FastFreddie

51 wins.  None will matter if we don't get to the title game. 

This personal trainter gets my vote, but only if it's in that exact outfit.

 

 

Michelle Lewin

Not sure that trailer would help our players "on" the court. 

Teague makes 8 million and hes going nowhere.

After today's signings I can't see how anyone would think dumping Teague would be saving us money.  It would take well over $15 million just to get someone even close to his talent level.  Teague is going nowhere for the next 2 years. 

Well atleast we will get the best out of Milsap with the 2/3 year deal.  Hate to see what contracts are going to look like in 2 years ....

It would have to be Horford/Dennis for Cousins and probably some picks that we would of given away anyhow.  It would make the resign Sapp/DMC crowd stance make more sense and give us a great presence inside.  Randolph seemed to have alot of attitude problems before he went to Memphis and maybe Cousin would benefit to a big change scenery.  Whats the saying about having one knucklehead in the locker room but don't give him a friend.  Well we don't have any so we can afford to take a chance if this prayer is answered.  

In a recent interview with Newly acquired Tim Hardaway jr.....Bud expressed several times throughout the interview that he wanted Paul and DMC back.

I believe that this has probably been in the works for a long time and that deals are probably already on the table for both. I think we will sign Millsap for his EB Max and sign DMC for 12m.

Link:

http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/article25791463.html

To me there's a different problem we will all soon be talking about and that's the big man situation. I say Sap and DMC comes back no worries.....what is budcox plan on adding a needed center? They can't turn back to pero this time around....Elton brand is done.....????

This is my main problem with letting Coach Bud run the roster ... he may be too personally invested in some of these players to see the other problems with our lineup. Rebounding, consistent scoring from the post, and defense around the rim were pretty bad come playoff time.  I don't see how bringing DMC and Milsap both back fixes any of that.  

Letting Ferry go will be the biggest mistake ever.

Lets hope not but so far its not looking very good. 

Bud's coaching in the playoffs was less than stellar also.

Great 75% of the regular season means nothing unless you get a title.  Hawks really should of hired a true GM because letting a second year coach pick his roster might be too much.  Sometimes you liked the people that you work with which makes objective decisions regarding whether their the right fit or paying them their true value.  I'm afraid we won't shake up this roster enough this offseason to see us progress to the finals. 

Even though i like a more traditional look, which the Hawks havent had since St. Louis, the new ones i think are ok. I believe they will look even better on the players.......

 

 

They looked like crap on the players IMO ... guess we're the Oregon ducks of the NBA now.  Changing uniform/image isn't going to make the Hawks fanbase bigger or more dedicated.  Adding the right players in FA might help but ATL has always been a fickle market in every sport.   

Nope.  Like the current/former uniforms better. 

I'm still bitter - I haven't watched one second of the finals. Can't wait for it to be over.

I'm that way with most of my sports teams whether its Hawks, UGA, or Falcons.  I will sometimes watch the CFC or Superbowl but I don't remember the last NBA finals I actually watched the majority of a game or series. 

There are blanket statements, and then there's rule of thumb, and then there's conventional wisdom. Whatever you want to call it, I think there's a paradigm shift ready to occur here, given the TV contract and cap projections.

 

Seems to me, any player optimally wants to negotiate whatever he can negotiate with an option year, as PSSSH suggests, giving a couple of cracks at timing one's entry into the free agency pool.

 

Beyond that, I can understand the less established players perhaps would look to maximize years. I can also understand the same for established players who have had large chunks of time off the court due to injury.

 

However for any established player, particularly those who are in their prime, I think you have to approach it that I want to give myself every chance to play for maximum value.

 

Would that apply to Millsap? I think so.

 

Would that apply to DMC? If he's serious that he thinks himself capable of consistently performing at a Paul George level... and I'm not completely sure that he does, but if he does... then yeah, it only serves to reason that he would, too.

This might be Millsaps last chance for a big long term deal ... like you said who knows what he'll be looking at getting if he signs a 2 year deal.  He's not a Lebron and age is creeping up on Milsap.  Market might get flooded with similar talent in a couple of years and all he will get offered is one or 2 year deals.

If DMC gets offered a 12-15m 4 yr deal he'd be crazy not to take it.  His stock is about as high as it could be in my opinion with his playoff performance.  50/50 chance he's playing at this level on another team in a couple of years. Definitely take the guaranteed money if I'm his agent.  

A year in jail for a DUI?

Depends on how many you have also.  If you have multiple offenses you can get prison time in many states.

I know he offered longer contracts to them, but I'm sure the reason they wanted to wait was due to the money offered. Millsap could've been offered $1m or $2m more to lock him in long-term. As for Demarre, I'm still over here scratching my head. You can't sell a career journeyman into a longer contract? Haha. What?

Lots of players contracts were slated to end this year and next year specifically because of the cap space jump. Thats what the agents wanted because everyone knew the salary cap bump was coming ... look at even Lebron's contract that ends next year.  We should just be happy to we had them for 2 years and in DMC's case it worked well for both sides.  If he flopped it wouldn't have hurt us but we got 2 great years out of him.  He earned his money and someone is going to pay for his services. 

Appreciate everything Paul Millsap did in his two year stint here. He's a professional through and through.

Paul and DMC were the hardest working guys on this team.  I really appreciated his play this season even if he struggled after his injury.  If we didn't have Horford and were signing a center I'd liked to see him back.   

I actually felt sorry for Milsap and Horford today. Really, the whole team. Management lost this series and this championship when they got rid of Payne and stayed pat at the trade deadline. They felt this munchkin lineup in the front court could get it done, along with Pero Antić.

 

More than ANYTHING, it was the lack of size and rebounding in the post that destroyed the Hawks. Teams figured out that all you have to do is control the paint against the Hawks and dont worry about their jump shooting.

 

If they stay the status quo and resign the same players going into next year, it will be worse because the East is gonna be better. They better get SOME BIGS thru the draft, and or, free agency and move Horford over to power forward.  Im not sold on Tavares. From the limited stuff ive seen of him, looks too stiff and unathletic to hold the paint down.

That is what having a very successful team in Dec/Jan did for us.  Unfortunately when you build a team that has 5 good players starting with no great players it can't afford to have injuries or very many off-nights. Cleveland was down 2 starters also for pretty much the whole series but seemed to manage quite well because of good defense, rebounding, and good play from Lebron(his refs also).  Injuries or not we weren't going to win this series with the way our defense played and how bad we did on the boards.     

My biggest problem with this roster is that we had no guys step up in the playoffs other than DMC until he got hurt.  I criticized why Teague didn't want to go in for Dennis on the play Horford bailed him out on for not having balls.  We need players that want the last shot in these big games.  We could of been in game 1 or 3 if we had someone to pull the rest along and in those close games we struggled with the Nets/Wizards.  Remember when they asked everyone in the interview mid season about who would take the last shot and they all just looked around.  That's how they looked in tight situations in the playoffs. 

Why would top tier free agents want to come to Atlanta?  Would it be our

record and our coaches?

 

No.  Really, how many Hawk players do we see on national TV doing advertising

for any product?  Think of all those players we see.  Who do they play for?  Or,

if they are former players, did they ever play for Atlanta?  No, I don't think so.

 

Endorsements by pro NBA, NFL and MLB totals up to big $$$.  Until Atlanta can

sell some major company on the idea of having their player or players featured

we will not be the most desirable location for any super all star.

 

Money talks, big time. 

 

Now, having said that, for those free agents below the super star, they will now

feel drawn to our Hawk team.  Everyone loves a winner and we are what our record

says that we are!

 

Its the player in the NBA that gets the national endorsements not the market.  Look at Lebron in Cleveland or Durant in OKC ... probably much worse markets than Atlanta. Not saying that players wouldn't rather play in LA or NYC because of other factors but Superstars get paid regardless of location.  

We will have to see what the new owners are willing to do to attract big ticket talent.  I think they are going to have to overpay to bring in a great addition but this season certainly didn't hurt us as far as maybe showing that we are pretty close for someone looking to get a ring.  

http://screengrabber.deadspin.com/bah-gawd-its-an-al-horford-the-rock-peoples-elbow-mash-1706762966?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

Horford dropping the peoples elbow. 

Don't know what Bud has against Moose

I cheered for Moose to get his shot and he got it.  He was getting abused from anyone with more weight on them.  Unfortunately Moose is going to have to add some bulk or learn to play the 3 slot because he can't bang with NBA boys. 

We have got to be the worst final shot team in the playoffs.  Awful playsets for the final shot in regulation and in OT.  It's been that way in every series. 

And that's another forbidden topic. Besides we are having a hard enough time of drafting anybody worthy of note in the teens, even with a genius GM. Ok, that's my third bitter post. I'll stop.

Its pretty hard to get a star player when your always picking in the teens and its the biggest downfall of making the playoffs every year to end up with nothing.   Usually your star players are the first few picks with some drafts being alittle deeper or getting lucking with mid/later round picks but its hard to get that star player in the NBA draft.  Unfortunately Atlanta has been frowned upon by free agents because of ownership, fanbase, market, etc and its very hard to get A+ talent to come here.  We are probably going to have to overpay someone like we did Joe Johnson to get better talent.  

I just hope we win a f***ing game for starters

If we can steal game three it would be a great start.  9 pt dogs at the moment and I wouldn't touch it. 

Upgrade the talent level?  We have four all star players already.  Do you think we need five?  Six?

Lets be honest.  Horford is probably the only legit all star talent we will have on this roster next year.  We got 4 selections because of December/Jan and if the all star game was held after the playoffs it would of been 2 Horford/Carroll.  I agree with the OP that we need a true center and that should be made priority but hopefully Carroll can be brought back.  I'd definitely be open to trading Dennis because Teagues contract/talent is too good to let go. 

I dont think we are purposely abandoning our ball movement on offense. Teams have game planned and have scouted our plays and we are struggling to break down and create any separation from the the defense which leads to very stagnant offense. 

 

Edit: the 1 thing I will give Bud heat for is his head scratching rotations

Teams have been playing much better defense against us since the all star break.  I thought Bud did a good job rotating players through the regular season to limit starters minutes but injuries have caught up with a few of them.  Hawks aren't built around a dominate player so when 2 or 3 are knicked up this engine appears to fall apart quickly. Teague looks like he is just plain tired from the season and is struggling to give us a complete game.  Honestly unless he's playing at a high level Bud's system isn't going to work in playoffs.  We don't have a big body to rebound or play solid defense in the paint so all these missed shots are killing us on both ends. Dennis doesn't have the experience or skill set to run Buds system even if he has the energy.  Hopefully we can win one in Cleveland but this team will need alot of roster work this offseason to keep building.  Clevelands GM make some great pickups midseason and it has payed off for them.  We're getting smoked by a Cleveland team without Irving or Love. 

Come on Hawks.  We need to win the next 2 games to be in this series.