LamarHampton

The Great White Hype! The Honkey Hope! You will be missed, good sir. As a white guy who can't dribble, you inspired me and countless others to pick up a basketball and practice my threes more than I otherwise would have. Hearing about your summer training regimen also inspired me to work harder as a mid-30-something guy. Thank you for The Streak. Thanks for the clutch threes. Thanks for sparking our offense. Thanks for your very underrated defense. Thank you for your great movement without the ball. Thank you for your BBIQ. Thanks for the time you spent helping our other Hawks getting better at their shooting, whether it was Anthony Morrow or Dennis or THJ. Thank you for all of your love for the city of Atlanta and your time spent on volunteer and charity work here and around the country. A real standup guy if there ever was one. Easily one of my Favorite Hawks of the last decade, if not longer. Hopefully you will make it back to Atlanta as a player and/or a coach in the near future. Best of luck (except against the Hawks) in the rest of your career and life. The city of Atlanta really lost a great guy in this trade.

I just can't take the tanking talk seriously. Can't imagine ownership would spend so much for the team, commit to major renovations, bring Dwight back with all sorts of fanfare, etc only to tank and have attendance plummet so they lose even more money. Just seems incredibly unlikely that is the plan. And I don't think moving Kyle by himself will result in us accidentally tanking either, so I just think it's off the table all around, in plan or reality.

I haven't kept up with his production the past couple of years, but I used to really like Dunleavy's game. Seemed like he was only slightly worse of a shooter than Kyle but had more moves, was a good passer, hustled, moved well without the ball, and knew his role. Basically a slightly worse shooter but could create slightly better than Kyle and could pass and handle the ball better than Kyle. Haven't kept up with him basically since the back surgery but I have a general good impression. My opinion could be swayed by better, more recent information, however. And I haven't even bothered to look up his recent stats since it sounds like he's on the move anyway, but if he stays then I am cautiously optimistic about his production and ability if he actually sees minutes. Again, being lazy because it sounds like the plan is to move him anyway, but is his contract an expiring or does it go beyond this season?

I've felt like the officiating this year has been strikingly worse than in prior years. I usually would spot a couple or three calls where I said "what the..." but now it's about twice that. As for Holtcamp, I think she's actually been pretty good, but like you, my first reaction was like "well, that wasn't called for." But then they went back and showed the slow motion of her telling Ibaka "that's enough" but he kept running his mouth. On top of that he'd been pretty vocal and critical of their calls, so in light of all that, I can understand the ejection. It didn't affect the outcome of the game, and he sort of had it coming. If an official says "that's enough" and you keep running your mouth (and I think he muttered a couple of obscenities in her direction), a tech is justified. (In his case it happened to be a second because of his stupid ball slamming - a big no no nowadays.) But there were some calls that were bad that went in the Hawks favor. There was one where Moose went over the back of somebody and knocked the ball out of bounds but they said it was the Hawks ball. That scramble where Afromop Payton went out of bounds was questionable but went in the Hawks favor (and resulted in an Ibaka tech from the aforementioned ball slamming). All in all, I think there were some questionable, if not poor calls, but it's been that way all season more than any other season I can recall. And this one a lot of the calls went in the Hawks favor, which is a welcome change, since we normally get the crap end of that crap stick.

This is true. Also, being in FL he would have saved more in taxes, but he opted to take a lesser amount in pure contract terms as well to stay in Atlanta. Don't think it was huge, but with the discount coupled with tax benefits, he did lose out on a notable amount of money by not going to Orlando.

He is. He's always on the sidelines and shooting during commercial breaks and pre-game. He's literally at every game I've been to and can shoot the three ball pretty well. Better than Baze.

Sorry, the language is "not openly shopping" Sap instead of "not actively shopping" ... they're "taking calls" which doesn't necessarily mean that ATL is the one that initiated the calls. Just trying to keep the correct perspective here; if we do move him I want it to be a great deal for ATL just like everyone else here. (And I hope they can find a taker for Baze while they're at it.) The Atlanta Hawks have begun listening to trade pitches for All-Star forward Paul Millsap in recent days, according to league sources. S‎ources told ESPN.com that the Hawks, fearful of losing Millsap in free agency without compensation in the summer, are not openly shopping him but are taking calls on the 31-year-old and other pending free agents, notably sharpshooter Kyle Korver and swingman Thabo Sefolosha. – via ESPN

Yes. The answer is yes. Modz please lock thread. Answer has been provided. Kthxbye Wooty toot toot!!!! Gooooo HAWKS!

I take back everything bad I've ever said about Timmy. Dude made big strides in his redemption tonight. Absolutely killed it. Baze on the other hand ... shyte. Dude can't even get a decent percentage of his free throws.

Funny. @Dolfan23 said the same thing... But because he couldn't keep it to himself while at the playground, he's "indisposed" for awhile *ahem*awaiting trail*ahem* I think that's a lot better than what they'd really offer. I figured it'd be more like Olynyk (a/k/a Oh-Licky per Nique) and a 2nd rounder in 2022. F Ainge. It's totally possible but I'm still not going to be surprised if he sticks around and comes up with a halfway tolerable deal. He's given us a break in the past - not a huge break, but notable - and he might do something like that this go 'round. I know that it's his last chance at a big deal, and I wouldn't blame him for getting as much as he can. I still think that he might realize he has a good situation and the teams that might offer him the most in FA might not be so good, and there's nothing worse than being on a crummy team year after year. Especially if this team finally gets it together and the chemistry starts clicking; we've already seen glimpses of what they can do and accomplish. Plus, Bud may foresee a full-on collapse w/o Sap and ownership likely wants to avoid that at all costs, and it's possible we won't get offered anything decent for a him, so Bud may just want to ride it out and hope for the best. I understand both sides of it and I could see really anything happening. Not trying to pull a Supes with a "this team will win between 30-60 games" thing; I just don't think it's as easy as "We let Al walk and got nothing so we have to move Sap." I think Bud likes him a lot and probably wants him to stay, there's a lot at risk, the chemistry may be slowly gelling which could appeal to Sap, and we may not get offered enough to pull the trigger. And the reports say that they are "not actively" trying to move him but have agreed to listen to offers, so ... could be anything. Just sayin.

Still too soon. Preach it, and hell, even post about it on your new Xmas cell phone. This man speaks The Troof. And I know I shouldn't keep bringing him up, but seriously, when was the last time Alice even sniffed 20 rebounds??? Dwight makes it looks so easy. Had several games like that this year, and tonight he had five rebounds in the first 3 minutes. Sheesh. Getting all tingly just thinking about it... Yeah, very ugly. I was at the game and it didn't look any better from there either. speaking of ugly, two things about Milsap: his past two games have been just that:ugly. I give him a pass though, specifically because ... His face is f'ing ugly. Did yall see it? Maybe they werent allowed to show it as much on t.v. because of young audiences or whatever, but from a few rows back I could see the horror pretty clearly. He got that elbow in the eye so bad he looked like a black version of Sloth from The Goonies. Or like Glen from The Walking Dead after his date with Lucille. Damn, I don't blame Sap for missing all those shots, his eyes don't point in the same direction now, so give the man a damn break. I'm surprised he can make his way from the locker room to the court. oh, and it was funny seeing all the Knicks fans get so upset about losing this one. They were complaining about all the bad calls, which in my eyes seemed to go both ways, but whatever, we had Bazemore playing extended minutes so we had our own handicaps on top of bad officiating. Gooooo Hawks!

Would do that in a hot second for hawks, but not sure why Portland would.

What are the chances we can actually unload Baze? Are there really teams that would take him for garbage? He just seems like such a negative, it is hard to imagine someone wanting him at all. I thought his contract was ok, but now that he can't hit the broad side of a fat lady with the ball, I dunno. It's been such a long stretch of games where he's been bad, and that's not a small contract... Ugh

Not sure I agree here. I am all about trying to find a silver lining but Bembry didn't really seem like it. He was out of control for a good portion of his time on the floor. Just trying too hard. Not crazy bad like Baze has been or whatever, but if I wasn't familiar with the team and I'd watched the game, I would have assumed he was the rookie on the floor is all. Wasn't impressed, 7 pts or not. only positive i could find in the game was Howard, and that was at least slightly tarnished by that ugly turnover on the inbounds pass that was stolen for a dunk. But 9/9 and double digit rebounds is always welcome in my book. *ahem*Alice*ahem* I wonder if Howard is having signing regrets... Like Bud is almost certainly having about Baze

As an aside to the original post but related to the above, at first glance it seems cool, but when you really think about it, how awful is it for those Mormon guys with multiple wives like on that show Sister Wives?!? Those guys have to be crazy. Sure you get a bit of variety, but they're almost all chubby and ugly mamas. Get a bunch of sassy, tubby women together and their cycles get all synced up, throw in all their crazy mother-in-laws, and those poor guys are seriously in for it. They must use that PMS Buddy app to plan their monthly week-long "hunting trips." No. Thank. You. One crazy chick is enough for me. Can't imagine a herd of them. (can you imagine how much those big bovine ladies eat???)

Man, that's a nice haul! I am jealous, for sure. Crazy to think that we won't be able to hound you with jokes about your wood-fired, rotary flip phone. Man, things sure are changing in Hawksland this year.

I was four. I never watched the hawks with Dominique, except for the game my uncle took me to right before they traded him when I wasn't really even aware. But I am thankful for what he brought to the team and franchise. EABOD bulls and Celtics!!!

Can someone tell me why Dennis got a tech around the 10-min mark in the third in this game? I couldn't figure out why that happened and I didn't notice him jawing with the refs or anything like that. TIA

Let's just say I'm a multi tasker. I can watch t.v, the Internet on one screen, and type on the other screen with one hand. so many people seem to be of the opinion that we only succeed if we win the 'ship or at least make it to the ecf. Its not that simple for me. beating the living s*** out of the Celtics would also be considered a success, regardless of most everything else. Not just because of Al either.

Was thinking about this earlier to myself and thought I would gauge the Hawksfolk. If the Hawks only accomplishment this year was knocking Cleveland out of the playoffs, would you consider that a success? e.g., the Hawks face Cleveland in the first or second round, knock Cleveland out, but subsequently lose themselves, would you still feel good about this season and / or consider this season a success? To be entirely clear, I am not saying I think the Hawks can or will beat Cleveland in the playoffs. I am just posing a 'what if?' Personally, I would. Given it is the first year integrating Dwight and Schröder into the starting unit, both of which are major changes, and Cleveland has been our primary stumbling block these last couple years, I would consider that a huge success knowing that we found a way to answer the Cleveland question. Even if the Hawks continued their up and down play, stumbled into the playoffs as an 8 seed, and managed to knock out Cleveland, only to be subsequently be swept by whomever, I would still walk away from the season happy. Not thrilled, but overall positive and happy. Not only because we would have an answer for CLE, but because I would expect Dwight and Dennis to fit much better next season and have even more potential. (Still, I recognize we have a lot of FAs this offseason, which is another issue, but still.) Again, not saying it will happen. But if it did, how would you view the season?

What was the Dennis tech for in the third? Somehow I missed what that was all about. And I am glad Timmy is alright but I was sort of thinking it might be a silver lining that we may get to see a good bit more Prince with THJ out for the knee issue. At least we will see him in the rotation more with Baze sitting another one out with his hurt knee.

Made the mistake of letting my buddy get the tickets for this one and wound up paying a pretty hefty price to sit in the 200's waaaay back up under the overhang, where it coincidentally smelled like someone threw up moments before we arrived. When we got to our seats late in the first quarter, the Hawks were already down 20-something. Shortly after that, at the start of the second, we witnessed the Hawks go on a run of the bad kind: three turnovers in a row. We were sharing confused and concerned looks by this point, especially since Davis was nowhere to be seen and Hawks were getting destroyed. Old man behind me tried to start something with me since I was standing up dealing with two guys who thought we were in their seats (but turned out they were in a different section). Old man was rude as f$&k anyway. Asshat. My buddy got ripped off on his bag of popcorn. Concession didn't have the beer I normally get for my lucky third quarter beer break. Hawks were playing some of the worst basketball I have ever seen in person AND had the misfortune of actually paying for. And to top it all off, an extra shake or two of the guy next to me in the bathroom led to some dribbles landing on my shoe. There was some of that baaaad New Orleans voodoo juju with this one, folks. I should've stayed home. Bad all around.

is he just on a strictly one-year deal or do we have any rights to him (like a team option) for next year?

Stinger gives really competent analysis. Wish he had a bigger role in the broadcast.

Just because of this I went out and bought some of these bad boys ... playing tricks on folks at work to-morrow!