spotatl

I really don't think its all about price. In the day of craigslist you can easily get tickets for 1/3 of the face value. People still don't go to the games. At some point you need a product that people will go out of their way to see.

Uhhh... no. because in one case you gota useful player and in the other one you got a guy that wouldn't go in the first round if you did the draft over again. If you did Marvin's draft over again he would probably still be a top 10 pick. And you took shelden before anyone else AT THE TIME thought he should go. It was an indefensible pick on draft night- to me that makes it easily the worst of all those picks.

The Hawks have a major problem. I live less than 5 miles from the Arena and in my friend circle I would have a tough time giving away free Hawks tickets. No one thinks the team is a championship contender. There isn't a superstar that people feel like they are missing out if they don't go watch. My friends would definitely be in the category of only watching if there is a big name coming into town. To me its not a marketing thing, its a team success thing. Until people feel like the team is a threat to win it all then its just out of sight and out of mind.

Rasheed Wallace for Josh SMith turned out the best.

Marvin isn't a bust- he got a raise off of his rookie scale contract. Shelden Williams has been discarded by 4 teams now and makes the minimum salary. And at the time there were people who at least thought that Marvin was the right choice- NO ONE thought that Shelden should be a top 5 pick.

Diesel- just remember that hawks lucked out and won the lottery to get Horford, otherwise THATS the pick that would have gone to the suns. That really bailed the Hawks out of the worst case scenario for that trade. Think of this team minus Horford and where they would be.

For Carmelo I think they would pay the tax. He would pay for himself- he would absolutely own this town. But that said I don't think he would resign because he wouldn't trust the ASG to continue to spend what it takes to contend.

Why is that? Acie has had at least 4 coaches since leaving the Hawks and none of them have wanted him. There are tons of guys who can't make the jump from college to the pros- its not the coaches fault that the GM picked a bad player. Acie was a poor draft pick, this isn't a case of Woodson squandering talent. If Acie had blossomed in any of his other stops then sure you can put that on Woodson, but when he has 4 other coaches including 2 that will be in the hall of fame and none of them want the guy then I really don't see how you can still blame Woodson.

macdaddy- Woodson gave Shelden 18 minutes a game his rookie year. He got about the same production out of Shelden as Denver is- the difference is that in Denver or Boston he only had to live up to the expectation of being a minimum salary player and not to be a top 5 pick. I don't think that Teague showed anything last year to deserve more minutes than he got. I don't think you should just throw players out there if you don't ahve any reason to believe that they will succeed. Let them work on their game in practice or the D-League. As a coach- if you don't think a player can be useful even in spot minutes then I really don't see the point in continuing to put them out there every game just so the fans can see it for themselves. (since evidence shows that they won't see it anyway) And there were just 11 games last season that Teague didn't play which to me is pretty reasonable for a guy taken where he was in the draft and who showed what he did last season.

There is no player like that available for what the Hawks could give up. Chris Paul may have been but he isn't available. Even if the Hawks got Carmelo that wouldn't guarantee them top 3.

macdaddy- to me the question is what you do as a coach if you think that a guy was just a poor pick and doesn't have what it takes to make it in the league. Do you throw them out for 20 minutes a name no matter what? To me the proper way is to pick and choose their spots where you think that they can be successful, and once they show that they can handle that then you slowly start to expand out their role. But if someone doesn't get it done in your cherrypicked spots, then I think its pretty reasonable to make them show more in practice before just handing them minutes.

Its truly impressive how much creativity people are using to still blame Woodson for the failings of this team. When we look back on it, Woodson has had a pretty good trackrecord judging young talent. People though he was misusing Salim and now Salim is out of the league because no coach wanted him. People thought he misused Acie but now Acie has been discarded by 3 more teams since leaving the Hawks and the Grizzlies have been working out undrafted free agents to take his roster spot. Shelden Williams is now on his 4th team since leaving the Hawks and is making the minimum salary. We now have a lot of evidence that it wasn't Woodson's fault he couldn't get these guys to produce, they were just bad draftpicks. So now we have Teague- and early on Woodson thought he wasn't good enough to help a playoff team. But with a young player its tough to know if the coach is just being too hard on them or if the player was a bad pick. The only way to really find out is to see what another coach can do with the player. And to this point I haven't seen anything to make me think that Woodson was wrong about Teague. I just think its funny that when Teague plays poorly for a new coach you still blame Woodson instead of thinking that Teague might not be ready to help a playoff team.

He hasn't done enough to earn playing time this season. Thats great that he isn't content to just collect a paycheck and he wants to talk to the coach about what he can do to earn more minutes. I still can't believe that there are people that want to see Teague starting.

Alex english probably would be the best player on this team.

Jason Collins very well may be the single worst player in the league. I can't believe someone just called for him to be the starter.

The problem with this team has always been the same. They have just 1 guy on the roster who can consistently draw a double team and find the open man. (Joe) They have another guy who can consistently draw a doubleteam and who can often score through it. (Jamal) They don't have a post threat. They don't have a quality starting PG nor a quality backup PG. They lack both perimeter defense and a guy who can lock down top post threats. The team is greatly vulnerable when the opposing team has a PF that can drag Josh Smith to the outside. This is just a flawed roster. And the team is spending FIFTY million dollars less on their payroll than a team like Orlando- they are trying to do more with less.

To me benching someone only works if the backup actually produces. If the backups are terrible then it just reinforces to the player that the team is better off with them in the lineup. And this is where the Hawks terrible drafting hurts them so much. There aren't capable young guys on the roster just waiting for their chance. You need the backups to be pushing for playing time for the benching threat to be legitimate.

They are paid to show up regardless of how well they play. Its not very smart to give out contracts like that to guys who aren't self motivated but thats not the players fault. Its up to the fans whether they want to pay to watch the product that the players put out. I think it would be perfectly acceptable for fans to stop showing up to games once ownership makes it clear that the team is not trying to compete for a championship. Fans wish that players hated opposing teams as much as the fans do- but seriously... what reason do they ahve to hate each other? They are millionaires on guaranteed contracts paid to play a game for a living. To me the more shocking the ones that are truly driven even though they have with 50 million dollars in the bank and 5 more guaranteed years than the guys who want to take advantage of their money and go out and party after the game.

They don't see other teams as the enemy. And really I don't see why they should. They are professionals playing a game for a living and they have fully guaranteed contracts. The ownership doesn't see this as a championship contending team or else they would have spent the MLE to upgrade the roster. I fully get why the players take advantage of their situation.

The Rockets just signed Lowry in the offseason- what reason do we have to think they are wanting to get rid of him? They have given every indication that they see Brooks as more expendable.

I'd love to get a big who could stretch the floor but to me the Hawks have an adequate backup bigman in Zaza- they don't have an adequate starter or backup PG. If Crawford is goign to get traded it has to be for a guard.

I don't see what that changes- I'd be thrilled for Lawson to start on the Hawks as well.

The pacers win was pretty easily the most impressive of the season so far. It was a decent team that wasn't decimated by injuries and the Hawks had control throughout the second half.

I'm always very skeptical of trade rumors that can't go through as reported and can't easily be tweaked to make it work. Teague and Pape Sy for Thompson is about all I could see to make this go through.

I don't think that you shop him because I don't think he has done enough to ahve any trade value. To me its the middle ground of "include him in a trade if it gets you what you want". But I don't want Teague to be the focal point of a deal. But if I had the chance to do Crawford and Teague for Billups I'd do that in a heartbeat.