AmishBoy

I like you enthusiasm and there's nothing wrong with being positive but, Quote: and Sheldon Williams is going to be a top 5 center when it's all said and done! come one now.

They haven't been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention yet so maybe they'll be playing with purpose.

Everybody had injuries this year. Miami is injured right now. The cream rises to the top. That's just how it it. I will be very surprised if Oralando beats Detroit. That is if they make the playoffs. Indiana is breathing down their necks.

You make a good point. Our management does need to be smart and that can start with tanking. I know there are many who are against us losing because of the odds and such but it's worth the risk. We can't keep drafting bench players in hopes of them blossoming and become legit players. We've been officially eliminated from playoff contention with the loss to Milwaukee Friday so there is no reason to win. I'll admit having something to build off of ending the season seems to work. It worked for Orlando early this year but eventually you come back down to earth just like Orlando. You have to be good to win in this league and JJ Redick won't get you over the top. We need starters people.

A team is made of a Coach, Starters, Role Players, Bench Players, and Others. The Hawks have some of the components but not all of them. Starters:Beside JJ and Smith I don't think we have any. Role Players: Shelden, Este. Bench: Josh Childress, Tyronn Lue, ZaZa Pachulia Others: The rest of the team. Coach: Mike Woodson Starters. For a team to compete is needs 5 starters. I say a starter is a player that contributes without being a major liability, or a player who is so good at one thing his deficiences in other things are worth looking over(see Ben Wallace, Bruce Bowen). Currently the Hawks have 2 starters. Role player. A player that is in the game for a defined reason and does it well. Shelden and Este seem to have potential for it and to some degree Salim. I don't include Salim because he needs nearly starters minutes to be productive when a role player needs to come in and pay immediate dividends. Bench Player. I define a bench player as a player that contributes when in the game with limited minutes. Again I don't include Salim or even Shelden because it seems they needs starter minutes to be effective. Combing role players and bench player we actually have a pretty deep bench. It's the starters that are the problem on this team. It's been fairly clear that the Hawks have need a 1 and 5 for a # of years. This draft is the draft to get another starter. A star would be nice, but a starter is most important. Be it a 1 or a 5. I would like to have Oden but I also think Conley is starter quality. I would love to have him. If we can walk away with two players even better. We don't need Anderson, or Cink or even Brewer. Even if we get Durant. That's fine. We need starters. That should be our mission for this offseason.

I've never ever been able to watch that until now. It's not actually that bad. I've been desensitized by Saw, Hostel, etc.

Quote: newsflash: some people don't like Billy Knight's choices. Sorry I didn't get your permission to post a subject that has been talked about before. I should come up with an entirely new subject like all 3000 of your post must be. Excuse me sir.

Quote: Amishboy, are you really Amish? If so, knowing I'm not certain of the Amish disposition when it comes to professional sports or the internet itself, but I believe BK needs to be fired if only because he's so maddeningly, frustratingly incompetent that his retaining his job might threaten the very good nature of one of our nation's finest religious traditions as evidenced by your spirrited vent. Phew, long sentence. Hope everybody's faith can survive the false prophet of GMing, BK. No. I'm not Amish. I just like the screen name.

Our game Friday is against the Bucks. If we lose we can flip flop position leaving them a half game behind us for 3rd worst record .

Quote: The Bucks are playing without their entire starting 5. Amazing. Now that's tanking.

http://www.realgm.com/src_feature/836/2007...gms_of_the_nba/ Sorry if this was already linked. 3. Billy Knight – Atlanta Hawks (2002-present) Knight has the daunting task of turning around a futile organization. The problem is, the organization has actually gotten worse since his hiring. In the 3 seasons prior to the Knight-era, the Hawks were 86-160, good for a .350 win percentage. In the 4+ years since, they have been 124-264, for a .320 win percentage. Usually rebuilding involves some improvement, however the 2004-2005 Hawks had the most losses in a single season in franchise history (69). To Knight’s credit, he has drafted some nice players. The problem is they all play the same position. True, you are not supposed to draft according to position, but draft the best player available. However he doesn’t even do that. He received a tremendous amount of criticism after the 2005 Draft for passing on Rookie of the Year Chris Paul. Most “experts” agreed that he was a prospect ready to jump in and contribute right away, and he played a position that the Hawks really needed to fill: point guard. After selecting 2 very solid swingmen in the 2004 Draft (Josh Smith and Josh Childress) and one in the 2003 Draft that didn’t fit in (Boris Diaw), Knight instead elected to bank on the potential of tweener forward Marvin Williams out of North Carolina. Not to dispute Marvin’s talents, he could be a very fine pro one day, but Paul came in and asserted himself as one of the best pure point guards in the league in his rookie season. He would have looked even better passing to the likes of Smith, Childress and newly-acquired-via-sign-and-trade Joe Johnson (another swingman). He could have even selected Deron Williams or Raymond Felton and probably have been better off. So Knight heeded the criticism and maybe took it too seriously. With the 5th pick in the 2006 Draft, it was rumoured he made a promise to select power forward Shelden Williams out of Duke. Well at least he wasn’t drafting another swingman, right? But come on, a promise for a guy who wasn’t even being worked out by the teams drafting ahead of them? And Shelden could turn out to be a decent pro, rebounders always have long careers. But he again passed on a few players who could have manned the point for him in Randy Foye and Brandon Roy, two players that are better players than Shelden regardless of position. ------------------------------------------------------------ I don't care how much man love anybody has for Billy Knight(KB21) it's clear that we COULD be much better. We've had so much team building capital in the past 3 years it's insane. Even more insane is that if things go well we could have even more team buidling capital in the form of two lottery picks. What more could any team ask for short of starting with Kobe and Shaq like the Lakers. So many chances to get it right I'm almost can't take it anymore. The type of players we get do not match the type of game we play. Either the GM or Coach men MUST go. I wouldn't care if both went. I do believe we are on the verge of being really good. We have some nice young talent but we are not on the verge because of Billy Knight's ability to get players but because he's had so much capital to work with. Lotto picks every year. Top 3 team in capspace every year. Signicant talent in NBA terms to trade every year(see Walker, Harring, Terry). If the ownership squabble has held him back the team would be much better in admitting to it (see Wired's new issue). Wouldn't it be great if they took a page from Microsoft or Google. An ownership blog ala Mark Cuban. Anyways, this post has no purpose other than for my venting and I don't even know where I'm going with this anymore.

She listed a 6'4". That's too tall for me but I wouldn't complain. I used to have a thing for Chamique Holdsclaw back in the day.

Yeah. He came up. She's by far the best looking female basketball player I've ever seen. BTW her brother plays for the Raptors. Can't remember his name right now.

Feels like a SAT question.

We don't have to plan for this kind of success. Our team isn't that good.

I want Rutgers to take the whole thing. I rarely get to root for teams from my home state of New Jersey when they're doing good. Except for my Giants. hehe.

All of this... Quote: Tim Duncan Unanimous National Player of the Year, 1997... Wooden Award Winner, 1997... Naismith Award Winner, 1997... Henry Iba Corinthian Award Winner, 1997... Unanimous 1st Team All-American, 1997... Led nation in rebounding, 1997... Henry Iba Corinthian Award Winner, 1996... Unanimous 1st Team All-American, 1996... Henry Iba Corinthian Award Winner, 1995... 3rd Team All-American (AP), 1995... Selected by San Antonio Spurs in 1st round (#1 pick overall) of 1997 NBA Draft. Shaq National Player of the Year (AP, UPI), 1991... Unanimous 1st Team All-American, 1992... Unanimous 1st Team All-American, 1991... Led nation in blocked shots, 1992... Led nation in rebounding, 1991... Member of gold-medal winning U.S. Olympic Team, 1996... Selected after junior season by Orlando Magic in 1st round (#1 pick overall) of 1992 NBA Draft. equaled 0 national titles. And which of those awards did they win as freshman.

Go Indiana.

We also need to be watching what Indiana is doing. They are really starting to scare me. Sacramento, Seattle and Minnesota are 30-42. Indy is 31-41 and 11th in terms of the draft. Indy plays San Antonio so we can probably count that as a loss. Sac plays the Clips, Sea plays the nuggets, and Minny plays Orlando. All winnable games. They could all be 31-42 and tied for 8th at the end of the night. We needs some luck. Indy may be tanking under the radar.

Quote: Yeah but Duncun and Shaq were big time players in college. Odens team plays much better without him on the court. And Oden isn't a big time player. I've been hearing about him for 3 years. The question is would they be better in the long run. Sure they can make adjustments in a game without Oden but their success is probably due to the fact that when Oden goes out their opponents have to adjust. Every coach game plans Ohio State with Oden in mind. Having a player like Oden every team has to seriously account for doesn't make you a worse team. It's like when we went on that 4 game win streak after Joe went down. After teams game planned how to play us without Joe we started to lose again.

Oden will be fine. College is a game this is dominated by perimeter oriented players. In the NBA he'll matter. Shaq and Duncan didin't win squat in college. They've got 6 nba titles between them.

I watched Let's Do It Again last week or so. I love those Portier and Cosby movies. Uptown Saturday Night and the other. So funny. Like Friday without the profanity or weed.

I can't wait for this game. I'm going to see if any tickets are in my price range. I've never been to a final four game or any college b-ball game for that matter. Oden vs. Hibbert. I hope it lives up to it's billing. I'm more excited for this game than I've been for a Hawks game in a while.