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Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Woodson can’t be blamed for Hawks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
This ongoing disaster called the Hawks is the fault of everybody involved with the ownership and management of Atlanta Spirit, LLC.
Well, everybody not named Mike Woodson.
In other words, Bob Knight was correct three years ago when he wrote me that letter on Texas Tech stationery to say of his favorite player during the Indiana portion of his career: “I think you will really enjoy Mike Woodson being there.”
Knight’s reference to “you” was meant for the enlightened — those back then, and those right now when it comes to understanding the mess that Woodson inherited. Imagine the reincarnation of the two Reds (Holtzman and Auerbach). Now clone them with Pat Riley and Phil Jackson. That combination still wouldn’t have spent this season keeping another disjointed group of Hawks from ending with 50-something losses and more questions than answers.
The Hawks mercifully finished their season Tuesday night at virtually empty Philips Arena against the Indiana Pacers. As usual, the Hawks played hard, because Woodson won’t settle for less. It often hasn’t mattered. This time, the Hawks’ diligence turned into a 118-102 victory after spending Monday night in Milwaukee as 102-96 losers to the ghastly Bucks.
Woodson got sick before the Bucks game, presumably from food poisoning and not from coaching one of the NBA’s worst teams. Take it from Michael Gearon Sr., nearly 30 years into serving the Hawks as everything from general manager to chairman of the board. “The question you have to ask yourself is, are the players improving under his coaching?” said Gearon, now among the Hawks’ nine owners. “The answer is that there isn’t a guy on this team who has played better anyplace else, and that includes a veteran like Tyronn Lue. You look and you see that Mike has all of these projects, and every one of them has consistently gotten better.”
The two Joshes (Smith and Childress), along with the two Williamses (Marvin and Shelden). Zaza Pachulia, considered as worthless in Milwaukee as stale beer. Even Joe Johnson, now an All-Star, who was just another good player in Phoenix.
This is the same Woodson who would have succeeded his NBA mentor, Larry Brown, as head coach of the Detroit Pistons. The timing just wasn’t right. With an opening in Atlanta during the summer of 2004, and with Brown spending another year coaching a championship-caliber team, Woodson left as Brown’s assistant to take his first head coaching job. He has grown with that job, and he’ll continue to do so, either here or elsewhere.
So this is encouraging news for those around the dwindling Hawks Nation who want their team to have its best chance to join the living again: Despite serving as coach during the last three of the Hawks’ eight-consecutive seasons as a lottery bunch, Woodson will return for at least a fourth season as head coach.
Won’t he?
“I appreciate what he’s done, and I really think we do as an organization,” Gearon said. “It’s a very difficult challenge. I mean, he had a kid out of high school in Josh Smith, and a couple of rookies. You can’t expect him to knock people dead, because you don’t have a team that is as mature as an expansion team. You’re starting as close to ground zero as you can.”
Makes sense to me. So do the other eight owners (minus Steve Belkin, who is suing his colleagues for control of the team) agree with Gearon and myself? “I haven’t seen anything to the contrary so far,” said Gearon, who nevertheless admitted next season is the key for Woodson.
There were a slew of injuries this season that kept damaging the Hawks’ projected rotation. Still, here was their biggest problem: a ridiculously flawed roster, which was the fault of Billy Knight, their general manager. Among other horrors, Knight acquired three backup point guards after failing to draft either Chris Paul or Deron Williams, both available at the time, both prospering elsewhere.
Knight picks them.
Woodson just coaches them.
Permalink | Comments (40) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Terence Moore
Robinson’s allies deserve credit for roles
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Throughout the celebration of the anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s arrival in Major League Baseball, the two individuals responsible for it were rarely brought to mind. One was the commissioner, later fired before he served out his full term, the other a skilled and crafty club operator bold enough to take the plunge. One, Happy Chandler. The other, Branch Rickey.
Even though Chandler was bounced from office at an owners’ uprising in 1951, students of baseball history find it strange that he is installed in the Hall of Fame. There were two determining factors — one, that he was commissioner when the color line was broken; and two, that Bowie Kuhn took it upon himself to do it when he became commissioner. It wasn’t an act that popularized Kuhn, for his term came to an abrupt end shortly afterward. He accepted it as a duty that baseball owed the one-time senator-governor who was wont to burst out into the lyrics of “My Old Kentucky Home” at any given moment.
Rickey ran the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson wasn’t the first black player he had auditioned. Two players from the Negro Leagues were given tryouts when the Dodgers trained at West Point during World War II but didn’t make it. When Robinson came along, Rickey moved into high gear. The story I’ve read is that he flew to Kentucky and took his case directly to Chandler at his home in Versailles. It was a serious confrontation in which Rickey convinced the commissioner that Robinson was the right man with the right talent and the right stuff to carry the torch. It was a handshake deal.
After a season on the Montreal farm club, where he was the leading hitter in the International League — and where his shortstop comrade was Al Campanis, who would later be sandbagged by Ted Koppel and Roger Kahn — the Dodgers were next, and with him playing first base they won the pennant in 1947. Then came the Yankees in the “Subway World Series,” and it caught America’s attention. It went the full seven games before the Yankees closed it out in Yankee Stadium. Robinson hit .259, drove in three runs and stole two bases. The most vivid memory of it, though, was Bill Bevens’ near no-hitter, down to the last out before Cookie Lavagetto broke it up with a hit off the right-field wall, and Ebbets Field went into a frenzy.
It was written that “it is to the credit of Chandler’s administration that permitted the brilliant matching of Rickey and Robinson that signaled baseball’s greatest moment.” This, no doubt, served Kuhn well when he made his decision to champion Chandler for Cooperstown.
It was somewhat saddening that Robinson’s tenure as a Dodger did not come to a warm and cozy parting. For some heartless reason, Jackie was traded across the river to the Giants — the hated Giants — for Dick Littlefield, a left-handed pitcher, and some pieces of silver. But Robinson never wore a Giants uniform. Soon after the trade, he sold the story of his retirement to Look Magazine for $10,000, which, as you might have imagined, ignited the New York sportswriting corps. And upset his warmest fan, his son, who was a Dodger at heart, so I read.
Kuhn, once he became commissioner, struck up a close relationship with Chandler and often had him as his guest at World Series time. So did he have Robinson in 1972, when Cincinnati opened at home against Oakland. Jackie threw out the first pitch. Nine days later he was dead, but the memory lives on and strong.
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The Tuesday Countdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: Just got back from the Thrashers’ skate. Asked Keith Tkachuk if a team approaches a game three any differently when it’s down 0-2 in a playoff series. Keith looked around the room, then whispered: “We’re really gonna try to win tonight. But don’t tell anybody.” See, it’s not such a complicated game.
9: Had dinner at a nice steakhouse last night with my AJC brothers. Ran into the Thrashers. The entire team. What are the odds? Asked Bob Hartley today what the tab came to. “I don’t even know. It’s, what, maybe $100 a person? Must have been $25,000.” I think he meant $2,500. Otherwise, it’s the first dinner to qualify as a salary cap hit.
8: And if it really was $25,000, there’s one more lawsuit coming among Atlanta Spirit owners.
7: I will say this about the Thrashers: They’re remarkably loose for a team that’s two losses away from the off-season. But the NHL playoffs have seen its share of strange turnarounds - witness Carolina losing its first two playoff games to Montreal before winning the Cup last season - and the Garden has hosted its share of collapses (tease to 6).
6: For some reason, the Thrashers have always played well in New York, even in the painful early years. The most memorable: a 5-2 win in March of 2002 when where-are-they-now goalie Frederic Cassivi was making his first NHL start and the undermanned Thrashers’ lineup total 419 career goals compared to the Rangers’ 2,349. I can still remember the late Dan Snyder throwing a punch at Eric Lindros, who towered over him.
5: Welcome to Burger King. My name is Mike Nifong. May I take your order?
4: I don’t doubt that Nifong has some regrets about the way he acted during the Duke investigation. But his statement - “To the extent that I made judgments that ultimately proved incorrect, I apologize to the three students that were wrongly accused” - might be the worst apology I’ve ever heard.
3: Saw a headline this week, “Team’s core likely will stay together.” It was a Hawks story. Question: If a franchise that goes 13-69, 26-56 and 29-52 (so far) even has a core, do you want it to stay together?
2: Mike Woodson missed a game the other night with “food poisoning.” Look, Mike, you can say you have a bad headache. Trust us, we’ll understand.
1: And by the way, enough about NBA teams “tanking it” to try to position themselves for the draft lottery. The Hawks don’t need to try to lose.
Permalink | Comments (13) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
