Sevin

It's today from 2:00 - 4:00 at the practice court at Phillips.

Happy Birthday GM!! I hope you make down to a game this year, I'd love to meet you.

Just turned 44 and saw my first Hawks game at GA Tech before it was the "Thriller Dome" and before the Omni was finished.

Man....You've got to quit doing that! I was on the phone with a client and let out a small whoop! Damn!!!!

That's what I was thinking. I'm planning on going to at least 10 games and that's alot more than $200 for the season.

No he didn't mention their interest one way or the other but there was an air of finality about it. Granted, that was my perception but from hearing him I wouldn’t bet on Curry being in our plans now. I did hear earlier in the week that his agent was working to find someone to insure him so hopefully his status changes. I’d love to have him.

I don’t know if this has been mentioned before, but I was listening to Bernie on “Breakfast With Bernie” this morning on 680 The Fan and when asked about it he said that Curry’s heart is not insurable.

Lascar, how are the sight lines from those $200 seats?

For all of you that think we can play hard ball with the Suns on this, here's some comments from an interview Sarver did on a Phoenix station this evening. I got this from a Phoenix board: - Procedural issue with Atlanta. Hawks trying to resolve this. - Thinks it will go through...but is really hesitant about whether or not it actually will. - Elected not to sign him last year because he had just bought the team and committed a TON of money. Hadn't proven how successful the team would be and didn't want to lock in a starting 5 with big contracts without knowing how well the team would perform together. (Good point). - Thought Joe would make more money the next season. Told him he really liked him and knows he'd be making more money than what his offer was (but not expecting him to be a MAX player) and hope he'd be in a Suns uniform (this was all last year). - Didn't really receive any indications that Joe wasn't happy (other than the typical things that anyone may not be happy with sporadically....didn't see anything bad though) - Realized about halfway through the season (especially after the Miami blowout) that they would match for Joe. Doesn't have a problem paying Joe more money. - Last season's team performance exceeded all expectations. - Allen, Redd marquee players. Joe got a team to give him a lot of money and good for him (I disagree here, sounds like - Moving Q allowed us to get Defense and stay quick. - Q deal and Kurt Thomas was not done to make room for Joe. Paying $3 million more this year (because of trade kicker with Q). Made the deal to make us a better team. - Tried to meet with Joe. Tried to do the same thing as they did with Nash. Day after making appointment his agent called and said they don't want to meet, no reason to. - Never thought the rumors were true of Joe wanting to leave. Figured it was all posturing. Kept thinking, okay, that's fine, let's just meet and tell us how much you want. Told him they want Joe, want him as a Sun. Based their offer off of Steve's and Manu's offers thinking it was fair. Told him, here's the offer, come back to us. They said, "We're not interested." They asked "Well, do you have a counter?" "NOPE". Kept trying to meet with Joe after this. Sarver thought of flying out to Arkansas himself. Got in contact with his mom. Agent's assistant called Sarver and said he wasn't meeting him. Kept trying, Joe finally called and said, "I want to play in Atlanta." - Once he heard the offer from Atlanta, yes there were questions, but the decision was that they were going to match. Just trying to get confirmation from Joe that he wanted to stay with Phoenix. Once he talked with Joe, and Joe said what he did, that's when the hesitancy came. - No response from Joe's agent from the 6 year $75 million dollar offer. - Not trying to throw Joe under the bus. He's worked his tail off and deserves whatever he wants. BUT, at the end of the day, after talking with him for 25 minutes, (spent 2 minutes of that time talking about his frustration with not immediately getting an offer from us). After talking, Robert said, "We know you're offer, are you telling me you don't want us to match it?" Joe's answer was "Don't match." - Thought of "It's all business" came across, Told him, if he signs an offer sheet with Atlanta, we'd match it because it's our right as he's restricted. So, Joe better get his agent on the horn with Atlanta and work out a fair deal if he really wants to go to Atlanta. - WE WILL MATCH JOE'S OFFER IF THE TRADE FALLS THROUGH. WE WILL NOT LOSE JOE WITHOUT COMPENSATION. - Sounds like if we match, ticket prices are going to rise to help cover costs. Lower prices right now than Clippers. - With the contract being front loaded, can't really trade him after 1 year if things actually don't work. - Honestly thinks that Joe is just getting bad advice (buddies, friends, agents, advisors). ...He also thinks he's only 22 (sic) and that he's immature and not making good decisions. - Spent $10,000 making a book (Like we did with Nash) showing Joe's future with the Suns (ring of honor, etc). Made donations to Joe's camps. Did everything to try and make Joe feel wanted here. - Feels good about our team with or without Joe for the next 3-5 years. Amare Stoudemire is our future. - WE WILL LOCK UP AMARE. NO QUESTION ABOUT IT. PLENTY OF CONVERSATIONS WITH AMARE. HE LOVES IT HERE. LOVES PLAYING WITH NASH AND SHAWN. AMARE IS DOING 2 A DAY WORK OUTS ON HIS OWN RIGHT NOW. AMARE'S A MAN ON A MISSION TO WIN A TITLE...WITH OR WITHOUT JOE. - Told Joe, "If you don't come back to Phoenix, my wife will kill me, my kids will be bawling, the fans will kill me. Are you telling me you don't want to win a championship?" "More important to be happy"

Man, I've tried to read only and stay out of this all day...The "Monsters Of The Midway" guys on 790 from 12-2 (and I listened to the entire show) talked an awful lot about this today.

Quote: Ford plays to a bigger audience... But I'm far better! Classic!!

I understand all of that but at some point we've got to overpay someone. Unless we're talking about several more years of rebuilding (and where are the big men for next year) we've got to spend our money. We have to be more realistic about what the perception of this team is and realize that nobody's coming unless we open up the pocket book. I'm all for being frugal and prudent but NOBODY will come here unless we offer max or near max money and we've got to get one in here to get the ball rolling. I'm also concerned about how long this franchise will be able to endure the losing and poor fan support.

Hey we've go to overpay on these RFA's or their teams will just match. What the heck else are we gonna do?

How's the view for those $199 seats? Does anyone know?

It's gonna take a while to get the "average fan" back but we're moving in the right direction. I don't think that most of them are going to look at anything but the team's record and that's a shame because they'd get a lot more satisfaction from future success if they paid attention to how they're rebuilding. It's easy for some of these media guys to sit around and bash the current front office because of what their predecessors did so that's what they do. These same “experts” will be driving the band wagon when the team starts to come around (just like the falcons and braves). That's why IMO most don't have any credibility.

While I’m extremely happy with Billy’s evaluation of talent I have a couple of concerns about his/our ability to get good FA’s. 1. I have to agree with Walter here, unless there’s another Billy that we don’t know about, he’s gonna have a hard time (with his personality) selling free agents on The Hawks. 2. I think we’re fooling ourselves if we think that we won’t have to pay more than other teams to get quality free agents. We have a huge perception problem to overcome and if it’s not the money that draws these guys then what else do we have to offer?

Not only that but they are both consistent outside shooters. Last year we had no outside threat and now teams will have to respect that.

Good points, although I still hope he can give us limited but productive minutes.

http://arizona.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=429084

Man, you gotta love this kid!!

You could be right but we're talking about a 13-win team. Donta's a hard nosed player, maybe the hardest on the team and you can see the football player come out of him sometimes. Remember before Ivey's injury early in the season when there was much talk about him being our future at the point? I'm hoping that the work they've been getting with the staff during this off season translates into them being good solid subs and that's all we need from them.

If we have a really bad record again this year this will be what gets me through the season. I'm also looking forward to seeing how Royal and Donta turn out.

From a homer standpoint, I'd love to see us get Morris and Bynum. Somebody will have to get Morris away from whomever he's been listening to. I don't think they could've possibly given the world a poorer perception of him and what do you think Tubby told the NBA people who called for a reference after the way he handled leaving UK?

I turned it on about 5:40, did I miss him? If so, what did he say?

The fact that Marvin shoots close to 90% from the line brings something that Antoine didn't.