Sothron

I would like to think if we could get Bynum from the Lakers we would do that over taking a 2008 first rounder, not even a 2007 first rounder.

Between Rose, Starbury and Francis they may be able to guard a corpse. Then again, maybe not.

Hinrich is one of the best defensive players in the league, I have no idea where that comment came from or who said it but wow. Hinrich is one of those team captains you would kill to have on your team. We haven't had anyone since Ty Corbin/Grant Long who was willing to sell their body out to play defense and hustle the way Hinrich does.

If the filler was a 2007 first round pick absolutely. Childress is out the door in two years regardless of what we do with this team. He's not going to resign to be a bench player on a lottery team when several teams will offer him minutes and money to start. Ditto for Josh Smith.

I would much rather take Bynum, groom him and give him some minutes and see what you have rather than taking a known mediocre player in Mihm who is a one year rental. We need a big who score in the low post, rebound, and block shots to cover for our 6'9" cavalcade of forwards in the frontcourt. Walt is spot-on about this.

I can't imagine even BK in his alternate reality of "the vision" turning down Bynum to pick up a career underachiever in Mihm.

I think Mark Price is about ten times the point guard Billups could ever hope to be. Price's career was sadly cut down due to injuries. But when he was healthy he was IMO the best point guard in the NBA, even better than Stockton.

Quote: Quote: Considering that the people discussing them aren't disappointed in this year's offseason, one would assume that's debatable. Maybe you should go back and read some of Sothrons posts which is who i replied to. If you think Sothron isn't disappointed with this offseason then you must have him confused with someone else. I am disappointed with our offseason but honestly I do not think some of these moves could have been better. Claxton was the only available free agent point that was worth 6 million dollars and can start for us. Lo Down is a nice backup big man...which he has been almost every year of his career. That hasn't changed. We did not invest too much in either man to make it an albatross contract. We should at least get a first rounder for Harrington. I do believe that we are paying for some extremely off the wall thinking to put us in this spot however. If BK never saw Smoove as a 4 then we never should have drafted Marvin. We could be settling into a team with Deron Williams or Chris Paul at point with Smoove starting at 3, Shellhead at 4, JJ at 2 and Zaza at 5 right now. Instead we are forcing our two best young players to cannibalize each others minutes and are apparently giftwrapping a starting job to a player who got WTFOWNED in SL games. This I have a problem with. I do not see in the slightest some huge blueprint of success that says "You are HERE" and with THESE moves we will be THERE competing for a title. Both Childress and Smoove are going to leave this team as free agents in two years. Neither one will get a starting job now because of BK's ego to forcefeed Marvin and Shellhead into starting roles. Neither Josh will accept a backup role when several teams will offer to pay them good money to start elsewhere. Where will we be then? At WHAT POINT do we lose enough games to get Woodson and BK fired? If this "vision" does not produce wins on the court then perhaps this "vision" needs to go back to playing NBK 2K6 and a normal rotation of players should be used. Three years of BK still has: No franchise point guard No franchise center EXTREMELY questionable power forward talent Total duplication of 2/3 players Result in three years: Not even BREAKING THIRTY WINS so far. Atrocious. Does anyone here really believe this team as it is now is going to really do something in the next three years? I absolutely do not. So yes, if you are pointing to Claxton, Lo Down signing and ask me do I approve...sure. Its a little investment for needs on the court. If you ask me do I agree with three years of the "Vision"? Then not only no but a resounding HELL NO.

Post deleted by chillzatl

Quote: Quote: Quote: Gosh... D, it's time likes these that I miss Jaywalker. He would always come in and calm us down... ...Maybe Graymule can take over that role. [/indent] Where is Walker these days? [/indent] Living in another state besides Georgia and enjoying a nice, happy family life with a job that keeps him on the road alot. I find it hard to get in touch with him these days although he's still in touch with the team. And Diesel its just Sothron, not Southron. Although the name years back did come from the Tolkien name.

I'm hoping the Hawks offer either Hinrich or Kaman a max deal if that's what it takes to bring them here.

That would upgrade my opinion of this offseason. Bynum would be a nice guy to groom.

Quote: What a joke! We are officialy bottom feeders now. I thought we were moving Al and not taking back a player so we could sign a quality free agent. We are going to lose Al and get Lo Wright in return? Does Bernie even watch basketball games or is he really just a hockey guy? Billy will be fired by mid-season. We are one injury away from winning 20 games next season. This team will struggle to score. Our big free agent signing is a backup point guard who is being portrayed as a quality starter. It is almost impossible to be a Hawks fan. True story, I was out of town this week and someone asked me if Atlanta still had an NBA team. I guess I should have said, Not really! You should have said yep, they renamed the Hawks to the Atlanta 6'9"ers.

I honestly wish I could disagree with you on this but I can not. Our team still has zero low scoring options, one career backup point guard forced into the starting job with a huge injury history (Claxton), now two backup centers to try and be one starting one (Wright/Zaza) and still have a glut of 2/3 players. At some point we are going to have to trade Childress and Smoove. I just pray we get back something resembling real pieces to our puzzle and not just more duplication of position.

I agree with Pete. Talk about a con job. "He's no Shaq" LOL understatement of the century. Oh well. Positives for me: I get to yell "GO DOWN LOW WITH LO DOWN!" at games again, something I haven't been able to do in six years. Lo Down is a good backup but Zaza is really only a backup himself. Do two backups equal one starter?

I was fine with drafting Marvin if the mentality at that time was that Harrington was gone this offseason and then Smoove starts at 4 and Marvin starts at 3. It would give us an athletic frontcourt, yada yada yada.... Now we are being told a player in Shellhead who looked horrible in the SL is going to be the automatic starter at 4 and Marvin/Smoove get to fight over minutes at only one position. What. the. [censored]. I don't see how they can honestly expect both Childress and Smoove to accept backup roles. They will both be gone once those rookie deals expire and we'll be left with more holes to fill and MAYBE get some crappy mid teens picks back in return. Joy. Just to watch those picks go on 6'9" swingmen who get used for backup role duties. I have no idea where this team is going.

If Jason Walker heard me say the following he would die of laughter but its true: I agree with Walt. This team is a ship without a rudder with absolutely no idea where it is going. We can not keep duplicating the SF/SG spot and passing up chances to greatly increase the talent at PG/C to do it. If the team, the actual front office, only sees Smoove as a SF then drafting Marvin was a gigantic mistake. At this point we need to trade Smoove for a PG or true center. They can not afford to let the #2 pick in the draft that every media source and NBA fan just killed the team for taking sit on the bench. That makes Smoove and Chill the odd men out on this team. Trade them for real pieces at point and center.

Quote: Quote: is that when we (all of us, EVERYONE) refers to Marvin and Smooth as our two best players, we are talking about two guys who have yet to break 10ppg individually in a season. It could be possible that one of them peaks at 15ppg while the other peaks at 23ppg. Basically we're counting chickens before they hatch. Pitting them against each other is a great way to 1. see who is better and 2. push them both a level that they might not reach otherwise. There are far worse things to have in this league than a very very good bench player who puts up 15ppg (plus the extras). The only downside to that is if that player happens to be your chosen favorite. Otherwise, from a team fan perspective, it is a great great thing to have. I hope you are right, but that is not the way I see it. (I don't think it matters for purposes of your post, but Josh Smith did average > 10 ppg last year). It was my opinion coming into last season that Josh Smith had the most potential of anyone on our roster. Given that we were drafting #2 in a reasonably strong draft, it is obvious to me that we should have counted Josh Smith as someone to build around. I have no problem if we think Josh and Marvin can work together, but I am not satisfied with a pick if we don't think that even with Josh Smith blossoming like he did the second half of last year that the two of them can work together in the starting lineup. I cannot accept the idea of using the #2 pick in THAT draft on someone who we are content to be a backup who chips in 10-15 ppg. Frankly, I don't think BK views Marvin in that light or that he is ruling out the use of both of them together. However, it is a waste of resources if the two guys who are objectively regarded as being the most talented (non-JJ) players on the roster can only start at the #3 position. Again, if we are playing "two forwards" and they can be Marvin and Smoove then go at it. If we are playing a 3 & a 4 and Marvin and Smoove are "3s" then one of them will end up leaving if they develop as we are hoping. You want to put your team in the best position to succeed and you do that by bringing players together who can play on the court together if everything works out. Drafting two guys like that to compete for the starter and backup positions is not drafting for optimal success, IMO. It is like the idea of drafting Brandon Roy this year. If he is viewed as able to start with JJ, the pick makes sense. If he can only back up JJ or beat him out as the starter at the 2, then why bother? That is exactly how I feel. You don't build a roster by stockpiling the same position. If they have no intentions of using Smoove as the starting PF then selecting Marvin was a gigantic blunder. We should have taken either Deron Williams or Chris Paul. It would allow us to start Smoove at 3, JJ at 2 and Williams/Paul at 1. Harrington could have been resigned or traded to still take Shellhead to play 4. But now we have a roster with two building blocks at the same position, an injury riddled FA point guard, and force starting a player who got owned in Summer League at PF just to justify the pick. Insane. Just flat out 100% insane. We need to either move Marvin or Smoove to upgrade at 1,4 or 5 or we're going to just sit back and watch one of them walk. Its the same scenario with Childress. Out of those 3 players only one gets to start. The other two WILL leave for other teams for more money and for a chance to start.

I think Zaza was simply worn out during the last stretch of last season because of the heavy minutes he had already logged. Having someone else to share minutes at C will have a positive effect on his performance on offense and defense.

Quote: What you need to do is look at the bright side. ...watching Phoenix get a franchise player with our #4 pick in the draft next season? Or watching the Falcons? Because the Hawks are the biggest clusterfuck we have in Atlanta.

Quote: Quote: It does not matter who starts. If you bring Marvin off the bench and he still plays 30-35 minutes, then who cares if he is not in the game for the tip. That is all starting is, lining up for the tip and playing the first couple minutes. I am not even sure that "redundancy" is an actual basketball term. I think that the "depth" that we will have is quality and that is a key to making the playoffs. Teams that can go 8-10 deep can wear down the other team. Coming off the bench does not make a player trash, the bench players are as important to winning as the starting 5. Noone wins games with five players. Dallas was in the Finals last year, they have always been stacked 1-12 and they continiue to add players to bring off the bench, with complete disregard for this "redundancy" you keep talking about. The hawks are going to lose either Josh Smith or Marvin Williams and people might aswell face that right now. Billy and his crew are gunna repeat the same thing that happend in Indiana. Not only that but Childress is gone as well. He's not going to stay on a losing team to be a bench player when several teams will pay him to be their starting 2 guard. Now if the idiot management is saying Smith isn't a 4 then either Marvin or Smoove is out the door as well to again start for another team. Redundancy on a team with gaping holes at 1 and 5 is asinine. I don't consider Claxton with his injury history to be a fix to the PG situation and while I do like Zaza we all know he's just a good backup. I also think its interesting Bernie has lied about trading for another big man and now we're reduced to just signing some FA backup. I hope Phoenix makes good use of our #4 pick in the lottery next year.

If they are already giving the starting job to Shellhead after the piss poor perforamce he had in the SL then someone needs to be fired. We need to start Smith at PF and Marvin at SF for a season to see what exactly we have in those two. Having them split 48 minutes betweeen them at SF does zero to advance their progression and only duplicates the position needlessly. If the "mystery" big man is either Kandi or Wright then I'm not going to give any real credence to Bernie Mullins in the future. There's a huge step between "He's no Shaq!" and "Fans will say he is good!" and those two guys. Kandi is a career underachiever, an absolute bust as a #1 pick in the draft. Wright is a career backup. Yes, both are better than Edwards. Who cares? If our own organization is settling on these retread 30+ year olds as "almost as good as Shaq!" basically then where the hell are we going?

Biedrins came into the league IIRC as the youngest player ever drafted. Add in the fact he's a Euro player and a Euro big man who actually wants to play inside of course people are not going to give him that same kind of perceived ceiling. I don't think anyone was calling McGrady or Stoudamire or a slew of those guys the next great "X" as well. As you said, we'll see. I don't see Childress getting any appreciably better from what we see now whereas I see Biedrins climbing up. Time will tell.

We all know Ford has a hatred of BK because BK won't speak to the media, let alone the fans. Ford takes every shot he can get at the man.

Winning cures everything. This team of young, inexperienced talent with no leadership would instantly become an exciting young team with dynamic veteran leadership.