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Hawks4ever, maybe you're forgetting about those last few games of the season when Leon actually did get some PT. He showed good things when he was on the floor; he's an excellent rebounder on the O and D, and he's got a really solid game with his back to the basket, and he plays good Newble/Dickau defense where he does'nt put alot in the stat columns but stays with his man and makes it tough for him to get a shot off. He's, IMO, definitely a keeper, as is Hanno, who will, unfortunately, likely be cut. Hanno's biggest problem this year is that he was a 3 or 4 playing the 5, he simply could'nt contain opposing centers, but he's a good face up shooter and he rebounds pretty decent, his D could use some work, but if we could make space I would'nt be upset if he stayed. Cal is, well, Cal, and that's unfortunate, he's got a good shot from the outside, but sadly that's about all he's got. I'm also a little saddened that JV, a player that IMO, has good value at the point, will walk away from us for nothing, I still think we could sign and trade him if he agreed to it, and get someting good back.

One thing can't be denied though, starter or backup, he's getting the Hawks some much needed good press. That's a refreshing change after 3+ years of the Curtis Bunns and Terrance Moores of the world slamming on us.

I was hoping for sometin more along the lines of Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Magic Johnson, not a ripoff of 'brickhouse' HAHAHAHA but if you wanna hear it, you can download it here. The article was good though, I like the comparisons to Mark Price that I keep hearing!!

Great article Jay! That must've been really exciting to be there in person and feel the buzz that seems to eminate from our team. I'm so glad to be a Hawks fan, even with all the bad we've been through in the past few years, the potential for great things is just oozing from these young guys. Some things that are really sticking with me from your article: "...third year guard/forward DerMarr Johnson (who has added about 10-15 pounds of muscle already this summer), to show their support for their new teammate." Not only are they showing solidairty, but DJ's puttin on some weight!!! "“Getting steals doesn’t necessarily mean good defense. At Gonzaga, we didn’t play a gambling style of defense. We played a very controlled, tight, half court defense. We concentrated on staying on the man and making his shot a very difficult one. Getting a hand in someone’s face consistently can be more efficient than gambling on steals." Sounds familiar, the Newblizing D, good, sticky, hand in-your-face defence that doesn't necessarily translate into the box score. "When asked about the potential small backcourt lineup playing Terry and Dickau together, Head Coach Lon Kruger said that “getting Theo Ratliff back makes that work a little more, but that ideally, Terry and Dickau will split the 48 point guard minutes, and that they will spend time on the floor together as well.” Well that pretty much speaks for itsself LOL. ""Like coach said, I just want to win. Whatever I can do to help this team win, I'm looking forward to doing that. I heard about the playoff guarantee, and that's something I'm extremely excited about. That's what basketball is all about to me is winning." Okay that's probably just fluff to give us fans a case of the warm n fuzzies....It worked on me!! Man, I can't wait for the season to begin, to see Theo and Ira starting, to see if maybe Slim can finally shake the moniker and force us to come up with a new nic for him, to see JT and Dannyboy bombing away in the fourth quarter. Even if we don't make the playoffs, this is gonna be something exciting to witness.

I know this is going to seem like a nutty idea, but maybe Theo wants to be a Hawk. Regardless of what he told Denberg, I find it tough to believe that he would'nt know of such a clause, and even tougher to belive that his agent would'nt. Still, though, I guess it could be a miscommunication, maybe between Theo and his agent, Theo and the Hawks, or even Theo and Denberg???

Tinsley and Parker went to established teams that had been playing together for several years. We don't have the luxury of Reggie and Jermaine or Timmy and The Admiral. Tinsley and parker were playing roles on their teams, and replacing aging or ineffective PGs. Our current starting PG is one of our stars, so in our case it would be like trading Marbury or Francis to make room for Tinsley or Parker. BTW I've also noticed that the Pacers are currently trying to ship Tinsley, which tells me that even Zeke doesn't think he's as good as the ESPN hype machine made him out to be, and watching both of them in the playoffs exposed their lack of experience. As for Nazr, he happened to pay off as insurance, but Pete himself has stated that Nazr is a backup, insurance or not, he's paid to be a backup.

With Toni, Hendu, Junkmail, and Dion going down for pretty long stretches every year, plus Theo's still a huge IF; why in the world would we want to add yet another damned cripple to the lineup???

Friday (tomorrow) at 11am est. Read about it and post your questions here.

Ok, this is purely speculative and hypothetical, but it's fun to ponder... Could we really be preening Danny boy to be our starting PG in order to dangle JT in exchange for the LeBron James pick? Junkmail is as good as gone next year, and Toni's contract will be ready to expire and Naz will have another year of experience under his belt. Could we see a lineup of Dan/Scoonie(?) Slim/Dion James/Ira Reef/Hendu/Anderson Theo/Leon ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? just some food for thought...

I think this trade is decent at best, if junkmail and Dion get injured, get ready for mini me 03. That said I think he's got some positives too, if we line em up DD/DG/TK, we should have a pretty good second unit, when healthy. at worst, DD/ED/DG, still not bad for the bench.

...is just nonsense to me. It does'nt matter to me who we will or would or might take with a high pick when I consider what we will have to give up. I'm hoping this board is just buying into draft hype, and not seriously overlooking the fact that we would almost have to trade one of our young core players to get into the top 10-20. I mean seriously, is some team just gonna drop a high pick into our lap for free? Come on. Even IF someone was that retarded, is Pete gonna carry 13 players on the roster?? The thought of losing JT, Reef, DerMarr, or Theo makes me nauseous, and reeks of creating a hole to fill in another hole. Unless we can trade our non core players or consolidate our 2nd rounder with our 2 future firsts owed us, it's jsut not worth it IMO.

Theo, maybe an outside chance, but his salary is big, and his health has yet to be proven, Toni's in about the same boat. Naz, maybe, if we deal with a team that's below the cap. I'm not advocating us trading Slim, hell it nauseates me to think about it, with all the time and hope we have invested in the kid, I'm a huge DJ fan. But reread my original post, flave, go thru the steps and connect the dots. Hopefully my logic in there is wrong, but ask yourself; Who Else Is There???

I'm nervous about letting DJ go too, in fact, I don't like the idea one bit, which is why I put up that post. I just don't see really any other players on our roster that could fetch a high enough draft pick. It would almost have to be one of our young core players, and if that's the case, I'd rather us try to use a different approach than to create a problem in order to solve a problem.

LOL Yeah I noticed that too after I made the post. That slightly raises a problem, with Smitty in the lineup in AD's place we look awright, but are back to our Smitty question we faced lo those years ago.....How long will he last? Of course junkmail could arguably be better suited as a backup 2, contingent on the fact that we re-sign JV; but either way we end up with a patch player backing up the 2...

cause otherwise Pete needs to either sh!t or get off the pot with JT. I too thought that the junkmail experiment would'a proved that just putting in any shmuck solely because he happens to be tall is miserable logic. It simply doesn't work. Pete and Lon had things running really smoothly in the second half of last season with JT starting at the point and DJ at the 2, I hope Babs doesn't Barney Fife this offseason and shoot himself in the foot...

This is a pretty fair trade, except changing Smitty to Daniels would be alot better for us. Smitty is beyond ready to retire and AD would give us more of a longterm solution. I dont know if it works by the cap, but it would be pretty straight for ATL n SA. I would'nt mind doing the MIA deal either, hell if Riles is so jazzed to trade down, let's help him out and pick up Qyn with their pick, that n the SA trade would sew up our G/F situation JT/JV*/junkmail Slim/Daniels Ira/ Qyn Reef/Hendu/Leon Theo/Nazr ...and unless I'm forgetting someone*, it looks like we'd even have room to re-sign Jacque. It'd make us young, athletic and very quick...

That dude is your boy Paul Pierce gettin posterized in that pic, and from the looks of it a swift kick to the jewels to boot! LMAO

I would'nt want Big Yawn or the Compton Strangler. If we were stupid enough to trade Theo for either of those guys, our team would go right here

#12 JANNERO PARGO Guard - 6-2 - 164 Senior - 1L - Chicago, Ill. (Neosho County [Kan.] CC/Robeson HS) *Could'nt find any current stats for '02 season.... As a Junior in 2000-01 Season: A third-team All-SEC selection by both the league’s coaches and the Associated Press, Pargo was also named to the CollegeInsider.com all-junior college transfer team after averaging 12.3 points, 2.1 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.5 steals a game. He was voted the team’s MVP last season and also shared the free-throw award with Charles Tatum after hitting 43 of 49 attempts (.871)...... Full Bio here I just wonder IF drafted, would he make the team? With only one pick, why potentially waste it on a guy who'll just get shipped to Europe or worse, cut?....

I'd do it. A 12th pick and a former top 5 (I'm pretty sure but cant remember exactly where Odom was drafted), for a former 10th, and a (pardon the expression) scrub. JT is the heart and soul of the Hawks as we know them, but the potential is too much to pass on.

I think Odom for Mobley is a fair deal. Mobley is less well rounded in his game, but he scores alot more than Odom. The 15th/Rice/Taylor/Langhi to Memphis for 4th/Dickerson/Swift, does'nt sound bad but it still begs the questions of what to do with the 1st pick and what to do with Francis? Take Ming and let Franchise walk? That seems to be the threat.."...unless Steve wants to play in CLeveland(Miller) or Krouse gives us #2(Jwill).He will be STUCK here for another year,and we will just let him walk without taking on bad contracts(ala the pippen to portland deal)..." can be flip flopped in to unless we can get CLE do deal Miller or CHI to deal #2(JWill), then WE'RE STUCK with The Migrane for one more year until he walks... Either way it looks like Steve's days in HOU are numbered, if they can get Miller or Williams for The Migrane, good for them. Letting him walk for nothin would be worse than letting Pip walk for nothin; not entirely bad in the long run, but definitely not good for Now.

Humphrey, Prince, and Yarborough have been my favorite sleepers up to this point. I'm hoping mullet-mania will keep its grip on the league, but unfortunately it appears that some teams are waking up to these collegiate guys. If we get a shot at one of these young athletic forwards in the draft, I'd be tempeted to take em, maybe even at the expense of a Tito Maddox or Juan Dixon.

I'd like to take a look at what some of the other guys did too, especially Tayshaun, but what's really catching is that much hyped players such as Dunleavy, Borchard, and Butler got low marks while relatively less hyped plyers like Humphrey and Wilcox did surprisingly well. Still, though, I'd be hesitant to fall in love with a player based on these figures alone, it's a test of raw athletic ability and does'nt factor in actual skills. Interesting, none the less.

some thoughts on this.... a) I thought Cuttino said JWill (he made the remarks on Best D@mn Sports Show bout a week ago) in the piece that I saw... b) I remember thinkin at the time "if I'm Rockets brass, they're BOTH gone, Steve for making such a threat, Mobley for running his piehole about it." So that line of thinking is'nt so far fetched... c)The Odom deal could go down (according to Cuttino on that same show, and Mobley would be a nice addition to the Clips with his 21.7 points and 1.5 steals). But Cuttino was on that show campaigning for acquiring Odom, himself. So maybe it backfired on him? and finally, this blurb of nonsense: "Say bye bye the #15 pick to.Salary and West,put it together." ..... Huh??? WTF does that even mean? I didn't bring my English to Yoda dictionary with me! Understand I don't what saying you are! The 15th is all I could make out (HOU's 15th pick via TOR) but the rest is just gibberish. Bottom line; I think this guy is just 'reading the tea leaves' on that Mobley BDSS appearance.....and prolly has too much time on his hands But on the other hand, stranger things have happened and he could actually know somethin. Either way, it is intriguing to think about...

That is.....one helluva statement to make. I hope they can pull it out...