bfwolf

Would it also be an option to give Bibby a one year extension and restructure his contract so that we knock a couple of million dollars off his 2008-09 salary and add a couple of million to what he would expect to make in 2009-2010? Or restructure Joe's contract in a similar way?

According to espn.com, Brand is only 29.

Before this injury, Elton Brand was one of the 15 best players in the league. I'd do the trade in half a second, assuming he checks out with our doctors.

How about we just focus on making the playoffs.

Fair points. Although I think that if you're going to bring Robin into the discussion on rebounding, you've also got to mention that Robin probably makes his defense look better as well, since they've got each other's backs for helpside D which lets them be more aggressive going for blocks.

I have mixed feelings about Brooke Lopez. He's athletic and is a very effective defender, but his rebounding is just average. He's got some sweet offensive moves, but his shooting percentage is nowhere near what it should be for a player of his size and athleticism. I could see him being a very mediocre off-the-bench pro but could also see him being a very good pro.

I imagine 36 will be enough for the 8th seed. 7th seed is a pipe dream.

Calipari is a great college coach because he's an unbelievable recruiter. His actual coaching skills are pretty good for college--not up to snuff for the NBA IMHO.

Back to the original question at hand, I think we could probably get a late-ish lottery pick for Marvin now. Maybe a #11 or so. About what we could've gotten before the last draft, but far less than we could've gotten after the first two months of the season when he was playing much better.

I think that we are best off not trading any of our young talent until we get a better coach. We will almost certainly not get value for our guys now, but once their play improves under a real coach, we could get more.

And with the way we're playing, that seems generous.

As I said earlier, Troy, tell that lease business to the people of Seattle.

My contention is that Salim is not a good enough all around player to get consistent minutes on a mediocre or better team. If he wants to stick in the NBA, he either needs to find a way to play well in limited minutes or he needs to get traded to an awful team. Once Acie is healthy, Salim's minutes will go down again because Bibby and Law are better than he is. And why should it be otherwise?

in the middle of a playoff hunt before? Is this precedented?

Don't be so sure, Pete. Sonics owner Clay Bennett is trying to weasel his way out of a lease right now so he can move the team to OC.

John Hollinger has devised a system that plays out each team's remaining games thousands of times and then lets you see interesting things like what's the most likely record your team will finish with or how likely they are to make the playoffs. The key assumption is that teams will continue to play the rest of the season as well as they have played up to this point in the season, which is not such a terrible assumption to make in the Eastern conference playoff hunt, the Mike Bibby and Jason Kidd trades notwithstanding. Hollinger odds say the Hawks will most likely finish with around 35 wins and gives the Hawks a 36.9% chance of making the playoffs. Interestingly, our main competition for the final playoff spot is not New Jersey (at just 9.8%) but rather Chicago (32.7%) and Indiana (27.5%). This is due, I imagine, mostly to the fact that the Nets PPG differential to their opponents is over 2 points worse than the Hawks, Pacers, and Bulls. Hollinger has long pointed out that point differential is a better indicator of future performance than win/loss record. Here are the playoff odds: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/playoffodds For an explanation on how it works: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/stor...redictor-071206

The ASG are clearly incompetent. Nobody is arguing otherwise. But despite the fact that I think Belkin is smarter than they are, I'd rather have the ASG. Belkin blocked that JJ trade as the team governor when his responsibility as team governor was to reflect the opinion of the majority of the owners. Instead, he reflected only his own opinion. He can't be trusted, and while the chances of building a championship caliber team are greater under Belkin than the ASG, the chances of the Hawks being operated permanently on the cheap or even NBA basketball leaving Atlanta altogether are also much greater under Belkin than the ASG.

Quote: I can't take this $hit anymore. Life is too short to be so emotionally involved with this loser organization. Bye. JerryWest (in persuit of happiness elsewhere) The team has quit so I can hardly blame you for doing so too.

I don't think Salim is by any means a cancer, but I do think it's overstating it to say that he's earned significant playing time. The guy is shooting 30% from the floor this season and 28% from beyond the arc. I don't care if you're not getting consistent PT--that's just terrible for a guy whose best skill is supposed to be shooting. He's got to realize that his limited skill set means he's never going to be a guy who gets 25 minutes a game in the NBA. If he wants to establish a career, he needs to be able to come into games for limited minutes, make shots, and not do anything bone-headed. I would say that tonight was a move in the right direction. Teams that play crappy D like G-State are the perfect teams for Salim to get minutes against because he's more likely to get wide open shots. I certainly wouldn't want to see him get minutes against the Spurs or Pistons.

I gotta give a shout out to the refs for the way they called this game. Very equitable, which is tough when that raucous Golden State crowd is screaming for a foul non-stop.

He's having a much better second half. He's not forcing anything. Looks good out there now!

I don't want to get into a big thing about it, but I just don't understand where all the "play Salim" stuff comes from. I do think that the Hawks are the wrong team for him, and he needs to find a team where he can have a role like Steve Kerr had on the Bulls. But that's the extent of his ability. We're playing one of the worst defensive teams in the NBA, and you guys are making a fuss about a completely unimpressive performance. He shoots 6 times in 9 minutes (not chucking?) and doesn't have a single assist. His defense was the usual: lots of gambling which sometimes pay off with a steal but more often than not results in an easy bucket for the other team. I also saw one GS player (not sure which) just shoot right over him because he doesn't have the size to defend bigger guards. I was overstating it when I said he looked awful out there, but I was watching the game and thinking "Salim sure isn't impressing with his minutes" and was really surprised to see everybody praising his performance on here.

Are we watching the same game? Salim looks horrible out there. The Golden State announcers called it....he's a great wide open shooter, but awful if you make him put the ball on the floor or get a hand in his face.

You've got me on this one, AHF. Durant has definitely underperformed against my expectations, although I feel like it would have been a lot closer if he wasn't being played out of position at SG. He'd have a lot more rebounds if he was playing the 3. But under no scenario could he possibly have gotten to the 32 total.

I'd say we were on pace for 34-35. Now we get 37-38.