Melvin Flowers
Macon Georgia

ANT BANKS-that would be the likely scenario. However, you must understand this team is talented enough to make the playoffs with any of our assistant coaches running the team. If fact, we might be a better team with one of our assistants running the show. You can’t rule out Woodson not being resigned if the team shows little regular season improvement, then gets embarassed once again by getting swept in the playoffs. If overall team improvement isn’t commensutate with the talent and investment, and retaining Woodson might affect the resigning of key FA’s, he could be let go. It would be a long shot, admittedly, but it’s possible.

Franchises with higher expectations than the Hawks organization and fan base have released HC’s that were far more accomplished than Woodson, and their teams accomplished more(See “Doc” Rivers/Orlando, AJohnson/Dallas, D’Antonio/Phoenix, PJackson/Chicago and PRiley/Los Angeles, to name a few). But, if making the playoffs, and hoping they get lucky enough to advance past the 1st rd, is this franchise’s top priority, then Woodson will do just fine. However, if advancing to the finals and winning is our ultimate goal, which requires coaching strategy, innovation, in gm adjustments, maximum utilization of your teams talent(bench) and keeping your core of players in tact, then Woody won’t do.

This is going back a bit, but I don’t think Hedo is going to be nearly as effective wherever he goes next as he was under Van Gundy in New Orleans. Van Gundy’s system was tailor-made for a point forward like Hedo – he had the best center in the NBA to run the pick-and-roll with, and was surrounded with dead-eye shooters if he got in trouble. There’s a reason he was always “good-but-not-great” before Van Gundy.

He’ll be good wherever he goes next, but almost certainly not as good as he was under Van Gundy, and he certainly won’t be worth the $10M price tag he’s sure to command.

I wish the Hawks could trade for Camby. He is a better defensive presence than Zaza, and he is capable of putting up 10pts, 11 rebs, 2 blocks per game.

Another option, (I dont know how the money would work) would be to sign Rasheed (assuming Sheed doesnt mind coming off the bench). I like his ability to play down low, and drain the 3. You need that flexibility in the playoffs. (Imagine him pulling Howard and Shaq away from the basket). He’s got an attitude, but since Woody was an assistant on the championship team, maybe he can make it work. And I like his swagger. (If Bibby leaves, there will be no swagger left).

I know that we are over the cap, but the fact is there are only 4 teams or so who have cap space. So who will sign Rasheed, Allen Iverson, and other big name free agents? There has to be a way.

If all else fails, we have to resign Zaza, and sign a backup PF.

Nice try. Never said we were a “lock.” All I said was that I haven’t seen any indications that any other teams behind us are on the rise (save for Chicago). Coaches who take teams to consecutive playoff appearances get fired all the time. Flip Saunders in Detroit is a famous casualty of that. And Woody’s no Flip. Sam Mitchell got fired when the team was 8-9 after having consecutive playoff appearances. And Woody’s no Sam. George Karl got fired after leading his team to playoffs 4 times in 5 years. And Woody sure as hell is no Karl.

Coaches get fired all the time when their team stalls – when it looks like they can only take the team so far and no farther. Woody is that kind of coach – he simply doesn’t make the adjustments necessary to make deep runs in the playoffs. I think Sund knows that, in the back of his mind if nowhere else. Sund himself fired coaches after playoff seasons, in both Dallas and Detroit. Sooner or later, he’ll realize the same thing about Woody. And my guess is that the ASG brass wouldn’t have hired an old hand like him (and he wouldn’t have taken such a job) if they weren’t gonna give him the rein to do the same thing.