chillzatl

He said there, unless we aquire a BETTER PG. Dickau is a prospect and NOTHING MORE. He is not better and assuming he will be is a gamble. Pete is not a dumb man and he's not going to make a gamble on the HOPE that Dickau could have a bigger impact than a 20/6 player like JT. To do so would be dumb. Not that DD isn't talented. But anyone who today says that DD will be better than JT, will be a starter quality PG in this league or will live up to the hype that some have built around him are doing nothing but blowing smoke out of their a$$es. Because NOBODY can predict that and nothing about his college career indicates that. If he were a dominant player in college and a world class PG, myself and most others would conceed that. But he was neither. So projecting that he will ever be anything more than what he is today (a backup), is foolish. He may become more than that. But projecting that he was brought here in the hopes that he will, out of desperation or insurance, is again, FOOLISH. And as I said, Pete is not a fool, especially after all the things he's put on the line this season.

the point is that picking Dickau was in no way a sign of urgency. Diesel wants everyone to believe that the Hawks were scrambling to find a PG who could lead this team in the event that JT can't get it done. I refuse to believe that they would dare pin such high expectations on a player like Dickau.

I'm not saying that if it does come to that and Dickau is put in that situation, that he will not succeed, not at all! If that does happen then I hope to god that he can do it. But I will not accept that they picked him with that in mind. Nobody is going to select a player that late in the draft with the blind assumption that they are going to be able to lead an NBA team.

I will accept that a team would select such a player in the hopes that they could work with him and help him grow into that role. But even GS wouldn't have picked him with the mindset that "Man we're going to bring this guy in and he's going to run our team!", NO WAY. And you aren't going to make a pick like that as INSURANCE for a proven player. That is not insurance, that's a BLIND GAMBLE. It's also a gamble that has Lon Kruger and Pete Babcocks JOBS attached to it. Because if JT doesn't succeed at the point this year, the Hawks are out 500k+ and both of those guys are likely out of their jobs.

At least he can play basketball. That's more than you can say for 95% of the kids that sign up for the draft.

I think Ming will have a better rookie season than Kandi has had a career. It shows how pathetic the center situation is in this league with 8ppg and 7rpg is considered VERY GOOD. The guy was overhyped from day one and continues to be. People are so hung up on the notion that a #1 pick just doesn't have what it takes to be a top player, they jump out of their seats at any and every improvement he makes.

Ming can shoot, Ming can move his feet and Ming has the hands to catch a good pass. Those are all things that Kandi is still struggeling to do.

how ignorant can you be? If they were desperately seeking a potential replacement for JT, they wouldn't go digging under a log for some guy who probably wouldn't have even gone top 35 had it not been for us. They would have made a trade to get a PROVEN PLAYER. Wake up and smell the coffee guy. You are grasping for straws. That is not a move of urgency. If you hadn't already suggested it was you wouldn't even be argueing the point. But if you didn't argue then that might mean someone else actually had a valid thought, idea or opinion and Diesel can't admit that such a thing is possible! HAH.

As I remember it, Babcock clearly stated that they had their eye on him but never imagined that he would fall low enough that they would have a chance. That doesn't sound anything close to 14th pick, touche`! He went on to say that when they saw that he falling far so babcock started making calls to those last few teams until he found one that was willing to deal, Sacramento. I think he's said pretty much those exactly words 3-4 times already, when asked about getting DD. So I dunno where you are getting your info, maybe you need to recheck it. Urgency my a**!

It is flat out absurd that you or anyone would honestly think that Dickau was taken as insurance. Insurance is a proven player. Travis Best would be insurance. Howard Eisley is an insurance player. An unproven, short, not-quick, score first college player IS NOT PG INSURANCE!

Give it a damned rest already. We didn't give ANYTHING away to get him, so where was the urgency? Urgency would be giving away something as good or better to get him. We gave away NOTHING. You are making this out to be way more than it is and it's just getting old. You are making blind assumptions on a few sentences and argueing it to deaths door, as you do everything.

Nothing about this move says URGENCY. If we had traded up into the top 10-15, then I could see your point. But we traded up into the LAST SPOT in the first round. That's not much of a trade up. Obviously out of all the PG's that were available, Dickau was who they liked. Instead of taking a chance on losing him in the 2nd before he fell to us they traded up a few spots to get him. NOTHING about that tradeup says URGENCY. They had a guy picked out that they liked and they made a VERY MINOR move to get him.

That's all that was, a minor move. If Sacramento had taken Dickau, nobody would have said "sacramento got such a steal in the draft! Watch out Mike Bibby & Bobby Jackson". NO FREAKING BODY would have even suggested that. So why, just because he ends up here, does that suggest some sort of urgency?? This is being dragged to death to the point of absurdity.

The most glaring flaws in your theory are this:

We traded up to get him. sure we did, why not? we didn't give ANYTHING away to get him. He's cheaper than the MCE, he's cheaper than anything we could have traded for and has a longer future than either of the players you mentioned. We didn't need a player on the bench to gripe and complain about minutes and touches either.

Your theory smacks of desperation. The logic that went into this one is laughable. I can totally see Babcock sitting there thinking "ok, we'll get this unproven, score-first rookie PG that almost fell into the 2nd round. Just in case our explosive, clutch shooting, high scoring PG who consistantly improved at the position over the course of the season, enroute to helping improve our win total by eight games, CAN'T CUT IT."

Diesel really likes to feed the hype around the players he falls in love with. He's tried to transform DD's image from a score first PG in college to one that is destined to be a top flight PURE PG in the NBA. Thoguh there is nothing in DD's past to indicate he is anywhere near capable of doing this. Now he's somehow getting inside the head of one of the leagues most guarded GM's to pick out fact from fiction. Next thing you'll know he'll be calling Miss Cleo to find out if Shaq's big toe is going to be enough to stop a Lakers 4-peat. HAH!

I know he's old and I know he's hard to like. But I would put him above Dirk and Reef and probably in a tie with Webber. I've seen him push all those guys around far too much to consider them better. Dirk might be more versatile and Reef might be younger and faster. But Malone still gets it done at an all-star level every year.

As far as who I would want at this point in time, most everyone on that list would be higher than him, due to age. But he's an old Harley man, just keeps on running.

for a while it was a bit hectic, to say the least. Hopefully a winning season will pull the fans closer together and give everyone here something to rally behind and enjoy as fans, instead of debating every minutia to death.

they let all these businesses hog up all the tickets. You can always get some from a ticket agency. though you'll pay out the a** for them. I'll probably look into that out of curiosity at least.

you'll be one of the few fans in this city that will be able to get a ticket.

most of the orange and yellow in the old jerseys has been replaces with a more metallic gold and a few other subtle changes (no pinstripes, etc).

contest has had in years. He has that rare mix of creativity, power and flash that the contest needs (like MJ and Nique had). Everyone else is 2nd place, including Kobe. I mean I would rather watch highlights of Vince dunking on people in the game than watch the group that was in it last year. BORING!

that does not mean he's the better PG today. Based on natural ability I think Bibby is a better natural PG than JT. His natural inclination is to pass the ball, JT's is to score. That said I think JT will turn out to be the better PG as well as the better player, which I think he aleady is.

But again, assists alone DO NOT make one a good point guard. JT did an EXCELLENT job of protecting the ball as the season wore on. The knock that you and many others had against him vanished. He was not a liability with the ball in his hands and actually had one of the better a/to ratios among PG's. So the knock that he's not a good ballhandler is absolute rubbish. You also cannot say that he's not a very good passer. As the season wore on he proved that.

So your statement that he's "outclassed" is simply nonsense. If you compare their pro careers, sure. But you backed Bibby with his performance in ONE series, why not give JT the same benefit of the doubt and back him with his play in the 2nd half of the season??

I'm not one that thinks just because he plays here he's god. But the nonsense you've dredged up over the last month is just plain sickening.

And for the record, Bibby didn't even put up 5.7apg with Sac last year. A pity and a shame was it?

You want to compare JT to Bibby, let me play. You talk about Bibby's abilities as an SG compared to JT. You mention clutch shooting, breaking down his man and taking over the game. Well, for the first time in his ENTIRE CAREER, Bibby actually did that. FOR THE FIRST TIME!!! Up until that one damned series Bibby was a CAREER LOSER. Now he's got people like you who are ready to jump on the Bibby-bandwagon and take the full ride. I'm not dissing Bibby. He's a very good player and deserving of it. But instead of pointing out what everyone else, IN YOUR MIND, does better than JT. Why not try this:

Why not give JT the same benefit of the doubt you are already giving BIbby? HUH? Bibby had one really good series where he showed that HE CAN BE more than just the decent player on a crappy team that he's been his entire year. Well, why is that any different for JT? He showed over the course of half a season that he could go from average to well above average. Why not give him the benefit of the doubt that he can continue to do the same, or even better? Huh? tell me that.

You are supposed to be a Hawks fan? You seem more like someone who'd stab a buddy in the back just so you could make a point. Not that you have to hometown for the Hawks. But you could at least give JT and other Hawks the same benefit of the doubt that you so readily dish out to every other player that you fall in love with.

JT sure did a good job of holding his men to a very low %. hmm

he also removed about 10k seats from the dome so that games WOULD sell out. But lowering ticket prices was a nice gesture. One part of it is that AOL/TW owns the Hawks and Arthur Blank (along with a few others) owns the Falcons. AOL/TW is going to take a LOT more red tape to get things done.

I got the jitters when the Giants scored in the first 2 minutes of the game but the Falcons came charging right back. They seemed to take advantage of every mistake NY made. Defense is going to be a problem for them though. Unless NY made mistakes (fumbles, bad passes) they didn't seem to have much of a problem getting down teh field on our D. Still a very fun game though.

I might agree if all I ever knew about Clark came from boxscores and paper. But the reality of his game is much different. I'm going to break down your points:

"They now have a player who can come in and play both Center and PF when needed"

wrong, and the key point behind that is "when needed". He can't do it "when needed". He is not a player who can just turn it on. Clark is insanely inconsistant. If they bring him into a game and are depending on him, either offensively or defensively, they are going to get kicked in the jimmy 50% of teh time. You just cannot depend on him to bring his A game. Especially if he's been sitting on the bench for 30 minutes and is called into the 4th quarter for whatever reason. I've seen far too much of his game to believe otherwise.

"He is an atheltic guy who can get out and run"

Again, CAN. See my last point. He CAN do a lot of things, but he doesn't do it every game or even every other game.

"He is certainly a big upgrade over Pollard who I works hard but really is a liability on offence. Keon gives them d and o."

I couldn't disagree more here. Sure, Clark has WAY more talent that Pollard. But pollard brings 100% of what he has EVERY NIGHT. With clark you never know what you are going to get.

So many people are putting such high expectations on the guy because of, now get this, 16 games. That's 16 games of not great stats, not even very good stats. But good stats. His stats are almost a mirror of Nazr's and NOBODY would say that Nazr put up anything other than GOOD numbers. He is also NOT a great 1v1 defender. He's solid, but not great.

I would love to see him break out this year and live up to the expectations that have followed him his entire career. But until I see it consistantly I will not. You have to base expectations on what a player has shown you over time and Clark has yet to show that he WILL bring it for 82 games. A team like Sacramento needs player who are ready to play every night and so far in his career Clark has not been that type of player.

It seems like most people want him to flop because he's from communist china and because of all the hype surrounding him. I think it'd be great for the game if he lives up to the hype though.

I don't think getting Clark helps Sac much at all. It gives them paper depth but that's about it. If clark doesn't play 27+ mpg his 1:4 good game ratio will drop to about 1:8. There's a reason they only signed him for one year though. They are well aware of his wild inconsistancy and weren't willing to get stuck with him long term.

Now NJ got significantly better. They are the class of the east now. I downgraded them because of the deke trade. But now they got the offense they lacked. I have to think they knew all along they were going to be able to sign Rogers. The Deke trade just didn't make sense before. now it makes perfect sense.

All he's doing is taking the information these "insiders" pass him and then putting it up on his site. Whether it's truthful or not, that's what he does. I think he's just got some lousy Hawks insiders. Everyone who is high enough in the Hawks org to be privy to this insider information knows who Chad Ford is. He's not a seasoned sports writer. He's the drudgereport of the NBA. They are not going to tell him confidential information "off the record" because they know with him it's still going to be ON the record. One thing Pete has always done is run a tight ship. He's not going to be giving information to people in the Hawks org who can't be trusted. All those guys jobs DEPEND on having a good season. Spreading rumors is a sure fire way to start problems and contribute to a bad season. It just doesn't jive with what we know about Babs and the Hawks org in general.

babs has proven over the years that he may be many things. But one thing he is not is a BS'er. If he intended to trade JT or he wasn't happy with the way JT improved, he would either let it be known in a subtle way or would have no comment. He has repeatedly said that he is very happy with the way JT has developed and that JT is our starting PG. He's not the kind of guy that's going to say "we are happy with him and the way he plays" and secretly tell little sniping underlings in the Hawks org that he's not happy with him and wants to trade him. He's shown too many times that he just doesn't operate that way.