Grading the Hawks Coaching
(2011-2012)
In this entry I’ll be
grading head coach Larry Drew for the 2011-2012 season. I will touch briefly on
earlier seasons and the current situation moving forward, but the grade will be
for just this season. Assistant coaches, player development, and training/strength
and conditioning will also be included in Drew’s grade and discussed briefly in
this entry.
Head
Coach Larry Drew
Grade:
C+
Comments:
After
two seasons as head coach I think we pretty much have a handle on who and what
Larry Drew is. Basically he is who we thought he was. He’s not a total
nincompoop. He’s essentially an interim head coach who has been placed in the
head coaching position because he’s willing to work for peanuts and the players
liked him more than Mike Woodson.
If he has improved the
team with his offensive system it’s probably only because the players had more
or less tuned Mike Woodson out in the latter stages of his time as head coach.
The interesting thing is that for all the credit Woodson has gotten in New York
for bringing a tough, defensive minded approach to the Knicks, the Hawks have
improved on defense under Larry Drew.
There’s no question
that Drew has to get some credit for the Hawks having another successful season
despite the loss of Crawford, the injuries, and the lack of depth due to budget
restrictions. But he’s not a difference maker and there are times where he has
a negative impact. Many times the Hawks don’t seem to have a plan.
Now, there are
certainly times when the players simply don’t listen to Drew. Perhaps you might
say that’s on the players and not the coach. That’s fair, but I do believe
there are humans out there who could get these players to listen, so even if it
isn’t Drew’s “fault,” it is a part of the job that he isn’t succeeding in.
In addition, there are
certain things which are totally within Drew’s control, such as lineups and
rotations, and his strategies are often peculiar and difficult to defend. It’s
true that this was an odd season, when all of the games were packed tightly together,
meaning coaches had to do things to avoid running the players into the ground.
I think he did a good job of this, especially considering the injuries which
compounded the problem. However, we have not only this unusual season, but also
last year as well as the playoffs to go by, and it’s clear that the
lineup/rotation problems go beyond certain strange circumstances.
At times Drew had a
full bench squad on the court for much longer than seemed necessary, even when
that unit was getting destroyed. Leaving Josh and Joe on the bench for too long
was a recurring theme. And then there is the idiotic
2-foul-and-out-for-the-rest-of-the-half rule which LD obviously learned from
Mike Woodson. He has adhered to it even more strongly than Woodson did, despite
the fact that Josh isn’t nearly as foul-prone as he was a few years ago, or
that the Hawks couldn’t afford to have any of their top 7 or 8 guys sitting for
long periods of time because the drop off after that was so sharp.
There was one player in
particular that Drew didn’t seem to have any clue how to handle and that was
Tracy McGrady. Drew took measures to keep T-Mac from breaking down, and that
was obviously understandable in light of his injury history which doesn’t need
to be recounted. However, he went way overboard. It got to the point where
McGrady was disgusted by it. Plus, towards the end of the season the McGrady
banishment went way beyond keeping him fresh. He just stopped playing him. Drew
didn’t go to him in the playoffs until game 3 when Josh Smith was out. Despite
having plenty of success, McGrady wasn’t a big part of things after game 3.
McGrady played in only
52 of 66 regular season games—often DNP coach’s decision—averaging only 16.1
minutes. He played in each of the Hawks 6 playoff games, but only got 15.2
minutes per night. 41 of his 90 total minutes of postseason play came in game
3, when he scored 12 points and grabbed 9 boards. He twisted his ankle late in
the 1st half, but when he played in the 2nd half he
appeared to be fine. Despite this, McGrady played only 30 of 144 total minutes
over the final 3 games.
There were a couple of
other bench guys who Drew did not handle well in my opinion. The Hawks picked
up veteran guard Jannero Pargo just before the start of the season, With
Hinrich out the Hawks needed depth at guard. Once Hinrich returned, the Hawks preferred
the veteran over former D-Leaguer Donald Sloan. Pargo had some out of the blue shooting
streaks where he was a big help in certain games, but if he wasn’t hitting his
shots he was worse than useless. Later in the year, after missing a couple of
weeks due to an appendectomy, Pargo ran the point for lengthy stretches when he
wasn’t on his game, with Teague or Hinrich or both on the bench.
Willie Green was
offense off the bench and hit some big shots for the Hawks this season.
However, Money is not much of a defender, and late in games he should really be
rotated in and out in an offense/defense sort of thing. I didn’t think Drew
handled this as well as other coaches around the league do.
I thought the lack of a
clear step forward for Jeff Teague this season was particularly disappointing.
It would be a bit unfair to Teague to say that he didn’t “improve” at all this
season. You might even find it totally incorrect to say he didn’t improve, as
his per game numbers increased dramatically in almost all areas. However, such
increases are of course bound to happen when a player goes from averaging 13.8
minutes per game to 33.1 minutes per game. If you look at Teague’s per 36
minute averages you see that his assists rose just 0.1 and his points rose just
0.2. That’s not a big improvement and it certainly doesn’t qualify as a “breakthrough.”
The reason we might
have hoped for a breakout season is the potential Teague showed in the 2nd
round series against Chicago last year. In the 2011 playoffs, Teague really
showed what he could do, but if you think about it, he really didn’t have that
breakthrough until Hinrich got hurt and Teague began getting more playing time.
That’s actually a major
understatement. Despite having a very good final month of the 2010-2011 regular
season, Teague played in only 2 of the 6 games against Orlando in the 1st
round, for a total of 10 minutes. The injury to Hinrich late in the final game
against Orlando forced Drew to rely heavily on Teague in the series with the
Bulls, and Teague blew up. In the 6 games against Chicago, Teague played 38.2
minutes per game and averaged 14.8 points on .537 shooting. He would almost
certainly have ended up with even better numbers had he not been hurt and
greatly limited in game 6.
Remember that Teague
didn’t show anything at all in his rookie campaign, and he rarely did anything
of note during the 2010-2011 regular season. It was only when Drew had to play
him that Teague shined. Similarly, Jordan Crawford didn’t show anything until
after he was traded away. Let’s face it: Drew’s tenure is connected to the
Woodson era in a not-so-superficial way, and the Woody-LD team does not have a
great record when it comes to getting the most out of younger players or
developing them.
Some of that obviously
has to do with the players involved: the struggles of Shelden Williams, Salim
Stoudamire, and Acie Law can hardly be placed at the feet of Woodson and Drew.
But it’s fair to say that the Hawks haven’t done as well with younger players
as the best franchises have.
So much of Teague’s
success/failure seems to come down to confidence. If he isn’t shooting well or
comes out of the game for long stretches he often becomes
disengaged/disinterested on both sides of the ball. He will pass up wide open
shots at times and it almost never turns out well when that happens. It just
seems to me like Teague is a guy who could thrive under the right coach. I
could be wrong on that but I can’t say that Drew deserves the benefit of the
doubt.
In many ways, Josh
Smith has to be placed in an entirely different section when it comes to everything
regarding coaching. In a league where being selfish, immature, and hard to
coach is more or less the norm, Josh still manages to standout. There appears
to be little anyone can do other than go along for the ride and hope Josh
figures it out eventually. However, I go back to the idea that while Drew is
far from the only person who hasn’t been able to get through to Josh, I have to
believe that someone could.
Josh has improved in a
lot of areas. His overall game, his energy, his attitude, and his “basketball
IQ” have all improved. Unfortunately, he’s kind of been stuck at his current
state for a while now. He still takes way too many outside shots. He still
decides at various times that he is going to shoot on this possession no matter
what. He still lets non-calls affect him and doesn’t hustle back at certain
times because he’s too busy yapping at the refs. There’s still a level of
unawareness that is stunning at times, such as setting up and slowly firing and
awkward rainbow from a foot inside the 3-point line despite 15,000 people
screaming ‘No!!!” or trying a windmill dunk in the first half of a playoff game
when there are defenders within 5-feet of him.
I don’t know how to get
through to Josh. It’s possible that no one can, but for now I can’t accept
that. On the other hand, I have no expectations of Josh making any sort of
dramatic breakthroughs under Larry Drew. I mean, when Josh sprained his knee
late in game 2, as far as I could see or am aware of, he walked straight to the
locker room without talking to LD or any coach, and I don’t even think he
talked to anyone after the game was over. Now, that’s not the sort of thing that’s
going to happen if you have a guy who believes his coach matters and has bought
into the system.
But there are other
ways in which I don’t think LD really knows how to deal with Josh. The Hawks
ran far too many plays based on giving Josh the ball somewhere near the paint
and then watching him try and do something. Josh is at his best in transition,
rebounding, reacting, and doing non-deliberate things. When he has a mismatch
and gets the ball inside that’s one thing. But giving him the ball and then
watching him try and force something is not a good strategy. This often led to
very difficult shots (even from relatively close to the basket) or turnovers,
which in turn led to breaks the other way. Another outcome would be a missed or
blocked shot from inside and Josh arguing for a foul and not getting back.
Even
when Josh does get fouled it’s not always a good thing because his free throw
shooting has regressed again. It would be one thing
if you could feed Josh down low and then he passed it out if there wasn’t
anything there, but when Josh does dish it back out it tends to be after a lot
of diddling around, late in the clock, and only leads to a rushed shot by
whoever gets the pass.
I’ve got lots of nice things to say about Josh, but
again, he could be so much better. Obviously, professional basketball is mostly
about pushing yourself and driving yourself to be the best. But there are some
coaches who can impact players even at this level.
There are a few other
things that must be said about Drew. As mentioned before, there are times where
you have to put the responsibility on the players, for example if they don’t
run the play that is called or something of that nature. But as I said before,
unless you believe that the players are “uncoachable” to a certain extent, then
you also have to say that there’s a coach out there who could get through to
those guys. After all these years, when it gets late, and the score is close,
the Hawks still tend to revert to running isolation plays. It often ends with a
tough look; a very bad look; a turnover late in the shot clock; or a shot clock
violation.
When it works—say Joe
is hitting his shots or a couple of outside shots from the other guys fall
down—it’s effective because it eats clock, but it doesn’t always work, and most
of the time it’s not going to work in the playoffs. Now, there may be times
where the play is called and the guys just don’t stick with it, but with the
best teams I don’t think that happens much, and when it does, I think something
is made of it.
I do think the Hawks
energy level, intensity, and focus on a game-to-game basis has been much better
under Larry Drew. I’m inclined to believe this has a lot to do with him being
much more of a “players’ coach” than Mike Woodson was. I also think some of the
younger guys have matured and have learned how to avoid lapses. But you have to
give some credit to the head coach for that sort of thing.
Also, I do feel like
the Hawks have been much more impressive out of timeouts and running set plays
than they were even last year, and certainly better than they ever were under
Woodson. Drew obviously gets credit for this, and I assume some credit goes to
the assistants as well.
However, these positive
trends may or may not continue, considering that the current players have to be
getting somewhat tired of hearing the “same voice.” Remember, Drew was on
Woodson’s staff, and while he may have been playing “good cop” as an assistant
coach, he’s had to be somewhat of a “bad cop” as a head coach. In addition, now
that Drew has been given the 1-year extension with a new GM coming in at some
point, the players may tune him out, figuring that he’s a lame duck coach next
year.
The Hawks are
definitely not a team that is out of shape or lacking in the fitness side of
things, as they showed in the 4-OT game against Utah. The strength/conditioning
and training staffs seem to be doing a good job in those areas.
The only health
issues that troubled me were Josh’s knee injury in the playoffs and Pachulia’s
late season problem. With Josh, I came to accept that he just couldn’t play
through it to finish game 2 and simply couldn’t be effective enough to play in
game 3. I was disappointed in what happened but I’m not really sure the staff
could have done anything to change the situation. It seemed to be up to Josh.
I did find Zaza’s foot
injury late in the year to be a bit puzzling. There were so many changes in the
status from day-to-day. It may be that nobody really understood the nature of
the injury. Or Drew may not have felt the need to tell the media the whole
truth and all of that. All I know is that the Hawks really missed Zaza in that
series with Boston.
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