Brokentree

It's closer to an optomistic pessimism for me but I'm excited to see a new season start and see how this team performs. I fully expect the Hawks to come out of the gate slow against good opponents and then pick it up midseason and go into the playoffs with some momentum. I'd even be happy with an 8 seed as long as that momentum is there going into the playoffs.

Champ: Utah Jazz MVP: Durant Rookie of the year: Wall Coach of the year: Jerry Sloan Defensive player: Dwight Howard 6th man: Antawn Jamison MIP: Roy Hibbert Celtics/Magic/Bulls Jazz/Mavericks/Lakers

NBA League Pass Broadband is supposedly free until November 2. Might be worth a look if you get desperate.

I went with broadband last year and thought it was ok. The black outs kind of got to me as I work a later shift so when I did get a chance to catch a game live on the weekends it seemed to not be available alot of the time. NBAtv I think was the main culprit. The idea that the game was on NBAtv.. but not on NBA league pass.. well that kind of pissed me off. On a plus note you could go back and rewatch alot of the games as they were archived.

Like one of these guys concerts? I'm just jokin.

Dampier was part of another team making an extraordinary amount of money for the last season of his contract. The Hawks could not trade for him and at the time did not know if he would be traded or waived. If he was waived they had no guarantee that he'd want to sign here. Etan Thomas was available cheap and he was signed. Dampier was waived a week or two later and we already had 4 players that could spend time at center signed. All the talk at the time Dampier was waived was him signing with Miami. Were we supposed to not sign any centers and wait until now to see if Dampier would sign with us for the minimum? Keep in mind that people were signing minimum contracts left and right with Miami to try and get a championship. Were we supposed to watch some other team sign Etan Thomas and just expect that Dampier would choose the Hawks? How would we feel if we didn't sign Etan and Dampier went and decided to play for Toronto or Houston anyways? The longer he takes to decide on a team to play for the more happy I am that we're not involved with him. The preseason has already started. He hasn't decided who he wants to play for yet. Does he just hate training camp? Is he holding out until the last minute to try and get more than a minimum contract from someone? Is he waiting for injuries to hit some team to drive up his value? The fact that he didn't sign with Miami and the fact that he hasn't signed with any other team implies to me that he is seeking something more than a minimum contract. The more I talk about it the more I think he is waiting for a team like the Hawks to use part of their mid-level to sign him. The Hawks have what? 3m roughly they can still offer before the luxury tax kicks in? Just say no Sund.

If Zaza and Etan can play a combined 30m+ and average a double double then I see no reason why Horford wouldn't play more minutes at PF than at C this year. To keep Smith on the floor for 30-35 minutes a night he would have to play some SF minutes. C- Horford 15m, Etan and Zaza 30m... oh.. FINE.. Jason Collins 3m PF- Josh Smith 25m , Horford 18m, Josh Powell 5m <--- is the Josh that loses out on minutes if Horford plays PF SF- Marvin 30m, JJ 10m, Josh Smith 8m, SG- JJ 25m, Jamal 15m, Jordan, 8m PG- Bibby 20m, Teague 15m, Jamal 13m Sprinkle in Mo Evans as needed.. and Pape Sy if he stays with the team all year. Ultimately the players that perform the best will get the minutes at whatever position they're doing well at. Horford can say he wants to play PF all he wants but if he doesn't do well he can't complain much if they don't play him there. Of course with the Hawks working on extending Horford they'd probably tell him he could play PG if he wanted to in hopes that he'd come a little cheaper. Maybe in the long run its all positioning. You know Al you're a 13m a year center.. but man.. you're only a 10m a year PF.

Can Marvin participate too?

Waiting on an extension for Jamal isn't just about seeing if we can trade him for something at the trade deadline. It's also about seeing if we can trade other players on the team. If we can trade for an expiring then we'd have room to extend both Crawford and Horford. If I am reading this right. Horford is playing on his rookie contract so if he gets an extension it has to be by Oct. 31 of this year (it falls on a Sunday so Nov. 1st is probably the actual date for this year). We can not extend him after that date. We can extend Jamal's contract up to the day it expires (June 30th). You can see why Horford takes priority. It would probably be more beneficial to start thinking about some expiring contracts we can trade for at the trade deadline that would clear us another 5-10m per year than to argue over whether we should extend Crawford now (gee Marvin's contract might work! hours and hours of fun for Diesel). The arguement that he "deserves it" does no good because we all basically agree that he deserves something. The fact is we can't do it now. Something else has to happen first. We have a few months of play to see who really wants to be on the Hawks.

Contract values don't match so this trade would not work. Melo and Billup's contracts equal about 30m and the contracts Denver is receiving is like 5 or 6m. You probably meant to include Curry but even then its only 16 or 17m. Atlanta would be receiving about 13m in contracts and the contracts of Bibby and Collins (can't be traded until December) is only about 6 or 7m. New York's numbers run about 23m of contracts in and 5 or 6m out. Keeping the trade similar but to make the dollars match: Denver receives- Jamal Crawford, Marvin Williams, Anthony Randolph, Eddy Curry, Atlanta's 1st rounder in 2011 New York receives- Carmelo Anthony Atlanta receives- Danilo Gallinari, Chauncey Billups I'm not a Billups fan so I wouldn't want him especially if we couldn't find another home for Bibby. I'd rather switch out Billups for Nene and see if he can stay healthy. Of course if we we're going to trade Marvin, Jamal, and a 1st you'd think we'd give NY the middle finger and just try and get Carmelo.

You seem rather stuck on the idea that Jamal as the 6th man is somehow proof that he is considered to be less important than the 5 starters. Jamal plays the 4th most minutes off all the Hawks players. His main qualities are that he is clutch, can generate his own scoring chances, and is an interchangeable part that can sub in at both the sg and pg positions. Three qualities that are all best utilized by a 6th man. He would be worth big money if he could defend better and he keeps his shot selection improved like this last year. The fact is we can not afford to pay him what you seem to think he is worth (though you probably won't tell anyone what you think he should be paid until the new CBA is done, get back to us in a year and a half). Lets continue with the "put yourself in his shoes" game I have been playing on bad teams ever since I joined the NBA and finally land on a winner. Not only did the team play well but I played well in a new role that I've never tried before and got praised.. alot... for my character. Heck, I even won an award. I should thank someone for the opportunity. I had my first playoff experience in the NBA ever. It was fun and I'd like to do it more often. I think the Hawks will be able to play in the playoffs alot and I'd like to resign. If I ask for too much we might lost some of our other players though which could make us worse. I'm going into the last year of my contract and I'm making 10m. I'm going to be 31 when next season ends and this will probably be my last chance for a contract in the 3-4 year range. A new CBA is coming and there is a good chance of a lockout next year. I want an extension now but it will never happen unless I'm willing to sacrifice some cash for security.

Don't use your values to decide whether other people are disrespecting something. Absolutely no disrespect is given on Jamal being the 6th man. I personally don't think its anything he should feel disrespected about. I feel its a good role for him and am proud that he was voted the best at it this last season. You can even say that I respect him more for fulfilling that role without some massive athletes ego thinking its disrespectful to him. I'll respect him even more if he signs a new contract with a 30% paycut just so that he can remain with the Hawks. He plays as many minutes or more then the "starters" so its really a mute point anyways. The team always comes first. I like Jamal, but I like the Hawks more. The idea that we can't afford to pay our 6th man ,aka Jamal, more then 20m over 3 years is based on the fact that we have 50m in payroll next year not including Horford and not including Jamal (and not including 5 other yet to be named players). We just can not afford to pay any more for a player that is not also a defensive threat. This board is slow during this time of year for obvious reasons. Are we going to compound that by not posting anything with a number in it until the new CBA is done? Shouldn't it be ok to value a persons worth to a team based on what we currently know? I think people are smart enough to know that a new CBA can potentially change everything we are currently talking about. While I am interested in seeing how Drew uses Jamal this season I'm more interested in how he uses the whole team. I'm especially curious to see Marvin. This year is his last chance in my eyes. Woodson is gone. He has now officially run out of excuses. If he really wants to "help the team" he should start by playing some offense. I also want to see how Teague responds to the offense. I think Teague and Marvin are our biggest x factors. We can kind of imagine what we'll get out of our other players regardless of the offensive system but these two are a huge question mark and I think will have a big influence on the teams season.

Larry Drew was perhaps one of the worst coaching changes this year. Compare him to the others on the list and tell me you wouldn't rather have a Byron Scott, Tom Thibodeau, Avery Johnson, or Doug Collins. The only real debate would be over Drew and Monty Williams. I don't think anyone would have been too thrilled with Vinny Del Negro. This is also a forcast. Which coach will benefit his team the most? How can Drew benefit the Hawks? Well a 2nd round win would be great. Yeah, not the easiest thing to do. How can the other coaches benefit their teams? Well some of them just want more wins. Avery Johnson needs to pull at least 13 wins out of his magic hat. Doug Collins needs to aim at 28 or more. Tom Thibodeau needs to beat .500 ball and try to win a 1st round series. Poor Byron Scott needs to try and prove that Lebron isn't all that.

. Can be read as "I have been reading that is some people's opinions we should trade Jamal for a variety of different reasons." The word opin is either short for opinion or opine. Divers is the basically the same as diverse. I had a hard time reading it as well but with minimal effort I think I understood it fine. As for Jamal. I like the guy on the court and the guy always seems to impress in his interviews. I thought the same thing about Bibby before last year. There just isn't enough money to go around to be able to pay a 6th man that much money. If we could get him to sign on for 3 years 20 million then I'd be ok with it. Anything more in years or money I think is too much. He doesn't have good defense to fall back on as he ages so when he does start to fade offensively its going to hurt his worth that much more. That being said. I rank Horford's contract to be way more of a concern then Jamal's. I believe Horford can only get better where as we can only hope that Jamal doesn't degrade.

They should be ashamed of themselves for appearing in this video and it has nothing to do with image and everything to do with the fact that the video and song itself more or less blows.

This whole thread is throwing around assumptions at his ex-wife. It's not an assumption that he was in financial trouble. It is also not an assumption that he was involved with shady people. The assumption is that they are connected and that his association with these shady people was at least at one point voluntary. I find that assumption no worse then the assumption that his ex-wife has some guilt in these events. For all we know he may have still loved her. Perhaps it would be best if no one commented at all about this very sad event until the facts are given light.

The Nets haven't even started to use their cap space and they aren't going to trade for a contract like that until they are at the cap. I see them tanking this season and seeing what they can get in the lottery next year. If they can get some good players signed in free agency next year then they might consider JJ. The bottom line is JJ is the type of player and has the the type of contract that teams are only going to trade for if they feel confident that their team can contend. They would be stupid to hit the panic button when they have the opportunity to build a really good team in time for their move to Brooklyn.

The first 3 years of JJ's contract is fairly reasonable. The 4th year starts to get unreasonable. The 5th year is going to suck. In the 6th year it becomes one of those super expiring contracts that we'll all be excited about wondering what we can get for it.

You can barely even begin to explain because you can't. The logic is there and you are just not willing to accept it. If people are not willing to pay for things then people should not get them. People seem to naturally think that things on the internet are free. It is a fundamental flaw in how people have come to think. Is it ok for a newspaper on the east coast to take an article from a newspaper on the west coast and print it based purely on the idea that its harder to get west coast newspaper on the east coast? Oh darn its harder to distribute over there so yeah you can just have it? No no.. don't be crazy. You don't need to pay us for it. Where are peoples ethics? Oooh people that read my blog will love this article, copy.. paste.. cha-ching!$ Thats quite the work ethic there. Sure the guy might seem like some sneaky lawyer but he would not be able to do this if it wasn't based on someone doing something wrong. If people are hiring him to do what he does then those people do indeed feel that it is hurting them.

Journalists might not be paid per hit but the people that pay them sure are. The more hits they get the more advertisement dollars they can potentially land. If they aren't making money then in the long run alot of journalists aren't either. The company I work for makes cheese. Should I care whether people buy our cheese or someone elses? The company doesn't pay me for each unit they sell afterall.

I hate to go against the flow but I more or less agree with this. The entire reposting of an article is just plain stealing. The article is posted on a site so that people go to that site and are annoyed by that sites advertisements. Its how they make money and its how they pay bills and its how they feed their children. Now if we're talking about links to articles with maybe a quote or two that is completely different. A link is free advertisment for their site. If funnels people to that site that would otherwise never see it. It creates hits and increases their revenue. Links=GOOD. Copy+Paste=BAD.

To try to explain how bad Arenas' contract is let's compare it to JJ's. If we traded for Arenas he would be our highest paid player. Even if we were able to trade JJ for Arenas it would be a negative impact on our Salary Cap until his contract expires. Arenas makes more money per year up to the end of his contract in 2013 than JJ makes up to that point. Only the final two years of JJ's contract is for more money then the final year in Arenas' contract. The advantage Arenas' contract has is that it ends two years sooner. I can't think of any trade scenario where we get Arenas and our salary cap isn't completely f'd up. Washington's young talent is not signed long term and I don't think they'd give up much. Even if we got them included in the trade how do we resign them? We can't forget that we're going to want to resign Horford as well. The trade exception would not do much for us. It can only be used to trade for a player of equal or lower value. We can split it up but we can not combine it with anything else. We can trade a 3m TE for a 3m contract or we can trade 1.5 of the TE for a 1.5m contract and still have a 1.5 TE to use. It's the difference between this trade not working ESPN Trade Machine and this trade working ESPN Trade Machine. This trade, by the way, includes every immediately tradeable player on Washington's roster. It is next to impossible, but it is also probably the only trade I'd be OK with. Hell with the salary cap.. that's some good depth there.

Definitely not a luxury tax guy. He would be a difference maker in the regular season perhaps. Shaq, I think, would be more of a difference maker in the playoffs. Regardless of their actual contributions on the court I think Shaq adds the most value to the team in ticket and merchandise sales.

ESPN Trade Machine We take a contract that they think is bad in Okafor and they take a contract we think is bad in Williams. We take the high potential Collison that is a questionmark to resign and they take the high potential Horford that is a questionmark to resign. We throw in Teague because we don't need him and they might. CP no longer feels the heat from a younger player and instead has a pg that played at the same school as him and they can be all buddy buddy. We move JJ to SF and Jamal starts at SG PG Collison SG JamalC SF JJ PF JSmith C Okafor Big question mark would be our bench. Can young Crawford and Mo Evans step up? Will Bibby be effective as a backup pg? Okafor doesn't play as many minutes as Horford does.. can Zaza pick his play up a notch? Depending on how the season goes we could possibly resign/trade JamalC or look for a replacement SG or SF next year. N.O. PG CP SG M Thornton SF Williams PF West C Horford They have a large expiring in Peja Stojakovic next year (who is nothing more then a bench player now imo) and could try to resign Horford. Overall a fair trade I believe. If Collison played like he did last year when he started then we'd get a pretty good deal out of it. Fortunately CP and Collison can't play at the same time unless they are on different teams. We shift our "who is going to play center?" question to them and they shift their "who is going to play SF?" question to us. The biggest question in my mind is whether this makes CP happy or not. Would he feel like NO could contend? Would NO take on 1.5million in salary if it means Lebron would... I mean CP's "associates" would shut up about CP wanting to be traded?

I didn't mean to come across as being exceedingly serious but be you were out on context and therefore not even close to funny. I can see where you were coming from though.