things down. A lot of that was a direct result of making bad hires.

Meanwhile, for all his faults, Woody does know our roster and what everyone can do. He may not be the best coach out there but I would rather have him than taking a shot in the dark on a new HC. If ASG makes it clear to him that he must play his bench more and speed up the pace of games and he agrees, I say keep him. And if we don't see what we want next year we can get a new coach next summer. But keeping Woody would hurt far less than the alternative imo.

Meanwhile, for all his faults, Woody does know our roster and what everyone can do.

That's where you lost me..

Meanwhile, for all his faults, Woody does know our roster and what everyone can do.

But that doesn't mean he actually adjusts to what his players can do. he still has Smith jacking 3s. He still doesn't understand that players get six fouls in a game. I could go on but there really isn't any point to it.

I'd take Harry the Hawk over Woody.

Same post that I made in another thread, but here are Woodson's strengths, as LL sees it:

1. Amusing facial hair.

2. Amusing facial expressions.

3. Highly respected among most players/coaches in the league.

4. Outcoached Doc in the playoffs this year.

I think what JoshB says is definitely worth considering, especially if ASG really doesn't wanna pay top dollar for a HC. Obviously, anyone on this board would take an Avery or Mike D. over Woody, but, yes, given the choice between Woody and an unknown I would have to say give Woody a 2 year deal and give him the axe by next season's end if the team hasn't continued to improve.

JoshB914 wrote:
We can't afford to bring someone in here for one year and have them be a complete flop thanks to no experience as an HC, and I don't have any confidence in ASG or BK to make the right hire among guys like that.
Meanwhile, for all his faults, Woody does know our roster and what everyone can do. He may not be the best coach out there but I would rather have him than taking a shot in the dark on a new HC. If ASG makes it clear to him that he must play his bench more and speed up the pace of games and he agrees, I say keep him. And if we don't see what we want next year we can get a new coach next summer. But keeping Woody would hurt far less than the alternative imo.

That's probably the worst case scenario. This means that the ASG doesn't want the Hawks to achieve the next level...to become a top 4 team in the East. If they are truly evaluating Woody as a whole and aren't just being cheap... we'd have a new coach by now. And how can you say that he knows what everyone can do on the roster and then say you'll keep him only if he play the bench more... that's messed up and ironic. He corrected one of his coaching mistakes in the playoffs, but seriously, I would take just about any assistant over him.

BTW, BK already resign.

tontoz wrote:

Meanwhile, for all his faults, Woody does know our roster and what everyone can do.

But that doesn't mean he actually adjusts to what his players can do. he still has Smith jacking 3s. He still doesn't understand that players get six fouls in a game. I could go on but there really isn't any point to it.

I'd take Harry the Hawk over Woody.

You forgot the fact that Smith played the 5 some games...and we didn't run a very fast paced offense until the playoffs.

Thre is no argument for Woody. Its like I was discussing with people at work.

Its not about his record as a coach. there is no way any coach would have won with the team he had the first two years. But it was HOW he lost and the horrid decisions he made that hampered the teams progress. You can go 0-82 and be well coached. We weren't well coached. We made the playoffs and we were horribly coached this year. I don't want this team to be coahced by someone horrible. I don't care if you make a grab for an assistant. Grab Ty Corbin, Alvin Gentry, call Paul Silas, he isn't dong anything. But you don't stick with a horrible coach because you don't want to risk hiring anohter horrible coach. Worse case scenario, we have a coach that doesn't set up plays that leave Josh Smith at the three point line as a outlet with the shot clock running down.

The worst case scenario is a Sam Vincent or Larry Krystowiak situation as I mentioned. And that is a VERY scary worst case scenario. If we had a GM or ownership that understood basketball, I would have a little more confidence in them to hire the right guy.

Sam Vincent or Larry Krystowiak would win 37 games for this team. Hell, both outcoached Woodson in head to head matchups this year.

I don't think Woody is as bad as either of them.

Krystowiak took a similar team(with a much better Bogut and Mo Williams) to the one Stotts had in 2006(which won 40 games)and won 26. They even did better LAST year when they openly tanked and shut down players by mid-season. That's pretty hard to do unless you have a complete moron at head coach.

Vincent is also another awful coach. The Bobcats added a 20 point scorer and finally got a healthy year out of Okafor and STILL managed to lose more games than last year. He also played Jeff Mccinnis heavy minutes for some odd reason(the Lo Wright of point guards).

I do give you the Vincent thing. Also he put Gerald Wallace at the 4 which help lead to him killing himself another season. Krystowiak, personally I think the guy was just to afraid to take the ball out of the hands of the huge contract guys. You can't deny his positive effect on Bogut though.

I think Vincent, Woody, Larry...all about even. Guys like Salim and Zaza have gotten progressively worse as he has been here, and he plays guys that aren't offering anything on the court over guys that do.

Woody is a much better coach than those two. Just look at the records, both of those teams looked primed for playoff runs and now are facing rebuilding battles. Are you really willing to let the ASG decide on a new HC with no experience? I don't want to take the risk of going down that path (after we FINALLY make the playoffs).

Main reasons to keep Woody

1)Continuity
2)No no-brainer options in his place


That's the bottom line.


We see if this young team can build off of their 1st playoff apperance next year.


If not, see ya!

Well it doesn't look like there are going to be any no-brainers. Especially considering we aren't going to spend the $$$ to get a proven coach.

First off, I thought that the Bucks and Cats were going to be terrible this season. Those predictions are on the record - bad personnel.

Second, there is an argument for keeping Woody and there was an argument for drafting Shelden. It was just a terrible argument that had many, more convincing counter-arguments (we needed a tough guy in the middle but Shelden was obviously an un-talented stiff).

If we are basing our coaching decision on the fact that we are committed to having the lowest paid coach in the league, sure keep him. This league has tiers of teams, we are hoping to become a middle-tier team which means we can no longer have the lowest payroll and we can't have a bottom-tier coach anymore. I hope that we aren't operating under the assumption that ASG refuses to pay for quality at HC. If we are, keep Woody.

Firstly, there was no argument for taking Shelden. He's a scrub. The argument was that he would be tough and NBA ready but he clearly wasn't either of those and you could see that just from watching him in college.

It's not that Woody is a great coach, it's not that he's even a good coach. But do we really want to take a risk on a cheap assistant? If we had competent ownership then I wouldn't mind them sifting through the assistant ranks to find the right fit, but we all know that isn't going to happen.

I think we are under the assumption that ASG isn't going to pay for a top tier HC. We didn't even talk to Dantoni, don't appear interested in Avery, and also let Carlisle and Brown take other jobs. A lot of coaches would want this job, but clearly we are not going to spend top dollar on anyone.

Yes its worth the risk. We have a horrible coach. Worse case scenario, we have another horrible coach.

I personally don't think Paul Silas or Paul Westphal are going to be demanding a huge salary. Those are no brainers. There are ALOT of no brainers in the coaching ranks. There are dozens of coaches I would take over Woody. He has consistantly proven he can't make simple coaching decisions. There is just no reason to keep him around.

Rip it could be much worse though as we saw with Milwaukee and Charlotte. The worst case scenario is we don't jsut bring in a bad coach, but a worse coach than Woody that kills our season and sets us back just after things were looking up.

Rememer that for all Woody's faults, we still made the playoffs and put on an impressive showing. If you want to act like coaching is such a big deal then why will you not give him any credit for the good things that happened? That's not fair.

Paul Silas is an interesting candidate. But he will want $$$. As for Westphal, have you followed his career since 1993? Not very impressive.

JoshB914 wrote:Firstly, there was no argument for taking Shelden. He's a scrub. The argument was that he would be tough and NBA ready but he clearly wasn't either of those and you could see that just from watching him in college.

It's not that Woody is a great coach, it's not that he's even a good coach. But do we really want to take a risk on a cheap assistant? If we had competent ownership then I wouldn't mind them sifting through the assistant ranks to find the right fit, but we all know that isn't going to happen.

I think we are under the assumption that ASG isn't going to pay for a top tier HC. We didn't even talk to Dantoni, don't appear interested in Avery, and also let Carlisle and Brown take other jobs. A lot of coaches would want this job, but clearly we are not going to spend top dollar on anyone.

Haha, well that is an argument for Shelden but, as you point out, the counter-arguments were a lot more convincing.

Regardless, I agree that if ownership is committed to not spending money on a coach I'd probably like to keep Woody around because there aren't going to be many quality candidates lining up to take bottom dollar.

I just hope that cost structure is something we are all imagining.