macdaddy

I might have guessed in the first few months that we wouldn't get 20 wins. I never would have guessed that we wouldn't get 15.

What if we trade the #1 pick (assuming we get it) plus Harrington and maybe another pick for Howard and maybe a bad contract. But, I don't see anyway Orlando is trading him unless they like Bogut more.

Before this season no one would have compared Harrington and Kmart. They were both on top teams in the east, but Kmart was a starter and one of the critical pieces of the Nets. Al was great off the bench for the Pacers but certainly not a critcal piece. I agree Al is better offensively and Kmart is probably not worth paying the max. But if you have a good team you would rather have Kmart than Al given the choice.

Ron Mercer is going to be pissed that you lumped him with Ed Gray. I don't want any part of an argument about which 19 year old is better, but I do like that the Hornets are running a lot of offense through JR. I wish Smoove had more plays run through him in these meaningless games. His strong suits are rebounding, blocking, dunking so lets let him work on his post play and shooting. I think he's 'hit the wall' because he's bored waiting for some offense to come his way.

I disagree with you on that one Diesel. Willis, Anderson, Barry were here to be leaders on the chance that we were a decent team. When that didn't happen Willis went DL and the other 2 were shipped. The reason Willis sits on the bench every night is that he is a leader. Googs is in good shape, has a good shot and is still much more valuable than we expected willis and KA to be. He's a good player to have on a good team. BUT. If we learned anything from the year before BK has no intention of keeping him.

I'm ok with trading Harrington, but this trade would leave us without a real scorer. We'd be a great rebounding team though because we'd have some great rebounders and a lot of bad shooters.

If we could land Paul, Dalembert and Hughes that would be a very very successful offseason. How sad is it that we are excited about being "watchable".

BK doesn't make 'mistakes' like this. He accomplished 3 goals by trading Walker: -got a 1st round pick whenever it is rather than nothing by letting Walker go in free agency. We did not need Walker for the rest of the season. -Ensured that we would stay at the bottom of the league to get the a high draft pick -as a bonus rewarded Walker for being a great team player and leader while he was here. I don't totally understand why analysts who know a lot more than I do about the business don't see that not doing the trade would have gotten us nothing while doing the trade got us something. Good deal for all involved.

Woody is in about as secure a position as anyone in the east despite having the worst team. Being tight with BK I think he's guaranteed at least another year here. Firing Silas is sad though. Sure they have LeBron but they went from nothing to good in one year with Silas/Lebron and now they are 5th in the East. Its not even one bad season that does a coach in anymore. Now if your team hits a slump you get canned. Could Phil jackson be surfacing in Clevland?

Wow. I think Theo would pull a JJ and refuse to play here. I think he really hated it here and players seem to be getting away with that now. But isn't Pryz playing because Theo has been injured? I haven't really been following it that much. Theo had a good year for us but I think he is too injury prone to become one of our highest paid players. I'd rather take a chance on Curry. I like your thinking though. It may be time to trade a pick for some proven talent. I'd like to get something better than Theo though.

I agree that Harrington is better at 3 but I'd like to see us add a shooter and a good center. I know its a lot to ask for, but one of the reasons we can't close out a game (besides wanting a high draft pick) is there are no shooters on the floor. You have to have an inside and outside game. Most of our players are inside guys. The only reason we didn't lose in regulation was 2 bombs from Googs. The shooter is going to more than likely be a 2 with Chill, Smoove and Al at forwards. I think it will work if you get someone at center who can rebound and score.

If we had Reddick at the 2 with Chill and Al at 3 and 4 that would be promising. Throw a good center out there and you have a decent team. I'd love to get Paul for the point and keep Lue too. That would be a high energy pair.

Not to dig up an old subject but this is why Chill is better at the 3. His game is inside. He has had way more bad shooting games than good because the shots he gets at the 2 aren't in his range.

It would be nice to see Smoove get some touches on the offensive end. He needs the practice much more than Al. I realize he may be burned out a little but let him post up a little bit and see what he can do. That's what this time of year is for.

There's plenty of minutes for 3 guys to rotate 2 positions. Chill and Al are the starters right now with Smoove off the bench in my book. I hope in another year or two if we still have all 3 that Harrington will come off the bench like he did at Indy.

I don't seem to care as much about this as you guys, but to me the operative word in shooting guard is shooting. I don't think Chills shot is good enough to be a career SG. This year they claim he's a SG because we don't have one and we have a lot of SFs. Once we have an opening at SF they will all say 'its great that he's back at his natural position'.

I like Dalembert too but at some point you have to take a chance. You don't see many championships won with a defensive oriented center (i know i know the pistons). I'm not saying lets throw money at Curry but we need a big man. Shaq, Duncan, Garnett types are not on our horizon. We will have to take on a project with a big upside.

Stotts was trying to get wins because he wanted to keep is job. Woodson knows he's not losing his job. Not that he's losing on purpose mind you ??

I totally agree. I'd rather see the rooks, but it is possible that they are trying to protect Smoove from total burn out. He's admitted that the physical toll of the nba season is more than he thought. We think because he's 19 he doesn't feel it, but when you go from 20-30 games against little guys to 80 against big ones it will wear you down. I'd still like to see him get the ball more on offense though. He needs to learn to create his shot. Now is a great time for that.

I like Haslem too. But this is what we though Ekezie would bring and he hasn't been that effective. My question is not whether he can perform without Shaq but whether he can do it for the Hawks. Good role players can look real bad on rebuilding teams.

I agree. I don't think we're keeping Lue either so why not let Ivey play more. I didn't see the whole game but I don't understand why we don't run some plays for the young guys. Its time to let Smoove develop a little post game.

This from the AJC: They watched the fourth quarter of Saturday night's loss to Philadelphia and were astonished at what they didn't do. "We played the entire fourth quarter and didn't set one screen. Not one [darn] screen," Hawks coach Mike Woodson said. "I just hope we can learn from a game like that, because there's nothing that Philly did to beat us. We made big shots, but we didn't come up with loose balls, and we didn't make the clutch plays when we needed to. We can't have those stretches where we go brain dead, whether it's at home or on the road. "But I'm looking at the tape and seeing how we played, and I'm wondering how can we not win that game?" I like Woodson. He's going to be really good I think but every few weeks I see a quote like this. Who's calling the plays? You want some screens? then call for some [darn] screens. These guys are young they need help. He's good a letting them play but there are times when the coach needs to take control.

Scouts views By - SportingNews An advance scout checks in on the improving Celtics: People like to bash Antoine Walker, but he's had an immediate impact. From his first game back, it was clear that he's the leader of that team. He was calling huddles and yelling at players -- in a good way. Walker has a great effect on Paul Pierce, too, who clearly struggled being the face of the franchise. I believe the Celtics think they can re-sign Walker on the cheap and still have money to sign another franchise-type player this year or down the road. ... If the '04 draft was redone today, the player who would make the biggest jump is the Celtics' Al Jefferson, the 15th pick. Do you think Robert Swift (12th) would be drafted ahead of him now? Or Rafael Araujo (ninth)? I've even heard some people say they'd take Jefferson before Dwight Howard, but I'm not buying that. Jefferson has shown more consistency than some of the other rookies, but one or two great games doesn't mean he's going to be a star. Howard, at least, has been playing all season and is averaging nearly a double double. ... I do think Jefferson can coexist with Walker. They're different players. Jefferson is a low-post scorer. Antoine can play some small forward. ... Delonte West is a good example of how people can get too excited about rookies. He was great in a game against Phoenix, but I've seen him on other nights when he couldn't even dribble the ball up the court.

I like this idea. Resigning Walker, while unlikely, would be a smart move. We would basically get a free 1st round pick out of it because we shipped him for a few months. I've never been a big fan of Stoudamire's but it may work. I'd love to get a decent SG without giving up Harrington and let Chill, Al, plus one other rotate 2 positions. I think they'd both benefit by playing 25-30 minutes rather than 40 a game. I think Korver was a second rounder right? Maybe we can find a shooter in the draft.

That's the truth. I know some will say our ticket prices are comparable to the rest of the league (which is sad), but its way too expensive. I got a call from the Hawks the other day offering special deals for some of the remaining games. The special deal was I didn't have to pay the ticketmaster fees. I still had to pay full price for the tix! Give me a break. I know I'm in the minority but I hate Philips. Access to the upper level (or non-corporate seats) is unnecesarily difficult and some of the upper level stairs are just dangerous, the seats are too small, the 200 section have no view of the scoreboard. Anyway, I haven't complained about it this year so I thought I'd get it in while I could.