Larry Drew: Lessons Learned From His First Post-Season

By Buddy Grizzard

Larry Drew has only coached two playoff series but he already built a catalogue of highly-scrutinized postseason moves. As the Hawks prepare to face the Celtics and well-regarded coach Doc Rivers, here's a list of five of Drew's rookie playoff miscues. If coaching in the playoffs is a process of trial and error, Drew certainly has a wealth of research material.

5. Josh Powell, first big man off the bench

In Game 2 of the Atlanta-Orlando series, Al Horford picked up his second foul with 9:49 to play in the first quarter. The first big man off the bench for the Hawks was...Josh Powell. Remember Powell? He played in China earlier this year before HoopsHype.com reported that he had signed to play in Switzerland, then Puerto Rico. He is not presently on an NBA playoff roster. Surprised?

As previously noted, Zaza Pachulia is one of only 5 players to rank in the top 10 in playoff rebounding rate in 2 of the last 3 postseasons. Josh Powell (surprise!) is not on that list. Meanwhile, in Horford's absence, Pachulia has made a significant contribution to the team's success (which I speculated was possible in January).

Wrote John Hollinger of ESPN.com after the Hawks loss:

I was talking to two NBA front-office types before a game this month and we were trying to come up with the worst player in the league. Without any prodding from me, both of them nominated Powell.

4. Jason Collins, over-utilized

In Game 4 of the second round series against the Bulls, Drew tweaked his starting lineup by moving Marvin Williams to the bench, starting Jason Collins at center and moving Horford to power forward. This move seemed initially successful as the Hawks outscored the Bulls during Collins' 1st and 3rd quarter appearances on the way to a 2-2 series tie.

In Game 6, however, Drew stayed with the same substitution pattern for the third consecutive game and Bulls coach Thom Thibodeau made him pay. The Bulls clearly game planned to attack Collins' defense. Carlos Boozer pulled Collins away from the basket and hit jumpers until the Hawks were forced to switch defenders. With Horford guarding Boozer, the Bulls isolated Joakim Noah at the top of the key on Collins. Noah drove around the slow-footed Collins for a layup and a 19-11 Bulls lead en route to the series-clinching win.

Powell may have been named the worst player in the NBA by multiple NBA front-office types, according to Hollinger. But as I have noted, statistically, Collins has been one of the worst players in the NBA for the last 7 seasons.

3. Jamal Crawford, point guard

Just before Noah's layup, with the Hawks trailing 17-11, Drew sent Jamal Crawford in to replace Jeff Teague. The Bulls then outscored the Hawks 10-6 to close the first quarter with a 27-17 lead. The Hawks never recovered. The Portland Trailblazers, with Crawford playing significant minutes at point guard this year, missed the playoffs entirely.

2. Riding the cold hand

In Game 4 as the Hawks tied the series, Crawford shot 5-for-11 (1-for-5 from 3-point range) for 12 points in 29 minutes off the bench. Zaza Pachulia played 26 minutes, scoring 5 and pulling down 9 rebounds. It would be Crawford's last decent shooting game as a Hawk. In Game 5, Crawford played 27 minutes, shot 1-for-9 and scored 2 points with 4 assists and 2 turnovers. Pachulia scored 13 in 23 minutes on 5-for-6 shooting and added 4 rebounds.

Finally, in Game 6, Crawford shot 2-for-10 for 8 points in 25 minutes. Pachulia played 23 minutes, scored only 1 point but led the team with 13 rebounds. Crawford made a driving layup with 5:41 to play before halftime. It would be his last field goal as a Hawk. It's hard not to think that more minutes for Pachulia, who led the team in +/- for the postseason, or allowing Crawford to play off the ball and focus on making shots, might have made a difference in this series.

1. The Horford Treatment

After Horford, as mentioned above, picked up his second foul 2 minutes into Game 2 against Orlando, Drew left him on the bench for the rest of the half. The Hawks led 32-22 with 9 minutes to play before halftime, but the Magic closed the half on a 26-10 run as Horford, the team's most efficient offensive player, sat the entire second quarter.

Horford never picked up his third foul as the Hawks lost to even the series 1-1. Hollinger wrote:

There is no way to sugarcoat it: This is the most indefensible coaching decision I’ve seen this season.

He further noted that Horford, who has one of the lowest foul rates in the league at his position, was never in any danger of fouling out.

One of the unintended consequences of losing Game 2 was that the Hawks, winners of 3 of the first 4 games in the series, missed a chance to sweep Orlando and gain valuable rest before the Chicago series. Instead, the series went 6 games and Kirk Hinrich was lost for the second round after suffering an injury with just over 3 minutes remaining in Game 6.

A further consequence of Hinrich's injury was Jeff Teague's breakout series as the starting point guard in the Chicago series. However, this fortunate circumstance cannot be used to justify bad coaching. Indeed, the belated discovery of Teague's value stands as a further indictment of Drew.

Lessons learned

Looking ahead to the series against the Celtics, the following are lessons that I hope Drew has learned from the 2011 playoffs. Firstly, Drew must stop giving significant minutes to scrubs and washed up veterans. This means that Collins, Erick Dampier, Jerry Stackhouse and Vladimir Radmanovic should only see spot or emergency minutes.

Second, Drew must trust Teague and let him be himself. He's not going to morph into Steve Nash or Rajon Rondo any time soon, but the Hawks cannot succeed if Teague sacrifices his offense so Joe Johnson and Josh Smith can launch more jumpers.

And finally, Drew needs to realize that Ivan Johnson, not Collins, is the only hope at center. Johnson, the reigning Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month for April, has outplayed or held his own against Andrew Bogut, Marc Gasol and Roy Hibbert this season. Collins hasn't come close to playing at that level, and if Drew thinks he's the answer, then he hasn't learned anything.

Smoove Criminal: Who's to Blame for the Faulty Jumpers?

By Bo Churney

[Ed. note -- Bo Churney writes for Hawks blog SoaringDownSouth, and can be reached @bochurney on Twitter]

Few plays in basketball can influence an entire crowd to express a joint emotion: a thunderous dunk can cause an uproar of elation and awe. A bad foul call can incite the collective chanting of obscenities. And an opposing team's three-pointer can force absolutely silence upon 20,000 people.

Meanwhile, Josh Smith's three-pointers have sent an entire metropolis into panic, prompting screams of, "NOOOOO!!!"

I'll start off by saying this: I think Josh Smith is the best player on the Hawks. His defense is outstanding (top five DRtg), he's a marketable figure, and he has the ability to dominate the offensive end in several facets like few others can in this league. But why does it seem like that last one has become so absent from his performances on the court?

The stats don't lie. Over the past two years, Josh Smith has expanded on his game from outside 15 feet, also meaning that his shots from around the basket have dwindled from a career high 549 in 2009-10. Gee, what happened before the 2010-11 season that could have caused Josh to field his best Larry Bird impersonations? Anything at all? Oh, wait a minute...

Larry Drew.

Can all of the blame be pinned on Drew? Of course not; Josh still has to take those ill-advised shots that leave you scratching your head. But to act like there is not an underlying issue here by placing all of the blame on Josh (like Atlanta loves to do) is borderline ignorant.

So, what is the case against Larry Drew? Let's start with the Hawks' recent 89-87 OT win over the Magic. Coming fresh off of another All-Star snub, Josh was playing out of his mind; he was grabbing every rebound, making all of the hustle plays, and was playing well enough on offense despite taking a few of those objectionable long two-point jumpers. Late in the game, Larry Drew kept calling for Josh in a post-up against Ryan Anderson. And guess what? It was working! Josh was either getting a good look close to the rim, or he initiated a pass-heavy sequence that led to an open shot. The Hawks were up eight with a little over three minutes left in the game. Then, Orlando went on an 8-0 run to send the game into overtime. What happened?

Iso-Joe happened. The Hawks tried to rely too much on their $120 million man, leading to a stagnant offense and bad shots. Is it Joe's fault that Drew keeps calling the same play that won't work, even though Joe often had a small defender on him? Is it then Josh's (or some other player's) fault that they have to try to get up a shot with little time remaining on the shot clock?

Need another example? Look at Wednesday's game against the Suns. The Hawks were running some sort of "offense" early that clearly wasn't working and allowed the Suns to get out on the break. At several times throughout the game, the team started resorting to Josh in a high-iso, where he was then able to find open shooters after being double-teamed. Each time the Hawks did this, they were about to either close or expand the lead. What happened on offense for the rest of the game? Well, as some of my fellow bloggers said, "Are we even running any plays right now?"

This is something that completely falls on Drew as the Head Coach. It's the same thing that helped lead to the ouster of his old boss, Mike Woodson; relying on isolation plays, and hope that someone can get up a shot if the isolated player can't beat his man. The difference this time, though, is that Larry Drew has shown that the team can function well when it keeps the ball moving. Even though Horford is out, Drew now has the benefit of a deeper bench than Woodson ever had. There is no reason this team should still have the offensive problems that it exhibited under the now Knicks assistant.

For the last three years under Woodson, the Hawks ranked 9th, 22nd, and 6th in shots from 16-23 ft. Under Drew, the Hawks are 2nd and 3rd so far this season, with the worst percentage under either coach. (36.1%) The team is taking more attempts from that range this year (24.6), despite the fact that Al Horford, the most efficient shooter from that distance last year, is out for the season. To keep it simple, that is completely unacceptable.

Now, back to Smoove; some still go as far as to call Smith "uncoachable", "lazy", and "dumb", asserting that he has a "low basketball-IQ." However, both Drew and newcomer Tracy McGrady have stated that Josh knows the offense better than any other player on the team. To simply put this to rest, one cannot attain such praise from two different people by being "uncoachable", "lazy", or "dumb." Are some of Josh's jumpers bad shots? Yes, but to act as if he should carry all of the blame is absurd. This is a problem that I think Larry Drew can easily fix by continuing his preaching of his motion offense. By letting the offense get stagnant, he is only fueling the same problems that led to Atlanta's quick departures from the 2nd round in previous years. With the Eastern Conference Finals sitting with a reachable distance, this is not something that Larry Drew should scoff at.

AJC.com: Cunningham: Joe Johnson’s D has been strong, too

Michael Cunningham crunches the numbers on Joe Johnson's defense so far this season:

According to Synergy, Johnson has allowed just .71 points per possession, ranked No. 42 among all players. (Synergy had him allowing .93 points per possession in 2010-11 and .89 in 2009-10). This season Joe has been very good when defending in isolation (.56 ppp allowed, ranked 13th), against screen-roll ball-handlers (.69 ppp, ranked 33rd) and chasing his man off screens (.69 ppp, ranked seventh). Joe’s only defensive weakness this season, according to Synergy, has been defending spot-ups: .94 ppp, ranked 113th.

Opponent PER tells the same story. According to 82games.com, Johnson’s foes at shooting guard have posted a paltry 8.6 PER and small forwards have managed just a 12.6 PER. (The opponent PER is ugly when Joe has been at point guard but that has only been a couple minutes, according to 82games.) Last season Joe’s opponent PER was 11.6 at shooting guard and 12.9 at small forward; in 2009-10, those numbers were 15.3 and 14.4, respectively.

Joe’s on-court, off-court numbers at basketballvalue.com also are positive. The Hawks have allowed 6.24 fewer points per 100 possessions with Joe on the court. And it doesn’t appear as if his strong numbers here depend on having Al and Josh Smith behind him: Joe has been part of strong defensive units that featured Zaza Pachulia or Jason Collins at center and even one lineup with Vladimir Radmanovic at power forward.

A healthy elbow has returned normal Joe Johnson service to the offensive end. Reasonable defensive assignments for Johnson, after years of being asked to chase around far quicker players, have also helped the Hawks survive the absence of Al Horford, thus far. Obviously, Johnson deserves his share of credit for his generally effective defensive play but this provides us another moment to be thankful for Jeff Teague receiving regular playing time.

ESPN.com: Hollinger: Coaching dilemma: Rest or play?

John Hollinger is surprised that more coaches aren't resting their best players (link is Insider) given the compressed nature of the schedule:

Through the season's first week and a half, I've already heard a lot of complaints about the schedule, but I've seen precious little in the way of adjustments to it.

This point was driven home watching the Clippers play the Bulls last Friday. Chicago, despite being on a back-to-back, played both Derrick Rose and Luol Deng 42 minutes. The Clippers did the Bulls one better; Caron Butler played 39 minutes, Blake Griffin played 42 and Chris Paul played 44. Did I mention all three players have had serious knee problems in the past two years?

And in looking at the early-season minutes trends, it's clear there's plenty of this going around. Despite a paucity of overtime games (which, of necessity, tend to skew the minutes numbers higher), the leaderboard in minutes per game doesn't look terribly different from how it did a year ago.

Seventeen players average at least 36 minutes per game; yes it's early and some of these numbers will drop due to foul trouble or other situations, but even at this early juncture I'm surprised.

Larry Drew joins Rick Carlisle, George Karl, Mike D'Antoni, and Gregg Popovich as the coaches managing their benches well:

Larry Drew's Atlanta team lost the battle Tuesday night, but the Hawks may be winning the war. Joe Johnson averages 34.5 minutes and no other Hawk is above 32.2. An early blowout of New Jersey helped skew those numbers down, but the Hawks have overused Johnson in particular in recent seasons and have managed him much better this season. As long as Tracy McGrady stays upright -- he left Tuesday's game with a knee problem -- Atlanta may be in good shape come May.

A Possible Solution to The Horford Treatment

From Jason Walker at Peachtree Hoops, Al Horford wants to eliminate the disqualification:

"I'd eliminate fouling out. You'd have to have some sort of penalty, because otherwise the game would become too aggressive; you don't want guys fouling whenever they want. I don't know if you make every foul after six worth two free throws and the fouled team gets the ball, but we could come up with something. Maybe you have a penalty box like in hockey. Or you get more free throws after a certain number of fouls. But it's crazy that a team is unable to play its best players the entire game if that's what the coach wants to do."

After a fashion, Larry Drew has already eliminated fouling out. As Walker aptly points out, there have been consequences to the ad hoc solution Drew and his predecessor favored:

Even in his earlier years, you could see where the early foul trouble was impacting Horford's play. His initially aggressive style of defensive play was visibly toned down in order to avoid so-called "foul trouble". Nobody wants to miss, as Horford did this past spring, up to (22) minutes of game time due to a couple of perhaps touchy fouls or have his playing time determined by too quick a whistle.

So the adjustment for players who don't want to miss the entire first half with foul trouble is to simply over-adjust to the fear of not fouling. Now you have players who aren't thinking about defending as earnestly as possible, but rather calculating how they can stay on the floor. It's not fault, it's nature, and clearly, even at this stage in his career, the notion of fouling out still haunts Horford and clearly he feels this is impeding how much he plays.

This isn't some hack out there who can't control himself either, this is a guy who averaged 2.9 fouls per 40 minutes, well below the 4.2 fouls per 40 average among NBA centers playing more than 20 minutes per game. Horford simply shouldn't be worrying about such things, but he has to because of the overly cautious approach his head coaches have taken in this regard.

Speaking of Larry Drew's predecessor, Mike Woodson is apparently a candidate to become Mike D'Antoni's defensive coordinator in New York. If hired, expect one (and only one) clearly motivated defensive strategy designed to mitigate the glaring weaknesses of individual defenders which, in turn, creates other glaring defensive weaknesses which good teams can easily and repeatedly exploit. Which isn't to say that Woodson couldn't get the Knicks to become a slightly above average defensive team. Nor that such an achievement wouldn't hold significant value for the Knicks.

Also expect me to take another run at getting "The D'Antoni/Woodson Nexus" to catch on. Said nexus being the point where, regardless of pace, a coach demonstrates a significant preference for his team missing a shot rather than turning the ball over.

NBA Playbook: Round 1 Preview: Orlando vs. Atlanta

Today, my recently made friend* in real life, Sebatian Pruiti, put up the best and most thorough preview of the upcoming playoff series between the Atlanta Hawks and the Orlando Magic you will read.

This post may be up for awhile. Coverage of the final four games of the regular season will depend on the events therein. Breaking news--an injury, Pape Sy's NBA debut, Al Horford attempting a free throw--will be worthy of attention. Going through the motions will not.

*Sebastian at least tolerated me. Really, that's all I ask.

Inside the Bubble of the Atlanta Hawks

It's maddening (and repetitive) to write about an organization that appears to have little interest in objective reality or critical self-assessment.

As for the former, there's no shame in being a good-but-not-great basketball team, not even one that falls short of greatness despite nuzzling up against the luxury tax line and possessing just two above average players under the age of 29-and-a-half.

As for the latter, there's no need for a public recitation of failings (I don't know where or what my next job is going to be, either.) but the willingness of those within the organization to insult the intelligence of the fan base with which the franchise has a less than stellar relationship historically.

There's no benefit to Rick Sund describing the Hawks as "elite" based on a highly personal and in no way exclusive interpretation of the term.

Nor to him calling his team "analogous" to the NBA's model franchise, the San Antonio Spurs.

Nor to the continued self-congratulation for the team taking more than half-a-decade to go from the low 13 wins to the high of getting swept in the second round of the playoffs.

Assume Sund convinces one casual fan with any of these public statements. Does he create realistic expectations for that hypothetical fan when said fan chooses to watch the Hawks? Does the damage such dubious statements do to the perceptions and confidence of the team's relatively small but hearty fan base* outweigh the gains made with this hypothetical casual fan? I think it might. Given the lack of local media coverage, I think a casual (or potential) Hawks fan is far more likely to interact with a serious Hawks fan in their day-to-day life than to read Rick Sund quotes buried inside in the sports section of the AJC, or on Michael Cunningham's blog, or at Peachtree Hoops, or here.

*This deep lack of trust can perhaps best be exemplified that ownership, despite over-spending for practically every member of the roster not named Smith or Horford, is still accused of being cheap. The failure to couch the discussion of this organization's failings in terms of objective reality goes both ways.

Larry Drew appears not to have made the adjustment from thinking, during his 18 seasons as an assistant, about how he would coach an NBA team in the abstract to coaching the particular team he was hired to lead.

In the abstract, there's absolutely nothing wrong with Larry Drew believing in using the bench or wanting energetic defense but he's struggling to adjust his platonic ideals to the reality of coaching a team with a bad bench and a team whose limited individual defensive ability cannot be overcome by any amount of effort.

When Drew says about Jamal Crawford, as he does in this morning's paper:

"I don't want [poor shooting] to dictate how the rest of his game is going to be. He has the ability to break defenses down and get into the interior and make some nice passes, and I look for him to do that as well. Not just to go out there and sit on his shot."

Is he convincingly discussing how Jamal Crawford plays basketball?

Shooting is Crawford's game. There is no rest of it. His assist rate sits in a similar range to those of Al Horford and Josh Smith, not those of lead guards. Crawford is almost 31 years old. He is the player he is at this point and that's a useful player if a head coach leverages his strength and remains aware of the potential damage his weaknesses could cause the team.

This isn't the only instance of Drew (or his assistants) describing a team or player completely different from the one everyone else sees.

There's Drew's apparent belief that Josh Smith is one of the best spot-up shooters in the league.

There's the deeply painful sideline interviews during television broadcasts where an assistant calls for a commitment to defense...while Jamal Crawford, Josh Powell, and Etan Thomas are all on the court. Or for the Hawks to overcome a second-half deficit by having the guards drive the basketball and get to the line. As if the last season-and-a-half of guards* not being able to drive the basketball and get to the line (the latter problem extending to most of the roster, to be fair) was either anomalous or the result of lack of direction to do so.

*There are two Hawk guards who have demonstrated an ability to get to the line, but neither one starts.

And there's the contest scapegoating of "energy" for poor defensive performances.

Energy's not going to improve this team's defense. Better defensive players are going to improve this team's defense.

Spending more money is not, in and of itself, going to improve this team's results. Spending money more wisely is going to improve this team.

This is why the Hawks are not analogous to the Spurs. Both teams are spending about $69 million on player salaries this season. The Spurs are winning (and have won) more because they spent that money on better players, because they don't miss on the majority of their first round draft picks, because they find the occasional useful player in the second round of the draft, because they draft players with a plan as how to use them in the NBA in mind, because they fill their Summer League team (and field a Summer League team every year) with potential assets rather than players already signed to foreign clubs for the upcoming season, because they operate a D-League team to provide extra depth on the cheap.

The Hawks aren't the least analogous team to the Spurs in the league but one would have to squint to find a strong similarity between them beyond each employing a great post player who doesn't want to be called a center.

The public comments of Sund and Drew are not disconcerting because I assume either of them to be disingenuous, they're disconcerting because I assume them to be honest and it's the self-serving and/or impractical expression of their honesty that enervates.

The Most Important Thing, According to Larry Drew

Larry Drew:

"As a coach, you want to find a consistency in every single quarter you play. The truth of the matter, that's not going to happen. As I told the guys after the game - and we'll look at the fourth quarter tomorrow in practice - we have to learn from it. To me, that's the most important thing. It happened to cost us a game but the most important thing is that we learn from it. We cannot allow that type of play in the fourth quarter. We cannot allow the snowball effect."

Fair enough.

It's on this you will be judged and the disappearance or continued allowance of bad shot selection, bad defense, and lack of touches for the team's best player will be duly noted with reference to this very quote.

Top 5 Atlanta Hawks To Be Trusted Guarding Really Good Point Guards

As evidenced by Larry Drew's actions the past week when presented with the conundra of Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook.

1) Joe Johnson (natch)
2) Mo Evans
3) Mike Bibby
4) Jamal Crawford/zone defense
5) Jeff Teague

Joe Johnson Is His Own Boss

Check out this exchange (starting at the 18:17 mark) of Episode No. 37 of the Hang Time Podcast:

Lang Whitaker: Mike, how did Joe [Johnson] look to you this weekend? You know, everyone thought he was going to be out six weeks and he was out three. How did he look?

Michael Cunningham: That was surprising. And the thing is, if you look at how the whole thing went down, he didn't even tell them about this elbow thing until it got so bad that he needed surgery, basically.

He's the kind of guy, Sekou knows it, when he's hurt or he's hurting, he's not really going to talk about it not even to the media, to the team. He doesn't tell anybody, he just keeps playing and goes about his business. To me that's not the kind of guy you really want to trust to come back so soon from a surgery. So, if Joe tell me he's ready to play, I'm like, "Alright, let's wait another week."

But he came back, he didn't look so good his first game and yesterday in New Jersey, he started off pretty good, he hit some shots but he missed his last eight shots and didn't look that comfortable out there, didn't really seem to be back in the flow. It's going to take him some time.

Links For a Long Weekend

• According to Kelly Dwyer's positional rankings, the Hawks had none of the league's top 30 point guards but do possess two of the top 12 shooting guards. Dwyer on #12, Jamal Crawford:

  Though Crawford's game has made you cringe for years, it was still great to see this veteran of the rebuilding process finally take to a role that suited him, win the Sixth Man Award and make the playoffs for the first time in his 10-year career. Crawford can make the jump pass (not the most fundamentally sound dish), and he tries to use his length defensively, but his best skill is still getting really, really, really hot from long range and firing in a defender's face after a crossover that fools nobody into thinking he's driving. More of the same, please.

  Dwyer on #4, Joe Johnson:

  I called his contract extension "the worst contract in NBA history," and I meant it. $120 million to a 29-year old, until he's 35? Terrible. But for this season, and the next, Johnson will be a sound all-around wing player for the Hawks. Yes, he needs the ball and plenty of minutes to drop his (over) 20 and (nearly) five and five, but he's also a lower rung All-Star who can be counted on to sop up minutes (and for that yearly January swoon, as the minutes catch up to him), and that's enough for a top five ranking at this position.

• Wherein TrueHoop Network bloggers make overtures for Carmelo Anthony.
• The Hawks are introducing dynamic pricing for individual game tickets. At TrueHoop, Kevin Arnovitz expounds on how this makes financial sense for the team and for certain fans.
• In other ticket related news, the Hawks are allowing early season ticket purchasers up to eight months to pay for those tickets.
• Charley Rosen's checklist for NBA head coaching success.
• Save your pennies, there will be a Basketball Prospectus 2010-11 book on which to spend them.

Atlanta Hawks To Hire Larry Drew As Head Coach

It will likely be months before anyone can fairly judge this as a basketball decision but it should place a moratorium on questions about why the Hawks don't garner more attention locally. Whatever the long-term success of hiring Larry Drew, it's an uninspiring decision in the short term and one that only reinforces the perception that the organization fears change more than it desires a championship.

Nor would it be easy to argue that a (or the) key factor in deciding to hire Drew is not this:

The Atlanta Hawks will hire Larry Drew as their next head coach, a league source told ESPN's Ric Bucher.

Drew and the Hawks have agreed to a three-year, $5 million deal, according to the source. Those figures are slightly less than the three-year, $6.5 million deal Boston Celtics assistant Tom Thibodeau received from the Chicago Bulls. In both cases, only two years are guaranteed.

I can't find a complete list of NBA head coach salaries more current than this list from 2004-05. (UPDATE: FanHouse's NBA Coach Tracker has current salary information for more than half the league's head coaches. HT: Matt Moore) Drew will be paid less than Mike Woodson ever was and will be paid less than half of the league's estimated average head coach's salary in 2010. Spending money wisely is most important (that same Dave D'Alessandro report indicates that Scott Brooks currently makes $1.5 million a year) but the Hawks have not demonstrated either creativity or ambition in how they allocate their resources.

They couldn't imagine playing without Mike Bibby's limited skills so they're stuck paying him $12 million over the next two seasons. Being a tenured Hawk (and former second overall pick) earned Marvin Williams $37.5 million over five seasons to be the team's fifth offensive option (and only competent wing defender). The Hawks don't get value from the second round of the draft. They don't find useful undrafted free agents. There's scant evidence that the organization is even aware of the D-League's existence. It's questionable whether the ultimate decision-makers are aware of the larger basketball world. Bibby and Williams seemingly got paid as if their value was judged solely in relation to other Hawk players rather than the league* as a whole.

*Where Ramon Sessions is worth $16 million over 4 years or Matt Barnes signs a series of 1-year deals.

Larry Drew might well be the right choice to coach the Hawks. He was certainly the most familiar choice. The bulk of recent evidence suggests the primacy of that factor and that the organization intends to spend the bulk of their remaining resources on the player only they have ever considered someone around whom a successful team can be built.

Ball Don't Lie: Dwyer: The Atlanta Hawks need to hire Dwane Casey

Kelly Dwyer makes the case for Dwane Casey:

That 20-20 record. That's what everyone remembers.

OK, that's what most people remember. That's what some people remember. That's what I remember, at least.

I remember that Dwane Casey is not just another retread. That he can actually coach. And that if the Atlanta Hawks make him their next sideline stalker, general manager Rick Sund may have found an answer for the blasé attitude that permeated the Hawk locker room more times than not during Mike Woodson's tenure.

That 20-20 is Casey's record over the first 40 games of the 2006-07 season, a 40-game stint that saw Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor overestimate the amount of talent GM Kevin McHale had put together before firing Casey and asking assistant Randy Wittman (now there's a retread) to take over for the final 41. Working with the same group of Timberwolves, Wittman went 12-30.

That 20-20 record stands out as one of the more telling marks in Timberwolves history — the team that refused to rebuild after the win-now boys of 2003-04 fell apart, the team that hung onto Kevin Garnett(notes) for too long, and the team that decided that a cadre of crappy hybrid guards (seriously, look at this roster) was the future. Somehow, a rotation featuring Mike James(notes), Randy Foye(notes), Rashad McCants(notes), Troy Hudson(notes) and Marko Jaric(notes) all battling for time to bring the ball up and launch an iffy jumper just didn't work for Wittman.

It worked for Casey, as he put the Wolves in the playoff hunt midway through the season with a lineup built around Kevin Garnett that should have been in the Greg Oden(notes) hunt. The Kentucky product and one-time-understudy-to-many had the Wolves overachieving, and working hard on both ends. And for Taylor, it wasn't enough. It should have been.

As for the coaching search in general, I recommend patience. Remember June 12th. It was on that date in 2008 that the Hawks offered Mike Woodson his second contract.

ESPN.com: Stein: Avery Johnson To Have First Interview For Coaching Vacancy

Marc Stein:

Former Dallas Mavericks coach Avery Johnson will receive the first interview to fill the Atlanta Hawks' coaching vacancy, according to NBA coaching sources.

Current Mavericks assistant Dwane Casey will also interview for the Hawks' job in the next few days, sources said.

...

Johnson, an NBA analyst for ESPN, has already interviewed with the Philadelphia 76ers and his hometown New Orleans Hornets in recent weeks.

The Hawks, sources said, requested and received permission from the Mavericks over the weekend to meet with Casey.

Utah Jazz assistant coach Tyrone Corbin and Phoenix Suns assistant Dan Majerle are also on the Hawks' list, sources said.

...

Sources say Johnson and Boston Celtics assistant coach Tom Thibodeau, meanwhile, have emerged as standout contenders in New Orleans in a search that has generated seven interviews to date. Besides Johnson, Thibodeau and Casey, New Orleans has met with Portland assistant coach Monty Williams, TNT's Mike Fratello, ESPN's Mark Jackson and former New Jersey coach Lawrence Frank.

2009-10 Season Review: Rick Sund

Previously: Predictions

It's folly to judge a general manager on one season's work. The desire to win in the current season must be balanced with longer-term goals for an organization to succeed. There won't be many absolute judgments levied below nor will what look like problems currently necessarily remain problems.

For example, trading Acie Law IV and Speedy Claxton for Jamal Crawford was a great move in terms of the 2009-10 season. However, the $10 million Crawford's owed for the 2010-11 season appears to limit Sund's options this summer. Then again, Sund could turn Crawford's career year, combined with an expiring contract, into assets useful in 2010-11 and beyond should he explore the trade market. Which he surely must given Crawford's age and limitations.

So it is with Marvin Williams, who was paid far too much in 2009-10 for what the team asked of him. I think it's a fair belief that Williams is capable of more. If such is asked of him and he's able to fulfill the promise that made him a consensus top-two prospect in the 2005 NBA Draft, then his contract (4 years and $30 million remain) would look reasonable if not a bargain.

Mike Bibby's contract is unlikely to be a bargain at any point in time, though, in concert with other moves, the $650,000 pay cut he takes this season may make the acquisition of an additional (and one hopes useful) player possible. If Sund can find a taker for the final two years of Bibby's contract, a parade would not be out of the question.

The end of the bench in 2009-10 doesn't inspire confidence for the end of the bench in 2010-11 which will almost surely consist of whatever cheap, available options can be scraped together. As expected, neither Joe Smith nor Jason Collins was able to contribute. The second, guaranteed year of Randolph Morris's contract wasted a roster spot on a team already limiting itself to 13 players for the entire season. More disappointing was that the Hawks continued to lack ambition and imagination with non-NBA free agents and to completely ignore the existence of the D-League. The Hawks used the final roster spot to recycle two non-prospects of their own: Othello Hunter and Mario West. Hunter was the better use of a roster spot* both because he's a marginally more plausible contributor and because Woodson wouldn't play him.

*Using that roster spot on him and assigning him to the D-League might have been more useful for the team, not to mention his own development.

Woodson's predilections make it impossible to give Sund's first-round draft choice anything other than an incomplete grade. Given the volume of quality point guard prospects (also, Jonny Flynn) available in the 2009 NBA Draft, it won't look good if Teague fails to develop. It remains to be seen if selecting Sergiy Gladyr in the second-round was a productive long-term decision or just another wasted draft pick for the franchise.

Another season without Josh Childress neither on the roster nor gone for good in a sign-and-trade leaves a mess Sund inherited unresovled and awaiting a final judgment.

Letting Mike Woodson's contract expire was a sound and necessary decision* but one that pales in importance next to the decision of whom to hire as the team's next head coach.

*One that will be discussed at much greater length in the next season review piece.

Similarly, I expect the 4 year, $60 million contract offered Joe Johnson in the summer of 2009 to compare quite favorably to the contract Johnson signs in the summer of 2010. Whether or not the contract Johnson signs is one offered by the Hawks will also go a long way toward coloring Sund's job performance. Bidding against yourself is not a recipe for success. Refusing to overpay may involve taking a short-term hit in the service of a brighter future.

Up Next: Mike Woodson

Gameday Links: March 25th Edition

• Marvin Williams says he's feeling better.
• Better Euroleague coverage at Ball in Europe.
• Tom Ziller has a good post at Sactown Royalty about what a coach can control.
• More cuts at the AJC.
• Kyle Korver + 2 Jazz fans = 1 great picture. (HT: Matt Moore)
• Seth Curry's transferring from Liberty to "develop as an athlete to the fullest of my potential and take advantage of new opportunities that may be available to me in a higher rated conference." Also to dance and/or watch an R-rated movie without fear of reprimand.
• A-Town Rap and Bass Compilation 1985-1992.
• Paul Pierce makes Hawks fans see red; others just mildly creeped out.