Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Poor Coaching and Poor Shot Selection

I'm sick of this Hawks team.
There are so many things wrong with them that if I tried to name them all, I'd be here bitching all night long. I don't want to do that, and no one wants to read that anyway. There are a couple of things that bother me more than others.
Let's start with Coach Drew. I was never in favor of this hire. I'm sure you'll find my objections somewhere here on the blog. I would go find them, but I've had like 3 glasses of wine and dammit, I just don't feel like it. Anyway,  I didn't think it was a good idea to hire one of Mike Woodson's minions, because I assumed he learned a lot from his former boss. He did, and a lot of the things that plagued the Hawks in the Woodson era are still there. Drew has done nothing to change my mind about the fact that they could have found someone better.  He annoys the hell out me. He never defends his players. Ever. He doesn't even roll his eyes at the refs. He just stands there chewing gum, looking clueless. If it annoys fans, it's got to piss the players off beyond belief. He seems to coach his game plan as opposed to coaching the actual game far too often. All coaches have rotations that they'd like to stick with, but the game ultimately dictates whether or not those plans have to be scrapped.  Drew doesn't give a damn about the flow of the game. If he planned on taking Player X out at a certain point in the game, then that player is damn  well coming out, no matter what. The only thing that derails his plans is foul trouble. He, like Woody, loves to foul his players out of games in the first half. Two fouls is NOT the end of the world, but I digress. Also, there's very little evidence that he holds any player not named Jeff Teague and sometimes Za Za Pachullia accountable for poor play. He'll scold them and sit them with quickness, but he won't do that to the All Star and All Star snub. I bet if he attached playing time to poor shot selection, then some of those ill advised jumpers wouldn't happen.
Speaking of ill advised jumpers, there's plenty of blame to go around for why they keep happening. Of course it starts with the player, but it's clear that said player views himself differently than the rest of us. That means, others are going to have to be more vigilant about stopping him. Since we've already established the coach isn't going to do it, that brings us to the other players on the court, specifically the guards. They have to stop giving him the ball when he's out of position. How will they know when he's out of position? If he's more than like 8 feet away from the basket, then his ass is out of position and should not be given the ball. No exceptions. If Teague wants to truly cement his role as the leader of this team, then he's got to put his foot down and make better decisions. Joe and Kirk have to be just as vigilant. It makes no sense to keep allowing such high risk, low reward shots to keep happening. It affects the bottom line. Anyway, this vent is getting long. I'm done for now.







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2 comments:

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Balance said...

What is up with Joe Johnson? Who is Green? The Hawks are a division contender/u think that they are better than where they are?