hawkman

If you don't like that trade, how about switching out Pachulia for Lorenzen? As far as Marv goes I've heard a lot of talk but have seen very liitle so far. When your claim to fame is a 26 point effort during garbage time or averaging 23 points during summer league, that's not saying a lot. If that was really an indication of "superstar potential", Dion Glover, Salim Stoudamire, and Dorell Wright have just as much potential. He will be a good player but not a superstar, at least not without an attitude adjustment. Speedy IS good for the team when/if he plays that day. Unfortunately he hasn't played much, and when he does play, he's not there in the fourth when we really need him. Iverson would bring consistency to the PG slot. Whoever else we bring in that trade(Hunter maybe?) would also contribute right away. It just seems that there are too many positives to this trade to just disregard it as nonsense. Once again, this is all theoretical so don't get yourt panties in a bunch.

Less talk more IVERSON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just kidding. It won't happen, but I have to admit that I'm all for it. Our team as it sits now seems like it was already built with him in mind anyway. JJ and Salim are the only two players on this team that can create their own shots. Smoove and Chill are the "do-it-all" utility types. Shelden is the blue collar defensive type that can bruise and snag rebounds in the middle. JJ is the perfect backcourt mate to Iverson due to his passing and ball handling ability. Iverson would bring an exciting, explosive scorer to pair with JJ. We're not going to get that dominant defensive presence any time soon so why not just outscore our opponents?

Actually, it looks like a wash. We get a prolific scorer and Philly gets a decent center/power forward and a player who may be good down the road in Marvin. Speedy probably wouldn't play enough to matter. Their interior D would stink with that lineup though. We'd be back searching for another stiff to play center for us. That has to be easier than trying to find a starting PG. Philly would have to search for a PG to fill in while Speedy's knees are bothering him. Marvin would get a chance to start right away. A lot of people seem to hate on Pachulia anyway so why not? We'd make the playoffs and get beaten in the second round as opposed to barely getting in and getting swept in the first. It'll never happen anyway so why bother.

To be honest, Marvin doesn't need our support, at least not as far as this theoretical argument is concerned. He will be just fine. Afterall, he will always be a #2 draft pick. Heck, even Darko is still highly regarded and he has shown very little so far. Besides, this is not about dissing Marv as much as it is about questioning the decisions of the GM and organization. I see nothing wrong with that. BTW, Lebron and Wade were can't miss prospects. I watched Wade in college and he was every bit as exciting as he is now. The same applies to Lebron out of high school. I honestly can't say that Marvin was dominating on the college level. I hope Marvin does well now that he's here, but that still doesn't mean that drafting him wasn't a mistake. It's going to take a lot more than what I've seen so far to change my mind about that.

Exactly...You would think BK well out on his own and picked Marvin from Central Middle Tennesse State or something. He was considered the best all around talent in the draft and all the so-call draft experts had hime going 1 or 2.

Like I said earlier, we overthought the pick. We bring a prospect in and he blew everyone away during his workout. He just happened to be a PG. We needed a PG. Draft night comes and we draft a Small Forward. We allowed the "talking heads" to talk us out of making the obvious pick. We start Ivey at the point with Lue backing him up. Everyone moans about the logjam at Forward and that Al should be traded to "make room" for Marvin. At the same time, we have no depth at PG so we pick up Anthony Grundy. Now what doesn't add up here? We have a logjam at Forward but have to sign a PG from the NBDL after a draft that was LOADED with top tier talent at that position??? We created a problem at Forward and failed to address the problem at Point Guard. I'm no basketball genius nor am I paid to be one but this is not a decision a competent GM would make. Once again, I'm not against Marvin personally as he will be a good player in this league. I just don't see him as a superstar type player(which would have justified this pick). He just doesn't stike me as a Carmelo or Lebron type of basketball prodigy. Time will tell I guess.

OK. Fair enough. But, what if, by drafting a PG in last year's draft you could both fill a need and have a player with superstar ability? Hmmmmm.

Hey! I like Renaldo Balkman. Great BBall IQ. Kinda reminds me of a poor man's Scottie Pippen

Exactly. I hate the fact that we had this philosophy to draft purely on potential at what has to be the most inconvenient time in our franchise's recent history. We needed a PG. We worked out a PG. That PG had the best workout of any prospect that we brought in. Then we drafted the player who had an "OK" workout, but seemed to have "potential". I don't care what any talking head had to say about this draft, BK...WE NEEDED A POINT GUARD!!!! A point guard came in highly decorated and heralded and then proceeded to ace the workout. That same point guard was available in the draft when it was your time to pick. What do you do??? Duh, pick another SF because we we want to, and I quote, "deal from a position of strength". UNBELIEVEABLE!!! Heck, for the sake of argument, let's throw out this whole Marv vs. CP3 thing altogether. That still leaves us with 3...count 'em...3 point guards that could have run this team for the next ten years. How in the world do you blow that and call yourself a GM?!?!?! This whole Marv vs. Paul thing isn't even an argument. It shouldn't even be up for debate until Marv does better than the 8ppg and 5reb's he averaged last season. As it stands now, it was a mistake and any debate otherwise is laughable. With that said I hope Marvin becomes all that everyone hopes he will become because I sincerely believe the Hawks' future as a franchise is tied to that pick.

I hope your right about Marvin for BK's and the Hawks' sakes. Right now, this looks like one of the biggest blunders by the Hawks organization outside of the Nique trade. Sometimes, I think that you can overthink a draft to the point that you question the unquestionable(see Vince Young and the Texans). We went into that draft with a glaring need and the resources to fill that need were present throughout the first round. Inexplicably, we failed to draft a PG and instead grabbed another SF. How is that even possible?!?!? Do you realize how well this team would be doing right now with one of those PG's from that draft? I can't understand the reasoning of some on this board. This can't be explained away with team stats. It was a mistake pure and simple. Paul/Deron/Felton/Jack were/are the answers to our continuing problems at PG. We had the chance to groom a high quality PG to grow with this young team and we blew it.

Good points. It doesn't take a genius to see what we should have done in last year's draft. I don't need to look at stats to see who means more to their team(s). Even if we didn't pick up a Paul or Deron in that draft, we should have done more to get a Jack or Felton. Marv has a lot of tools but so does JSmith/Childress. It's good to have depth at different positions(at least that's the justification for picking Marvin), but why haven't we addressed depth at the PG position? Sounds kinda hypocritical to me. You're right on in your observations Smoovethefuture. I'll use a football analogy to explain this situation--Call a fumble a fumble. If you have to look at the replay over and over again to try to call it otherwise, it's a FUMBLE!!!--We fumbled in last years draft. It happened and there's nothing we can do about it. Just make sure it doesn't happen again BK.

No, not just interested. Iverson was quoted as saying that he hoped the deal would be finalized soon. This was all being reported during the first half of this Washington/Philly game.

It would have been nice if we could have been in on this, even if we didn't actually get him. I feel that it would have given the team and the city a "shot in the arm" despite how others on this forum might feel about AI. It seems like they would trade him for a bag of basketballs(from last season of course) right now and I say that is to our advantage.

Minnesota!?!?!?! Unbelievable!!!!!

Are you watching the game on ESPN tonight?!?! Are you hearing this?!?! They mentioned that we were in talks to trade for AI this past offseason. I wonder what we offered them or what they wanted from us to make us pursue Speedy instead? Anyway, the Sixers have NO more leverage. They've tipped their hand and anyone in need of a superstar on the cheap will be calling. I couldn't believe how candid their chairman was in that interview with Lisa Salter. He actually stated that Iverson will NOT play another game in a Sixer uniform!

Now I did watch that when it came on FSN. His relationship with JSmith would be a concern. But we do need another guard badly though.

Stats aside, I remember watching him play at Memphis and he was a decent distributor. I don't know how easy it's going to be to find a defensive/pass first PG at this point in the season. It wouldn't hurt to give the guy a ten day and see what he can do.

AI gets to much of a bad rap. He plays hard EVERY night and actually is more of a team player than he is given credit for. This wouldn't be another JR Rider situation. He would have an immediate impact on the team offensively and we would definitely make the playoffs for the next couple of years. We would also have the most devastating backcourt (ever???). If we are a potential trading partner with Philly though, BK needs to play hardball with them as we are already a much improved team. It wouldn't hurt to try bringing him in. Besides, his contract will be up by the time he begins to wear out his welcome in the ATL. I would balk at sending them JSmith or Childress though.

Find Darius Washington and sign him. NOW!

Very true. But there are two problems right now. Joe is quiet by nature and the Hawks have been a cellar dwellar team for the past 7 years. So that means that they won't get calls as a team and there is no vocal star player to complain when they don't. If you look at players like Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant, and Lebron James, they get way too many calls that can be described as "phantom" fouls. Joe never seems to get the same advantage as other stars in this league. I have noticed that he has been getting more calls as of late though, but there's been this issue of making free throws in crunch time.

Exactly. Those were some of the same points I made in the other thread about Wilkens. Love him or hate him, the Hawks played their best basketball under him. Just because he had some negative things to say about the team, which were true to some extent, does not change that.

Good points all. Durability was an issue with arguably their best player Brad Daugherty(sp?). Brad Daugherty(sp?) was a very skilled center but his chronic back injuries kept him from reaching his full potential. And I can't fault any team for losing to the Bulls in the playoffs during the late 80's through the 90's, I mean, THEY WERE THE BULLS! Now the whole Nique thing kinda got under my skin at first when I thought Lenny was at fault but I later learned that it was a "management" decision. That trade has to go down as one of the worst ever. I'm not sure how much Lenny may have influenced that decision though. If he didn't agree with management to trade Nique, I doubt he did much to stop it. The bottom line is, regardless of what any on this board might think of him personally, Lenny was at the helm during some of the Hawks' most successful seasons.

I don't know man. I think people on this board give BK too much credit sometimes. He hasn't taken the PG situation seriously since he got here. We passed up on a PG during a draft that was loaded with top tier talent in that department. We ran JJ out of position for much of last season and when that flopped, started Ivey. Even after those difficulties last season we still didn't draft a PG and instead chose to sign Speedy Claxton, the backup of the player we passed on who could have been our PG for the next ten years. Speedy is known to struggle with injury, so it should be no surprise when he's unavailable. I didn't expect him to struggle so early in the season though. Anyway, BK has consistently shown disregard for traditional "positions" on the court. It has worked in some cases(Chill, Smoove maybe?), but it has failed when it comes to just plugging a "player" or "good passer" into the PG position. The reason for this is that the position of PG is a very unique position on the court. It requires specialized skills both tangible and intangible. Only when BK realizes this and acts accordingly will we get a true PG that can maximize this teams potential.

Well you have to consider the circumstances of his exit. He was used to having a consistent, defensive minded team that would at least make it to the playoffs every season. However it was obvious that this was an aging team. In that series versus the Knicks, Allan Houston and Latrell Sprewell seemed to drive and score at will. Babcock decided to rebuild. Smitty was dumped for Isaiah Rider and Jim Jackson and Mookie was traded for the 10th pick in the draft(Jason Terry). Just like that the two leaders of those Hawks teams were gone, replaced by Isaiah and the original JJ. Of course, Isaiah didn't want to come to Atlanta and it showed. He was suspended repeatedly until he was finally released somewhere around mid-season. JJ played well but struggled with injuries throughout his time with the Hawks. JT showed promise as a rookie but he was still a rookie. That team fell below .500 and that was the end of that. I don't know what went on behind closed doors between Lenny and management, but I'm sure it wasn't pretty. In the end Lenny was used as a scapegoat despite the fact that it was management's poor decisions that contributed to that losing season. He was fired and replaced by Lon Kruger. Too bad though, I really thought that JT played more like a traditional PG under him and could have been one of the best had Lenny stayed on. Ever since then, the Hawks have been struggling to get back to respectability.

But Mookie brought so much more than just defense. Everyone lauds Speedy for his D but what else does he bring to the table? I'm not knocking him but he hasn't shown much so far. Imagine if we had Mookie at his prime on this team right now. Would we still be thinking about picking a PG in the mid-first round of the draft this upcoming off season? And Laettner actually played center for us one season and actually played quite well. He complained to the refs quite a bit but he was actually a very skilled player. I'm just saying that things weren't so bad under Lenny. I learned that you can't take 50 win seasons and playoff appearances for granted. If things were really that "bad" back then, my God man, how do you feel about the state of this franchise now?