Who is the Hawks next Head Coach

[Rip2137]

I think that Smith has a coaching mind. I mean, if they had said Walt Frazier or Calvin Murphy I would wonder what the hell, but like others said, Doc Rivers did a incredible job coming from Commentator to Coach with Orlando.

And much like Avery Johnson, Smith did spend alot of time learning from great coaches.

Or we could wait a couple of years and hire Sam Cassell who I think is going to be a amazing NBA coach.(just joking...about the waiting. Not about the amazing coach that Cassell is going to be. That guy just knows basketball).

[JoshB914]

Sounds like it's almost been Larry Drew a couple of times.

[conleyorbust]

Sounds like it's almost been Larry Drew a couple of times.

I think Drew seems to have better feel for strategy than Woody. I don't konw if he is better as a motivator or not. That is one area where we need an improvement... one reason that even a bad coach like Bickerstaff could really help this team. When you have guys that can just take over with athleticism, you need them to play hard all the time. Woody doesn't seem to be able to do that, and often seems to have the opposite effect.

[HoopsGuru25]

I don't see how firing Woodson and replacing him with Larry Drew is going to help at all. Infact it would probably just scare me into thinking that they are going to make him the coach full time. BK's track record in hiring coaches(or anything else during his two tenures as GM)is not good. Sidney Lowe and Mike Woodson both have two of the worst records ever and mostly due to coaching BK's awful rosters. We can only hope that BK pisses the owners off enough to the point where they fire him.

[Rip2137]

Sidney Lowe had a bad roster now??

Sidney Lowe sucked too, but Jason Williams, Pau Gasol, Mike Miller/Drew Gooden(when he started 0-8), Brevin Knight, Shane BAttier and a actually productive Stromile Swift was a bad roster now?

They had pure point guards, shooters, bigs, rebounders and a bench with guys like Buford and Grant long providing help.

Nah...Sidney doesn't get a pass with that roster.

[HoopsGuru25]

Do the Hawks pay you and Smabie(if you aren't the same person)to defend BK at all costs?

[Rod700]

How about Scott Layden or Ty Corbin? Both have studied under one of the most consistently successful coaches ever (Jerry Sloan). Ty lacks Scott's experience, but is familiar with our organization . . . although the team has changed so much.

http://www.nba.com/jazz/features/Get_to ... aches.html

I also like the idea of Smitty as an assistant.

[Rip2137]

Do the Hawks pay you and Smabie(if you aren't the same person)to defend BK at all costs?

Yeah...you could say that...or you could have explained what was bad about that roster that Sidney Lowe had...one of the two.

Just saying, they added Mike Miller and Hubie Brown the next year and started winning.

Funny how that works, huh? Perfect example of what happens when a good coach gets control of a team that "wasn't good enough" the year before. Fire a crappy coach and hire a good one and results happened.

[HoopsGuru25]

Rip. There is no point of arguing with you. You believe that BK could have drafted Brandon Roy and he still would have been a failure because of Woodson. You believe the Hawks had to throw in draft picks to convince the Suns not to match Joe Johnson's offersheet. You will defend BK at all costs and blame Woodson for all his mistakes. I'm almost at the point(like others)where I'd like to see Woodson get fired to see what your excuse is when the interim coach does a worse job than Woody. BK's an awful GM in the league where the players(not the coach) matter the most. Get over it already.

[JoshB914]

BK actually did a decent job in Memphis. But he has been bad here, the two are unrelated.

[Rip2137]

Rip. There is no point of arguing with you. You believe that BK could have drafted Brandon Roy and he still would have been a failure because of Woodson. You believe the Hawks had to throw in draft picks to convince the Suns not to match Joe Johnson's offersheet. You will defend BK at all costs and blame Woodson for all his mistakes. I'm almost at the point(like others)where I'd like to see Woodson get fired to see what your excuse is when the interim coach does a worse job than Woody. BK's an awful GM in the league where the players(not the coach) matter the most. Get over it already.

You know, it would be nice, once if you actually argue whats being argued.

In the suns thread, I asked simply to at least try to explain why the suns would trade away the other guard on the team and clear space if they werent going to match. Of course, you just ignore it.

Here simple question: Is the team that Sidney Lowe had a bad team?

It was flawed, true and it didn't have a chance in hell at winning the championship, and when it had a crappy coach it lost...alot. They hired a new coach and added a shooter and became a playoff team.

I repeat again, Billy Knight has drafted a talented yet flawed roster. It could be more talented with better drafting, but what he has brought in is unarguably talented. Mike Woodson sucks. Change the coach and you will get more wins and playoffs. They still wouldn't have a chance in hell of winning a championship, but they have more talent than the record is showing now.

[HoopsGuru25]

Rip...No I do not think that the Grizzlies or the Hawks(now)are "bad" teams. The problem is that Knight has had multiple very high lottery picks and built the core of two teams who don't have the potential to win a title(or even be a title contender). Gasol(who you compared to Eddy Curry)was a very good pick but that(and maybe Horford)are the only one of his lottery picks that you can consider "good". Battier,Gooden,Chil,Marvin... nice players but mediocre at best for high lottery picks. If you keep picking in the lottery(and avoid complete busts like Shelden)then you are bound to put together a playoff team after a while. Swift and Shelden are both considered busts and we haven't seen enough of Law. The core Knight built for the Grizzlies never had a prayer of contending for a title and the core he has built in Atlanta will likely never contend for a title. There's only so many lottery picks you can misfire on if you want to be a title contender. The Hawks are well on their way to mediocrity just like those Grizzlies teams...which is worse than being horrible because we won't have another high pick to draft that cant miss player that comes around every 5-10 years in the draft.

[Rip2137]

The only way I can see calling Chill and Marvin mediocre lottery picks is if you are taking into account what they could have had with the same picks. I don't think either could be catagorized as mediocre players in the league, let alone in the draft.

Battier, Gooden....you have to look at the draft they came in. Yeah, maybe you could have grabbed Amare or Butler instead of Gooden, but after them, he is pretty much the cream of the crop. Redo that draft and Gooden is still a Lottery pick. Same for Battier.

I think to call a guy a bad lottery pick, you have to say "If I redid this lottery would this guy not be there". Swift wouldn't make the first round, so yeah, I agree. Bust. Marvin and Chill wouldn't fall out of top 10. Neither would Gooden and Battier.

To be honest, you would have too look hard for a team that became relevant by picking in the lottery. Mostly it will be free agents and trades.

I think Knight has done a decent drafting job, a crappy free agent and trading job(except for the Bibby trade, although if he had done the right thing with that 5 pick in the first place, it wouldn't have had to go down like that).

HOWEVER. I still think that even though he hasn't been a great or good GM, the coaching has been so atrocious, that much like the Lowe situation, if you got a compentant coach, you would see 6-7 seed team(in a normal year...not in this super crappy, everyone below .500 year like we are having now). They might even sneak out the first round to be viciously beaten in the second round.

So while that is nothing to be proud of, I think that it does say alot for the people that, in how I am reading it, are making it seem like the reason this team hasn't performed well is because Woody got a raw deal. No, he has done a horrible job with a decent roster. I am all for firing them both(no coach and GM should get half a decade to get results this bad without being fired. I don't care who it is), but I am not going to be on the "Woody is just a scapegoat" bandwagon because the guy really is horrible.

[NWO4Life]

this has become a very good read. good to see the energy and thought in these posts!

[HMFFL]

Billy still has limited resources to find us a quality coach. We really need to make the playoffs this year and make a strong push to move out of the first round. We need to gain the respect that's deserving of a quality "name brand" coach.

It can't stand the fact that we must rely on assistants because will still don't know what will get. On the other hand at this point I prefer a coach with some NBA experience as a player.

The question is: How much money is the ASG willing to pony up to get us a quality coach on the sidelines? One that our players can trust and relate to is always a difficult task to accomplish. It's a big void like the point guard one that we just recently filled.

[smabie]

I'm on the Smitty bandwagon. Our players know and appear to like him. If any of y'all bothered to pay attention to what he says during the games, he calls out Woodson for poor coaching decisions, and says what he believes should be happening. Wasn't fond of his love for Lue, but what can you do?

(Actually, if anybody has, or is interested in, an archives account at the AJC, there's a column from back in June '03, about Steve Smith and Kevin Willis coming back in management-type positions for the Hawks, at some point in the future...
Link here
But I'm cheap and haven't paid for it yet...)

Experienced coaching, then maybe Alex English? Assistant for 3 years with the Raptors -- Jose Calderon recruiting, anyone? -- and previous experience with the Sixers and... Hawks? Specifically in charge of... player development? Hall of Fame player -- what more cred could you have, other than a ring or three I suppose? I'm not on his band-wagon yet -- still don't know much about how his style would be, nor how his tenures with the Sixers or Hawks were -- but on the surface he looks good...

--------

And I don't get paid by the Hawks. I'm just not a sheep, looking for the easiest and most obvious scapegoat to the situation. I look at the situation logically. Has Knight been perfect? No, but nobody's perfect. But he's attempted to adjust. Y'all yell at him for doing, or more often failing to do, certain things in certain ways. And yet when he does try to correct his errors, you blame him for that too. Is he a great GM? Not really. Is he a bad one? Not really. The Hawks have improved every year he's been in charge -- something which not many GMs can say. He effectively tore the team down to the foundation, and has gradually rebuilt. Has it been smooth? Never is. Is he fireable? Of course, who isn't. Is there a better option available? I'd be hard pressed to name anyone, but I'm sure someone can.

Woodson hasn't changed much. Yes, his team's improved all 4 seasons as coach, but they've performed inconsistently throughout -- Coach problem, not GM problem. He's been horrible at developing players -- Coach problem, not GM problem. He's had personality conflicts with most of the players -- Coach problem, not GM problem. Woodson needs to go. Are there better options out there? Yes, both Experienced and Inexperienced, we can all name a bunch of guys more likely to succeed with the same roster.

Players? If they fail to perform for a viable reason -- Smooth and his hand issues -- I'll give them a flier. If something seems fishy -- Speedy's inability to build up endurance while injured last season, despite it being a broken wrist not a broken ankle -- I'll hesitate. I won't jump on a player just because everyone else is; too easy.

Ownership: I'm not a millionaire. I get paid $40K a year to drive a forklift. When I'm smart enough to build a business like most of them have, or at the very least capable of understand business decisions, then I'll consider myself capable of second-guessing their decisions behind the scenes, that don't involve on-court stuff. I question their support of Woodson when even BK has left that corner of the caucus. I question their lawyer's inability to file a simple motion, that lead to the whole "Belkin might be able to buy out the others at cost" circus and extended this whole crap for 2-3 more years. I question why they can let Waddell fire two coaches -- one 6 games into a season, with a multi-year contract -- and rebuild the team multiple times, when they won't let BK do the same thing just once with Woodson.

If I worked for the Hawks, I'd probably be Sekou's inside source. But I don't, and I'm not. So...

[NWO4Life]

So Ive dropped in some bios thanks to wiki based on the names that have been dropped. Some people stand out more than others...


Paul Silas

Paul Theron Silas (born July 12, 1943, in Prescott, Arizona) is an American former professional basketball player and coach. He attended Creighton University, where he set an NCAA record for the most rebounds in three seasons and averaged 20.6 rebounds per game in 1963. In the NBA, Silas collected more than 10,000 points and 10,000 rebounds during his distinguished 16 year career, played in two All-Star games, and won three championship rings (two with the Boston Celtics in 1974 and 1976, and one with the Seattle SuperSonics in 1979). He was named to the All-NBA Defensive First Team twice, and to the All-NBA Defensive Second Team three times.
He was head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers until March 21, 2005. Prior to his job with the Cavaliers, he coached the San Diego Clippers and Charlotte/New Orleans Hornets. He currently works for ESPN, although in April of 2007 he interviewed for the vacant head coaching position with the Charlotte Bobcats.


Billy Donovan

Cant be had for 5 years

[NWO4Life]

I posted the above at lunch and didn't have time to comment on the list but my top three in no particular order would be ....

Bill Lambeer, Micheal Cooper, Alex English

Skiles would be my tier 2 candidate... I think Scott has some baggage however could jump into my top 3 based on his capacity to learn from his experience in Chicago

[victor ward]

i think the days in phoenix for Mike d'antoni are over!

i think is the best choice!