Mike Woodson likes to tell the story of how he first got into NBA coaching, which was something of a symbol for his basketball life.
Woodson had finished up a solid, if unspectacular, playing career with a half dozen teams after being drafted by the New York Knicks in 1980 out of Indiana University, where he played for the noted collegiate disciplinarian Bobby Knight.
Woodson was good, not great, often unnoticed but effective, which could be said about much of his NBA coaching career.