DatWerkk

I don't think what I was saying has anything to do with being a players' coach. You have a young dude you've invested a first round pick on. If you take him out of your starting lineup - especially after all the drama he went through earlier in his career with Bibby and Hinrich - you're telling him you don't believe in him anymore. Same thing happens in other sports with other teams (Dolphins with Chad Henne comes to mind as a recent example). And if you're telling a player you don't believe in him anymore, what else COULD you do other than trade him or let him go?

Anyone saying they would NOT start Jeff Teague should go ahead and start the "Trade Jeff Teague" thread, because if you bench him now you might as well tell him he's not part of our future plans. No way he can go back to the bench and continue being a productive member of this team.

Mid to late picks are not where you find the cornerstones of your franchise. So if you stockpile those picks but can't flip them into lottery picks, you're stuck holding a whole bunch of nothing.

Normally that's pretty sound strategy that I could agree with, but between Ibaka and Collison OKC seems to have the paint all locked up.

Let me preface this by saying anything can happen in one game. Now, judging by how the Thunder have looked, our offense looks like it's going to have to coke from our guards. Bonus if they can get it going from outside.Lou or Devin, in that order. DeShawn as a sleeper to score double figures. If LD's rotation made a little more sense I'd throw Morrow somewhere up there too but there's no telling if he'll even get on the court.Look to Zaza and DeShawn to keep us in it with rebounds and defense.

I guess 24 points is crashing to Earth when you've been averaging over 40? But boy, you sure are a hard man to please. Third game in four nights. Second game in a back-to-back. Playing on a hurt ankle. And he still led the team in scoring. It was a pretty poor shooting game for both teams overall too. Guess he can't win them all...

I came into this thread thinking it was going to be about how Al and LD have a chance to show they can maintain the team without Josh Smith's production. Didn't realize it was going to be about how they both performed so terribly last night. Silly me.I agree that LD's decision-making seemed suspect, but like TheFuzz said earlier in this thread, it's just one game. Personally I'm going to withhold judgment until I see the team play a few more games together. Anything can happen in one game in the NBA.

Win or lose, this game is important for us.I feel like LD is still trying some things and trying to figure out what rotations to use. Whether this is an okay thing to be doing even after the regular season starts is perhaps a discussion worth having, but to me that appears to be the case. And if I'm right, it's unfortunate to have an important player out of the lineup. That just means one more game down the line where LD might still be tinkering with things.That being said, I'm interested to see if someone else (say, Lou Williams?) can pick up the slack on offense and perhaps Al Horford or DeShawn Stevenson can pick up the slack on defense.

Been living in NYC since 2010, but I'm one of the very lucky ones. I left Manhattan last month and moved to one of the highest parts of Brooklyn (actually live walking distance and on the same street as the new Barclays Center). No damage to property, no loss of power, no loss of internet. It's strange watching the news and seeing how awful the damage was to some places while my family is doing okay. Hurricanes must only prey on the uninitiated. =)

I love this scenario. Obviously some of the other things said in this thread would be even BETTER but this one is actually quite realistic and could happen. We could also realistically get the #1 pick in next year's draft or attract CP3/Dwight/LeBron, but those are all hail marys at best. Not saying that us making the finals is something I would put money on, but I'd rather hope for something that's in our control rather than something that's not.

That video made me homesick like WHOA (lifelong Georgia boy, now living in NYC). When they showed Fat Matt's... #deadGO HAWKS!

I agree, +6 in the NBA is nothing to sneeze at. Given what Harden and Lin have shown you'd think the spread would be a little closer.

Not that you HAVE to plan a starting lineup this way, but if we're talking about matching up with what Houston puts on the court, Stephenson on Harden is really the only matchup you have to go out of your way to worry about. Neither Chandler Parsons nor Carlos Delfino are offensive juggernauts, so we can probably put whoever at SF we feel fits OUR gameplan, rather than worrying about Houston's gameplan.

Let's not exaggerate. Ish would have entire seasons where he shot like 40% from 3... because he was smart enough to take only like five 3 pointers in an entire season. That to me says he perhaps was smarter about his strengths and weaknesses than Josh. But it also says he doesn't have "literally" zero range. Unless of course you don't quite understand what the word "literally" means.

I'm pleasantly surprised to see so many of you guys think he might make the final roster. I know we have a need at that spot, just wasn't sure if Ish would be up to the challenge.I swear if we get a season of Jeff Teague running the break with Josh Smith and Muhammad on the wings, I will DIE.

Source: http://www.examiner....uhammad-to-camp Okay, if you're not a GT alum or GT fan like I am, this news probably doesn't even register with you. You probably don't think this news is worth posting. However, if you ARE someone like me (GT '04) you probably temporarily lost your mind when you saw this news. Let's be real for a minute. Isma'il was a below average offensive player in college. He couldn't hit a long jumper to save his life and didn't have a huge array of post moves. He's undersized for the league and in the seven years since he left Tech he's barely sniffed the NBA. Chances are this guy isn't making the team. However. HOWEVER. He was an above average defensive player and a key contributor to the Yellow Jacket team that fell in the championship to UConn. He's one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) college dunkers of my generation. His highlight reel is some of the greatest ish (no pun intended) that you'll ever see. I told my wife if he makes the team I'll have to strongly consider moving back to Atlanta, but I might just have to settle for a #2 Muhammad Hawks jersey. =) =) =)

Hasheem Thabeet on line 2.

I'm sorry, but what is it about having a 25% career 3-point field goal percentage that makes Tyreke Evans such a great option? No thank you.

Speculative and irresponsible. How about his numbers have been on the decline, he's getting old, they have at least two centers on the roster already who are better than him AND younger than him, and he was gonna cost them almost $10 million to keep around? You think that might be enough reason to amnesty somebody? Pure foolishness the way some of you are so quick to accuse someone of something so foul without a lick of proof.

Also, unless I'm missing something, the 13th man on the bench for an NBA team is NOT making half a mil. Starting your second year you're making $788k and by the time you get to your fifth year you're clearing $1 mil. So money-wise it's not even a close comparison to this hypothetical $500k/year overseas superstar.

Do any of you people saying these things about Chris Andersen actually READ the news, or do you just read the headlines and listen to gossip? No criminal charges have been announced and NOTHING WAS FOUND ON HIS COMPUTER. The current explanation, whether you believe it or not, is that he came under suspicion as a result of a failed extortion attempt by a former female fan (in New Orleans, if memory serves). He fully cooperated with the police when they came to search his home and they have nothing to charge him with (yet). It's pretty messed up to say these types of things about someone (the worst possible things you could say about someone, IMHO) when you haven't even bothered to stay current on what's actually been reported.

He averaged 21 and 7 that year. I'd say he probably deserved it. =)

Thank you! I find the opposite viewpoint unbelievably offensive, sexist, whatever you want to call it. How DARE Joe Johnson expect the mother of his child to pay at least some portion of her son's living expenses! Shame on him, SHAME SHAME SHAME! Seriously people, you bring a kid into this world, get ready to pay some bills for the next 18 years.

I keep hearing people say similar things about Korver. Can you provide a link or at least some context? I wanna read the details!

Just curious, how did you get that out of that article? Because what I got was that Josh Smith isn't doing ANYTHING to help recruit D12, because in his mind doing so would just make his friend's life more difficult. So if anything, we lost the hope/belief that Howard might be influenced because his bff Josh Smith is recruiting him hard. This article also made me wonder if while Smoove was unhappy if he was feeding Howard some NEGATIVE things about the franchise that would make Howard want to stay away. Doesn't seem out of the realm of possibilities...