SAMUEL-NBA players, and fans with a clue, understand the WOODY FACTOR. It connsists of:

(1) knowing Woodson has been unwilling to devote time and effort into developing rookie players for his bench to replace injured starters, the possible loss of FA’s and reduce starters mins.

(2) Woodson has been unwilling or unable to manage the mins of more than 8 players, and as a result, he’s consistently overplayed his starters.

(3) Woodson has consistently demonstrated his preference for playing less talented veterans over rookies with more talent and/or potential. PG’s AJohnson, TLue and C LWright got more opportunities to start and show what they could do than younger players like SStaudamire, ALaw, BDiaw or SJones.

This means that because of the Woody factor:

(1)we wasted 2nd rd picks on SStaudemire and SJones and a 1st rd pick on ALaw, even though we needed another outside shooter, a 2nd backup center/PF and a backup PG that plays DEF, and has the ability to penetrate.

(2) We’ve had PG problems in one way or another throughout Woodson’s tenure because his issues with rookie PG’s caused us to pass on drafting Allstars like CPaul, DWilliams and BRoy.

(3) We might have missed out on signing DAnderson because of Woodson’s issues with consistently playing more than 8 players and more than 1 big. Who knows how many Bigs we might miss out on because resigning Zaza makes any big we sign now the 2nd Big off the bench, which in the past has meant 10-11 inconsistenat MPG.

It’s telling that in order to make your argument, you pretend the Hawks couldn’t have hired anything better than a comentator because in your warped way of thinking, the organization couldn’t possibly find someone better than Woodson. WITH YOU IT’S ANYTHING TO MAKE A POINT AND AVOID ADMITTING YOU MIGHT BE MISTAKEN. THE SAD THING IS, CLOWNS LIKE YOU THINK NO OTHER HC BUT WOODSON COULD HAVE TAKEN THIS TEAM TO THE PLAYOFFS THE LAST 2YRS. SAMUEL, THE ONLY THING WARPED IS YOU.

You are trading a “what if” for a tangible reality which is FAR BETTER than what we have experience on the recent past (with teams filled with loaded by questionable talents much alike some which have been thrown around as possible signings by the bloggers around – JR Rider, Glenn Robinson, … spring to mind)

I am very critical of Woody myself but we also need to look at what was accomplished: we went from bottom dwellers to two consecutive playoff berths.

I know that this year’s second round showing was very poor, however, we were crippled by injuries and Lebron was getting all the calls going his way:

JJ was wobbled from the start (tired and tender ankle since mid-season) and then complely worn out and with his ankle (I’m not sure if it was the same) really hurt.

Marvin was crippled: he was present physically but completely unable to perform. He brought in the regular season 3pt shooting and defense as well as many other small things (yes, he sometimes seems to be sleep walking, but that is his style).

Al was terrible hurt and the match up with Ziggy was bad for us due to his size and his hability to knock shots from 15ft.

For the people who bring back the “poor showing” against Miami argument, I say 2 things:

a) The refereeing was killing us;
b) Even so, we won.

This year, hopefully we will repeat or improve the 47win mark of last year BUT with a little less dependability from the same 8 players.

I agree with some people around here that say that Woody does not feel secure enough to take risks and that is why he concentrates on winning and not on developing the bench.

If you don’t trust your bench and allow them to gain confidence and experience, how else do you expect them to help, you are better of with signing card board cut outs and have this sit on the bench.

Bottom line is, it’s on Woody.

Pay Marvin the money, back load it if we need, and let’s move on with filling out the rest of the roster. Let the #2 overall pick develop, rather than allowing someone else to benefit.