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Monday, October 22, 2007
Timetable for Hawks begins to accelerate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
There has been so much positive written and said about the Hawks of late that it’s almost easy to forget the team hasn’t played a real game yet — and, yes, you would be correct in assuming that one might have something to do with the other.
For as even coach Mike Woodson pointed out Monday night: “It’s just exhibition season. We played pretty well in the exhibition season last year, too.”
Seems to me the other Philips Arena tenant also flew through the preseason. That meant so much for Thrashers coach Bob Hartley that he lost his job last week.
Hartley’s firing did not go unnoticed by Woodson. There is a kinship among coaches, particularly when they are friends, particularly when they have offices and locker rooms across the hall from each other, particularly when they share the same bosses.
If Hartley leads a hockey team to its first playoff berth and a division title, and then loses his job six games into the following season, what does that say for the job security of a basketball coach who is 69-177 in three seasons?
“I thought he did an excellent job last year,” Woodson said of Hartley before the Hawks’ final home exhibition Monday night against Washington. “You hate to see things like that happen to any coach on any level.”
Did Woodson hear of Hartley’s fate and suddenly think, “0-6 and I am toast”?
“Hey, the bottom line is you’ve got to win — I understand the dynamics of it,” he said. “This is a year where we’ve got to win as well. I can’t look in the mirror, or look over my shoulder, and worry about something like that. I feel for what happened to Bob, because I don’t wish that on any coach. But it happened. What are you gonna do?”
Billy Knight once fired Terry Stotts, whose biggest problem was being an innocent bystander while the general manager gutted the team for salary cap purposes. Don Waddell fired Hartley at least in part because he thought the coach had lost the team’s core group of veterans. Built-in was an assumption that said core group of veterans, which was put together by the GM, is not deeply flawed to begin with — both as players and, appearances now suggest, as leaders. But Hartley goes.
If sheer effort defined a coach’s success, Woodson would be NBA Coach of the Year. Personnel issues in three seasons have caused him to go through far more Tylenol than wins.
But by year four, there needs to be a playoff race to go with that effort. He knows that. Hartley’s firing just hammered that home.
“We all work for the same ownership group and we all wish each other the best,” Woodson said. “This is all about trying to bring a sports town back on its feet. I took this job to get this team in the playoffs, get our fan base back and give them something to really cheer about. That’s what this is all about at the end of the day.”
It’s early — so early that technically it’s not even early yet. You have to pass the start line first. But Al Horford looks like an NBA-ready player, Josh Smith has taken a leap in maturity, Acie Law IV looks viable as a point guard. Joe Johnson, we know about.
There are times when players talk about playoff aspirations but it’s an empty confidence. “Sometimes that can just be talk,” said guard Anthony Johnson, a link to the Hawks’ last playoff team in 1999. “But the actions of a lot of guys around here have us on that path. That said, you still have to go out and play the games.”
He added, “I’m sure a lot of people in the organization will be watching us closely. It’s going to be important for us to get off to a great start.”
Woodson believes last year’s team (30-52) was submarined by injuries. Rotating lineups led to a lack of chemistry, something he has tried to build in the preseason. “It’s nice to see how we’ve come together,” he said. “We’ve grown as a basketball team.”
For another 10 days, it’s all good. But there’s an empty office in Philips Arena that serves as a reminder how much this really counts.
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