Watchman

are executed in the first place. Why is Q Richardson worth $6 million? You get cap room and you feel obligated to use it. Next thing you know, you've wasted $6 million a year on Hendu, Wright, Mohammed, etc., etc, etc. No superstars sign with you and out of desperation you waste the money by overpaying mediocre talent. We should have kept part of what we had (SAR), and gotten rid of JT, Ratliff, Mohammed, etc. I truly believe if SAR had a decent true PG, and then you brought in someone like Kobe or TMac, we would begin to be a good team. As it stands now, there is no way on earth we will get a top level free agent to sign here. We gave away ALL of our bargaining chips for cap space. It won't do us any good.

that strikes terror in the hearts of any opponents. Kwame Brown is perhaps the greatest waste of a number one pick that will ever be. He is not even in the same league with Reef, nor will he likely ever be. Reef went to college one year and turned pro and averaged 18 and 8. Kwame will probably never produce at that level. My guess is that Howard will end up approximating Kwame Brown in this league. To me, that ain't saying much.

you for slandering their team. The Clippers look like geniuses compared to us. Sure Kobe's going to want to sign with this franchise. Please. Give me a break.

You obviously can't remember how much "good" it is to have all the cap space in the world and have an undesireable team image. Check with Utah. Check with Chicago. All that cap room did them no good. Utah had to take on bad contracts (Keon Clark) just to meet the NBA minimum salary requirements. No one (except for our own "all-stupid team" member JT wanted to sign with them. Certainly now, our "crowds" of 5,000 per night will probably realistically drop to 500 to 2,000 per night. Free agents just love to play in front of "crowds" like that! Oh well, we now lead the league in 6'5" to 6'8" mediocre-to-less-than-mediocre swingmen. Knight must be so proud. We don't even have a power forward on our entire team. (Unless you count "DNP" Henderson.) This is so embarrassing. At one time having the first pick in the draft was a good thing. Not anymore. I'd bet Howard is closer to Kwame Brown than he is to LeBron James. Kwame Brown may excite you, but he does absolutely nothing for me.

Oh, is that before or after Kobe and Rasheed fought to the death? Kobe doesn't make the Lakers winners. Shaq does.

Van Horn's contract is similar to Reef's, with an extra option year, and he is no where near the player that Reef is. Why undo all that was done in this trade, if you paint yourself into the same corner, but with a less talented player? That doesn't make any sense.

extend to his own team. He wants to send Reef to a "championship team" but nothing was said, or done, to bring a championship team to Atlanta. JR Rider trade all over again. And stupid JT is still here.

we don't need any more perimeter players. Reef was the only inside player we had. Now we have a PF who likes to jack up outside shots. He and Jackson will stand around out on the 3 pt line, while no one goes inside and no one rebounds. This was an unbelievably stupid trade.

Can't disagree with you on that one. This trade stinks. We didn't even get a draft pick out of it. This is disgusting.

Reef scores better than Sheed, rebounds better than Sheed, is not constantly in trouble with the league and/or law enforcement. Wallace is a better shot blocker. That's it. In every other aspect, Reef is a much better player.

Get rid of both "Terry's." Terry Stotts is clueless as a coach. Bad team or not, you at least try to make adjustments. We just do the same stupid things over and over again. His substitutions may be worse than Lon Kruger's. JT is without a doubt the biggest waste of speed I've ever seen. All that athletic ability wasted on someone without a clue of what to do. Never learns from his mistakes. I was all for us doing whatever was necessary, within reason, to keep him. Boy was I mistaken. The guy is absolutely clueless. Unfortunately JT is BYC, so we're probably stuck with him for the rest of this year. I was looking at Real GM the other day to see if there is another BYC player we could swap JT for. The only one I saw that had a comparable salary was Wally Z. I don't know that that would help us. Anyone aware of any other BYC players we could swap for JT, assuming we could find some team dumb enough to take him.

The reason he was in Europe is because he was banned for life from the NBA for numerous drug violations. He was truly an awesome talent, but he couldn't get it together personally.

That's not that old. However, I'm not saying it's got to be NVE, I just never recalled NVE being careless with the ball. He has similar offensive skills to JT. I frankly wish JT would wake up and start playing with some brains, but I've been looking for that for the last three years.

would I have any takers on trading JT and CC to Golden State for Nick Van Exel? This will work as far as salary cap according to Real GM. JT certainly has talent, but exhibits poor decision making skills over and over again. Poor coaching strategy may contribute, but to stand out on the perimeter and dribble until the inevitable steal and fast break layup takes place is just unfathomable to me. I have never really noticed many PG's in the league that can't learn from previous mistakes the way that JT seems to. I really can't comprehend why he can't figure out what it is that he keeps doing wrong. As to the coaching, we still stand around on offense waiting for someone to go one on one, or JT & SAR to run the pick and roll. We still only rarely have any movement without the ball, and when players do move without the ball, they are not rewarded for their efforts. I certainly wanted us to re-sign JT, and I'm glad that we did. I hope that he will begin to learn from his mistake, but if not, perhaps we could trade him for someone else; someone who has a clue about what running the offense is all about. I don't have a problem with PGs that score, I do have a problem with PGs that make stupid decisions late in the game over and over again, and never learn from them.

He has no jump shot, but he is fast, and he can beat a press.

I remember (although I can't remember specifically who they were) quick little point guards running circles around Dickau as he tried to bring the ball up court. On defense, he was constantly beaten by his man. He is slow.

If Dan Dickau is our future, then it's a bleak one indeed. I know the similarity between Nash's rookie stats and Dickau's, but beyond that why you insist on comparing the two is beyond me. Well, they both have bad hair. Dickau is terrible on defense, has a LOT of trouble bringing the ball up against a press, is extremely turnover prone, and might possibly be the slowest man in the NBA. Referees are faster than he is. If we don't resign JT and we depend on DD for our future, we might as well try to transfer the Hawks to the NBDL.

the article stated that he was to pay $230 million plus assume the $140 million in debt (thus relieving AOL of the debt). He therefore has a purcahse price of $370 million. Hello. The $60 million pledge is not a part of the purchase price, it is simply a contingent liability which decreases the potential value of the team. McDavid's lenders do not want to hold a lower priority on the team as the team was used previously as an outstanding guaranty on the bonds. Think of it this way, if you bought a car from someone, the bank would not want to loan the money on the car if the previous owner had pledged the vehicle as collateral on his mortgage, and not done anything to release the car as collateral on the his mortgage once he sold the car to you. Try to read the article first before you go off in left field on some tangent.

$180 million short, rather than $195 million short. I guess McDavid is only coming to the table with $50 million. ($230 million less the $180 million shortage.)

Where did I miss the "coming to the party with only $195 million?" Where was that mentioned in the article? McDavid was to come up with $230 million and then assume $140 million of AOL's debt as it relates to the arena. Are you saying he only came up with $35 million of his own capital? ("$195 million short...") What is the source of your information? McDavid has every right to purchase an unencumbered asset (the Hawks). AOL diminished the value of the team by pledging it as collateral for the arena debt. Therefore, AOL should replace the collateral or reduce the selling price accordingly. Simple business sense.

See thread below re: the sale. The team's value has been diminished somewhat in that Turner pledged the team as security on the bonds. McDavid's lenders feel that Turner should replace the diminished value brought about by the pledging of the team. It is a source of dispute between the parties.

Yeah, but everyone has known all along that McDavid was partially financing the deal. This is nothing new.

were to the effect of us needing an experienced backup PG. I assume that that implies that they are not comfortable with entrusting the full responsibilities of the backup PG spot to Dickau. I think rightly so. Dickau does not seem to be progressing much, and he is terribly slow on defense. Perhaps he will be packaged with another player in a trade. I wouldn't read too much into it just yet. (i.e. trading JT)

How does a "lender requiring Turner to replace the collateral" equate to McDavid being broke?

you referred to in a post several weeks ago, which if I'm not mistaken included statistics for NBA players, even retired players? Thanks for the reply.