TomSelleck

I don't think it's been fully appreciated that the Hawks have some psychological advantage in that they've been down this road three years now

You're right but I don't know if the Hawks have a psychological advantage in the conventional sense. I heard Sekou Smith on the radio during the Magic series and he said how the Hawks are incapable of feeling pressure. Not because they're so mentally tough but because they just flat out don't care. The team feeds off Joe Johnson's attitude where he knows he is getting paid either way and doesn't care if they win by 20 or lose by 20 and doesn't care if the building is full of Hawks fans or the opponent.

$17.7 million, 25.7 MPG, 10.9 PPG, 36.8% FG, 29.6% 3PT, 2.7 RPG, 4.0 APG, 11.00 PER

However, who's to say that we're not dogging it until the games count.

I would say the difference is in the past Orlando has shown the ability to dog it and then turn it on in the playoffs. They obviously crushed the Hawks last year, took care of the 76ers and Cavs pretty comfortably in 2009, and beat up the Raptors in 2008. This Hawks team has never, ever made it look easy in the playoffs. The only two series these Hawks players have won were way, way closer than they should have been. Now do I think Orlando can turn it on again? Not really. I don't think they're as good as they were. But their fans have at least seen it happen before.

Whether it's due to internal or external pressure, I don't know, but one way or another both Woodson and Drew seemingly put all their efforts into short term winning with players who already know how to play with little concern for long term winning and the player development necessary for that.

At the least I could see it going 6 games, maybe with the Hawks even winning. Not because the Hawks are any better than last year, but because Orlando is a lot worse.

so you must rather want LD or woodson only?

I want new players.

Doc's a great coach but let's not forget he went one-and-done every time his team made the playoffs (including choking away a 3-1 lead against Detroit in 2003) until they assembled the Big Three in Boston in 2007. With a mediocre roster he's been no more of a miracle worker than Woodson. Unless he can turn Teague into the next Rondo this team isn't going anywhere with him.

Few highlights of the Rick Sund era:

AUG 11 2008: Hawks match Grizzlies' $58M offer sheet, retain Smith

JUN 08 2009: **Breaking News** Hawks resign Zaza Pachulia (4 years)

JUL 29 2009: Hawks re-sign Marvin Williams for 5 years, $40 million

JUN 08 2010: Joe Johnson to sign a ridiculous deal with the Atlanta Hawks

JUN 13 2010:Hawks hire Larry Drew as head coach

Anyone saying this is BK or ASG's mess hasn't been paying attention to Rick Sund.

Don't forget the extension for Bibby. The thing to me is I don't see the reason the ASG fired Knight. You would think if they thought he did a bad job, they would have done something to break up the team he put together. Instead they've rewarded his entire starting lineup.

Exactly, all of that money is tied to only 5 players that share similar talents and positions. The ASG just decided that they can spend 60 million on the shooting guard and forward positions and then skimp on PG, C and the bench and expect to be successful. If they are going to go all in on those positions then they might as well go all in and into the tax to back them up.

Is that on the ASG or Knight and Sund? Those two guys are the ones who picked the players and subsequently decided to extend them. At best all the ASG did was say they were more than content to keep together a 1st round playoff team and not blow it up and try again.

When evaluating a trade one should always look beyond just whether the talent is equal but rather does the talent fit better. Look at the Thunder, a gimpy and one dimensional Kendrick Perkins is not worth a multi-dimensional player in Green, versatile C in Krstic and a lotto pick from the Clippers talentwise but it allows the Thunder to be more conventional and better defensively and on the boards. Despite them having a perennial MVP candidate and all-star PG they still would not have been a real threat in the West because they lacked size and toughness and now they have that in droves in addition to moving a very talented player in Ibaka both to his natural position and the starting lineup.

The thinking should be no different for us, both teams were built unconventionally in terms of having combo's and tweeners fill out the roster yet despite having greater talent than us the Thunder still realized the need to be more conventional in their design if they truly wish to win the West yet alone a Finals. Why should the Hawks believe otherwise with their inferior talent pool? We are beyond the point of demanding all star players in return for our pseudo all stars both as fans and the owners and absolutely must look for a way to move players in order to address positions of need whether or not said player(s) have a PER as high or the same "potential" of whoever we send out.

Extremely well said.

Because ownership refused to allow him to add an actually talented and therefore expensive player.

The Hawks have the #7 payroll in the entire NBA. Their problem is they're spending bad money, not that they're not spending enough money.

The only semi-significant move will be letting Jam Crawford go.

Maybe a little bit but it's still a dysfunctional roster with among the worst point guard situations in the league, an overpaid quasi superstar with no killer instinct, a 'tweener with no true position playing power forward, and a power forward playing center. Not exactly what you'd draw up if you were starting a team from scratch.

There's good coaching, decent coaching, and bad coaching. I've been an LD supporter all year but right now we are seeing bad coaching. Woody was decent. The whole point of changing coaches was to get someone to take us to the next level. Even if LD was doing a decent job it wouldn't be what he was hired for. The fact that he is doing a bad job should mean canning him now.

LD is doing a bad job, but it was a huge farce that any new coach was going to take this team any farther than what Woodson did. It's still a dysfunctional group of players with one of the worst point guard situations in the NBA, an extremely overpaid and unmotivated pseudo-star, a 'tweener with no true position at power forward, and a power forward playing center. Coaching wasn't going to fix that.

The biggest problem is it should be pretty evident that the window has closed on this Hawks team and any move to improve for 2011 or 2012 was pointless. If the Hawks did nothing a new window may have been possible by 2013, at the earliest. But now the team has given away two assets that could have helped open the new window (Jordan Crawford and 2011 1st round pick), the Hawks are looking more like their next window won't be opening until 2014 or 2015.

This is another sermon I've been preaching for years. How many times on this board have I talked about the Hawks one day having to pay the price for having BK run the show when he was clearly over his head? Sure, they improved over time but was THIS the reward we were looking forward to when they were losing 50+ games a year for nearly a decade?

The worst thing is that Sund was apparently too incompetent to know that BK's plan was going nowhere. BK may have acquired all the players, but Sund decided to give them new contracts, and for more money on top of that. Sund is the one who gave Marvin Williams a new $40 million contract, Mike Bibby a new $18 million contract, and Joe Johnson a new $120 million contract. He didn't have to. He could have said this team has already peaked we need to do things differently if we ever want to take it to the next level.

But, We're suffering because the root of the problem has never been fixed - a mismanaged rebuild.

yup

Agreed .What is a new coach gonna do for a team where the bigs

can't rebound, the guards cant shoot, and the sf has 2 left feet..

Exactly. The roster needs an overhaul.

I would hope they'd at least consider it if the right player came along. It would be a huge roll of the dice because they'll be out a ton of money if the team crashes out in the 1st/2nd round again. But it's worth the risk if it's a starting quality player at SF, PG or, to a lesser extent, C. I think the team actually has a shot against any of the East's teams now. But only if Josh and Al stay closer to the rim in the games that count. That, sadly, is something that can't be fixed by going over the tax line to sign a guy who fills a need, but such a signing might give us a bigger margin for error.

I just don't see another "starting quality player" being the difference between winning and losing in the first round of the playoffs. The Hawks' problem isn't with their starting quality players, it's with their star quality players. When you measure Joe Johnson as the Hawks' #1 star up against all the other eastern contenders' #1 stars, he's arguably last. Until the Hawks can find a player to legitimately match up with Dwight Howard, LeBron James, Derrick Rose, and Rajon Rondo, they'll be pretenders.

No one is going to willingly take over a contract that pays Johnson more than what LeBron James makes without passing on an even worse contract.

Johnson's contract is an albatross.

The Deron trade does bring up an interesting to bad idea. Do the Hawks need to hit the reset button and starting accumulating picks so that we can trade for the likes of Paul or DH12 next year? Take a 1.5 year drop in wins, to go all in in 13? I'm on the fence with this idea.

Yes. That's the exact reason they should have never re-signed Joe Johnson and that's the exact reason New Jersey was able to make this trade and Atlanta wasn't. The Nets abandoned all hope of winning two years ago trying to accumulate assets to make a big move. The Hawks have been too busy trying to lock up the #4 seed in the East to position themselves for a mega trade.

Woody was a good coach but it was time to move on. By far the biggest problem was Billy Knight. This team has an incredibly flawed roster and for some reason the owners and subsequent GM decided to keep the team nearly exactly the same as what Knight put together.

Marvin, Bibby and Mo for Carmelo satisfies the CBA. Add two #1's and we look very good. As far as outside of the court, Atlanta has two Major TV/Movie studios with two in the making. Of course the music biz is large and the new renaissance of writing and technology is the latest buzz. We may have a chance if we endeavor.

Compared to what Houston or the Clippers could offer that's a terrible package for Denver.