Seano

Actually a diamond is very valuable beyond just the aesthetics of it. The diamond has extensive industrial usage due to its hardness, as it is ideal in many applications as a cutting or grinding agent. A better example would be gold, because gold has virtually zero practical purpose in industry or otherwise due to its softness and its weight, and is valued really only because we as humans place value on it, and arbitrarily so. If things were valued for 'practical' usage, diamonds would rank maybe an 8, silver would rank a 10, and gold would rank about a 1. But gold still holds value and grows in value, partly due to rarity but mostly because we place emotional value into it. Anyway, I agree with you. You had all these teams maneuvering their way into having cap space for the free agent class of 2010, and I mean they started positioning themselves several years in advance just for the opportunity to shoot for the brass ring and sign a LeBron or a Wade. Hell, the Nets and Knicks basically gutted themselves in an effort to be players in free agency 2010, and other teams did too. It was the best crop of free agents ever, and Joe, if he wasn't an 'A' status free agent, he was certainly considered an 'A-', right on a par with A. Stoudemire and Boozer and a good consolation if you couldn't land one of the top 3. Bottom-line is that the market determined Joe's value, so that's what he got, and all the teams that had cap space galore and had been spurned by LeBron and Wade, they all set their sights on the next level below, and that included Joe, and both the Knicks and Bulls were courting Joe and offering him tons of cash. So the market set the value. It was our choice whether to pay that or not and our decision to decide whether he is likely to be 'worth' that much to us (particularly in later years as his contract drags along), but the market set his value and he was going to get PAID whether that was by us or someone else. It's easy to say "Damn, we spent too much on Joe", but the reality was we would have lost him for nothing otherwise, and I was very worried at the time that he was going to end up in Chicago or NYC. In hindsight, maybe we'd have been better off in the long run to just let him go, but at the time, I didn't want us to lose our best player.

Where do our guys stand statistically against *good* teams? That would be my question, because by that metric, I would say they'd all rank much lower than that given by how they perform against quality competition.

Well that would be a great sign. Hell, anything positive we can get out of Marvin at this point is all good.

I'd love to see us beat the Celtics and believe we may even have a realistic shot at doing that, because they are really struggling too right now and really have not been the same team since the Kendrick Perkins trade. So that would be a big win, and obviously beating Orlando would too. With the playoffs coming right up, beating (or at the very least losing in a respectable manner to) potential playoff opponents could do nothing but help the confidence of this team so far as the playoffs go. The other two teams I don't really care about, though it would be awesome to beat both of them- and again, we have a chance. From what I understand, Tim Duncan is very likely to miss our game against the Spurs and in fact might sit the rest of the season till playoff time, dependent upon if/when they clinch the #1 seed out West, and they've got a 4 game lead with 9 to play. The Spurs have lost three in a row and have uncharacteristically been giving up tons of points in Duncan's absence, so they're at least semi-beatable right now, although I don't know that *we're* a team good enough to beat them even if Duncan's not playing. The Rockets should be tough because they're fighting for a playoff spot, and they're another team that can really light up the scoreboard and are the highest scoring team in the NBA. I'll say we go 3-1, beating BOS, HOU and ORL. :D I have no idea why I would even predict that (maybe I'm a glutton for punishment?), but that was my initial thought so that's what I am rolling with. 3-1. Let's go Hawks. Gett'er done, dudes!

Happy birthday! And thanks for the heads-up, cause I did not even realize this game is going to be on NBATV. The Nets are not a very good team, but they've been noticeably better since the addition of Deron, including running off a 5 game winning streak and beating the Celtics. Even in their losses, for the most part they've been a much more competitive team since DWill has been there, and Kris Humphries has just been a BEAST lately, doing his best Kevin Love impersonation and averaging 15+ points and 15+ rebounds for the month of March as he's been given starter's minutes. Wow. I give kudos to those Hawksquawkers who were calling for us to bring Humphries in here last summer, cause I never saw this coming despite the fact he's got 'most favored' player status for me because he played for my alma mater. Anyway, it should be an interesting game, and I'm glad to be able to watch it on TV.

Heh. Very true. This game totally reminded me of Woodson era substitution patterns. Uhmmm, we're on the second game of a back to back and playing our third game in four days, and Drew elects to go with a 7 man rotation. I mean what can you even say to that other than the fact that it is absolutely retarded.

My negativity regarding this team has never been higher. At least back during the lotto years of 13 win seasons, we had hope of being able to acquire building block type players with our lottery picks, so you go through the pain in order to have a shot at that future gain. But now we're just stuck, with no hope of immediate further help coming through the draft (and not even a damn first round pick to look forward to this year), and locked into all these bad contracts that seriously hinder our ability to make any personnel moves of note, and it's just an awful situation compounded by the fact this team seems so gutless and heartless and is owned by a bunch of freaking morons.

This. Can't WAIT for the Braves season to start. They should have a heck of a team this year, Chipper is looking like the Chipper of old so far in spring training, and I really think they can take down Philly in the NL East. :pleasantry:

I know, but the reality is these guys get paid the same whether they win the game, play great but lose a close game, or get blown right out of the gym. Either way, they get paid their $$$, and it's possible that some of them just don't care about anything other than that. I'm not pointing any fingers because I don't know for certain either way, but it sure seems like this team seriously lacks in heart and desire sometimes and just looks like they're playing half-assed and going through the motions as opposed to playing hard always and refusing to just lie down and let other teams walk all over and humiliate them. There is no excuse for that ever.

Orlando's got a top 5 defense this season, so it's going to be tough.

Well, hope springs eternal. I always hope for victory and believe it can happen even though that may not be all that realistic in a game like tonight. And losing always sucks, so I always feel disappointed about that. And getting run right out of your own building takes that feeling of suck to an entirely different level, and that makes a game like tonight a crashing disappointment. If they could only give an effort and compete respectably and give their opponents a good game only to end up losing, that would be one thing. But this outfit can't even keep it respectable, and it looks like they hardly even care. So yeah, I feel pretty upset about that.

The best way to vote is with your wallet. If a product is unsatisfactory for you, then don't buy into it anymore. I know that if I lived down there, I wouldn't be spending my hard-earned money on an outfit that seems as disinterested as these Atlanta Hawks. Forget that! I give kudos to Hawks fans who do go to the games and suffer the punches to the gut like that, but no. I just wouldn't do it. A further drop in attendance would harm the team by hurting the bottom-line, but if that's what's needed to happen in order to force or hasten a change, then that's what has to happen I guess, because as it is we are just spinning our wheels and going absolutely nowhere, in fact we're regressing. It's very disturbing and totally disappointing. It ain't easy being a Hawks fan.

I'm not sure why anyone would give you negative ratings on that, but I added a +1 for ya to counter-balance one of the negatives.

I'm in agreement that I'd rather see one PG on the floor at a time, either Hinrich or Teague, and it doesn't matter to me which one of them starts the game, so long as their minutes are apportioned properly. I don't really see the point of rolling with Teague starting at point and Kirk at SG, because Kirk is a PG by trade and nature and that's the role in which he is most effective out there in my opinion. Starting both those guys at once leaves open the possibility of Jamal coming in to spell Teague at point, and that should never happen, in fact if I never see Jamal even attempting to play PG again for the Hawks, that will be too soon. Hinrich is averaging about 28 minutes per game as a Hawk, and Teague is averaging about 18 minutes per game in his last 10 games, so leave it just like that. Split the minutes at point between those two players in whatever ratio is most effective on any given night, and leave Jamal out of the PG picture entirely.

Me? I've NEVER been wrong! :P Just kidding... I was on board with most of your thoughts here at the time, NJHawk. I bought into what all the scouts, analysts and mediots were saying about Marvin, and that he might have the highest career peak out of all the players chosen in the 2005 draft. I also bought into the consensus about Shelden, that physically he and his game were the most 'NBA ready' out of all the players in the 2006 draft. I didn't see tremendous upside in him as his body and game were already fully mature, but I thought he could be a real banger type force and low post presence that we could surely have used in Atlanta. I disagreed with taking him that highly, as nearly everyone thought that he was somewhat a reach at #5 due to lack of future upside potential, but I did not disagree with drafting that player. I also agreed with re-signing Bibbs, Zaza and Marvin. I thought Sund did a pretty good job locking up those three 'essential' players at what I considered to be a fair value, DOH! And I thought that Smoove would have developed into a first-tier superstar by now too. I was also extremely wrong about Mike Conley. After watching him play his freshman season at Ohio State, I was convinced that out of the PG troika of Chris Paul, Deron Williams and Mike Conley, Conley would clearly prove himself to be the best of the lot, and that has not happened. He's a good player, but nowhere near either of those two, and he's not even as good as #21 pick Rajon Rondo. And Wretch, Adam Morrison? Seriously? I lost all belief in him after he broke down crying after his Gonzaga team was beaten by UCLA in the 2006 NCAA Tournament, one of the most awkward and uncomfortable moments in sports history in my opinion. I mean it was terribly awkward just watching it on TV, him collapsing to the floor in a flood of grief so intense that the UCLA players actually broke away from their victory celebration so that they could come over and try to offer him comfort and help him to his feet. I had an extreme gut feeling right then and there that Adam Morrison was not going to have much if any of an NBA career, because the NBA is a dog eat dog place filled with alpha males, and a player so sensitive as that would be eaten alive in that kind of environment, and he was.

My thought is that I would never wager money on the Hawks, because they're too damned inconsistent from game to game. You never know what you're going to get, so betting $$$ on them is kind of like blindly throwing darts at a board, and I'd rather not do that because money is worth more than that to me. But that's just me. I used to gamble a bit when I was younger, but am not much of a gambler at this point in my life. Having kids makes you tend to realize the value of money I think. From my gambling experience, if you're really FEELING it and can afford to bet the money, then you should probably bet it. However, if you're finding yourself having to search for reasons or rationalizations as to why you should bet that game, then you should stay away. Don't try and talk yourself into pissing your money away . You've got to believe it's a very solid bet, or don't do it. That's my take on it anyway. Good luck on it either way.

Yeah, and that's a huge problem that's impossible for me to understand. It's like the Hawks are invisible even in their home market, and all I can really say to that is WTF? I think the whole 'Atlanta is a city of transplants' excuse is kind of a cop-out when it comes lame fan support. Yes, Atlanta has many transplants, but it also has many, many native Georgians who you'd think might take an active interest in local professional sports teams, but it seems for whatever reason that they'd mostly rather not. I contrast the basketball scene in Atlanta with what I have to live through up here in Maine, and that is the fact that the Celtics are EVERYWHERE. Their reach is intensive all throughout New England, and the interest level in that team is right through the roof always, good teams or bad. They're diehard fans, and for me that's a pain in the *ss to have to live with people like that surrounding me, because I cannot stand that team, and it gets painful and old to hear people continually talking about them everywhere. But I also really admire that level of dedication and wish that the Hawks could have something even half as good as that kind of interest and support. You have to wonder how much emphasis, effort and $$$ the ASG puts into marketing and promoting this team. You've got to get that logo out there everywhere, get onto local radio and TV, run fan promotions and ticket specials and just do whatever it takes to garner up some interest in people to come and check out the Hawks. The Celtics have become not just a Boston team but a team for all New England by accident, they got to where they're at by promoting the ever loving sh*t out of their basketball team, everywhere and endlessly. All you hear about is the Celtics this time of year in Maine and New Hampshire and Vermont, and that's because they built up all that goodwill and lifelong loyalty. They run player caravans up through all the New England states in the summer, hold basketball camps in every New England state, sponsor and participate in all kinds of charity eventsand etc etc etc, and they've done these things for decades. They're everywhere here, so they've earned this kind of loyalty. You can market anything, and it's not like with the Hawks you're trying to sell a dried turd. This is a winning basketball team and will be a playoff team despite all their flaws, and so you market that. Do what you have to do, get creative, fricken FIND ways to get people into the arena and lift the profile of that team up within that city. Sell people on the Hawks, rather than spit in fans faces by suggesting that it doesn't matter if Hawks fans are in the stands so long as butts are in the seats, and then further show your disdain for those fans by selling the opponents jerseys in the team store. Do they have *no* clue as to how insulting that is to Hawks fans, or do they just not care? What can you even say? It is so goddamn discouraging sometimes. All you can do is pray for the day that the ASG is gone, and then pray further that they're replaced by something much better. I'm afraid this operation is just rotting at the top, and that rot and dysfunction just filter on downward and will continue to do so until these bastards are gone.

Oh no you di'int just go there, Miss Thang! :rap: Sorry, couldn't resist. :devil: I have nothing useful to add to this thread, but it's a very good thread with a lot of interesting thoughts and ideas.

A lot of it was just the excitement factor too. I mean you had an electric player like Dominique, the 'Human Highlight Film', and he was so good and so capable of producing the most amazing feats, that people would pay just to go watch Dominique play. We were an exciting, explosive and dangerous team at that time, so yeah. This current iteration of the Hawks is pretty damn boring in comparison in my opinion. I wish we would run it and gun it more often and use our athleticism to our advantage over those teams not so athletically gifted as us, but we very rarely do that. The better that TV's get, the more difficult sports teams are finding it to draw fans. The NFL had a record number of home games blacked out in their local markets this past season because their stadiums were non-sellouts, and that's attributed largely to the improvement in technology which has allowed hi-def TV's to take this great leap forward, so that it becomes a hell of a lot cheaper and much, much less of a hassle for fans to just stay home and watch the game on their 60 inch TV's. So in order to overcome that, you'd got to provide fans the incentive to come to the games and support that team in person, and the best way to do that in my opinion is by providing them an exciting product and something they can get behind and truly believe in. And fans in Atlanta can traditionally be kind of fickle. Look at the problems the Braves have had drawing fans in the playoffs, and that's something I have NEVER understood, because baseball tickets are much cheaper than tix to an NFL or NBA game. People say it's because it's a city of transplants and that Georgia is a college football state above all else, but still. I don't understand why fans don't turn out more often, and it is embarrassing to see Phillps turn into MSG South or TD BankNorth Garden South.

I don't live in Atlanta, so I don't know what the problems are with the Hawks attendance and seemingly lackadaisical fan support. I do remember back in the Omni days though, with Dominique and Doc and Tree and D. Roundfield, the Omni used to rock and I believe it was regularly sold out. So I say you put a quality team in there that gets people excited enough to take the time and effort and spend the $$$ to go see them play, and then poor fan support should become less of a problem. Atlanta's proven before that they will support the Hawks, so there's no reason why Atlanta can't do that again. You have to make it worthwhile for people though. Give them a terrific product enough so that they'll want to come out and see that in person, because going to an NBA game is damned expensive, and it's much easier and more convenient to just sit at home and just watch it on high-def TV, so that's what they're battling against. Miami's got about a dead arena too, I mean talk about a LAME crowd in South Beach. Just pathetic, or maybe apathetic would be the better word. It's quiet as a church in there most of the time, which is why the sound operators pump in all those blaring and obnoxious electronic sound effects and chants designed to get the fans involved and chanting ("DEFENSE!", which they also do at Phillips, and which I find very lame. If fans need to be prompted to chant, then don't even bother. It's not worth it to get them engaged in some lame and half-hearted chant). You contrast dead arenas and crowds like that with the atmospheres we've seen very recently in Portland and Utah, and it''s like night and day. They don't blare non-stop electronic noise all game long in order to fill up the silence, because there is no silence because the fans are always loud as hell and chanting of their own volition, so as opposed to the electronic noise pollution, all you hear is the organ and the roar of the crowd. Now *those* are basketball environments, almost like a college-type atmosphere.

I dislike Westbrook because he acts like a cocky little b*tch out there. He acts like a total punk who has no control over his emotions on the court, gesturing, taunting, talking smack, just acting like a total d*ck. Eventually somebody's gonna get really fed-up with that cocky attitude and the running mouth, and Westbrook's gonna end up getting smacked, and maybe he needs some sense knocked into him. He definitely needs to learn a little class, a little humility, and he needs to learn to shut the hell up. I also dislike Paul Pierce. Total doorknob. I dislike KG because he's about a fricken drama queen on the court, but he's also a great player and I respect his game very much. I dislike pretty much everyone on the Miami Heat. I don't mind Amar'e, and in fact am kind of glad he's trying to stir up a rivalry with us.

Mo has scored 23 points and grabbed 5 boards in 70 minutes of work for the Wiz, so no- I don't miss him one bit. I was excited when we first got him too, as he was coming off a really strong season in Orlando, hitting on 49% of his shots and 39% of his 3's. But he's just regressed year by year in almost every statistical category, and this year he's just bottomed-out into a pretty damn cruddy NBA player. He's 32 too, which most likely means he can only get worse from here. So nope, don't miss him at all!

I agree with this. We would have some SERIOUS competition for his services from any team with assets to give and a basketball brain in their heads. I would love to just sit back and read about all the trade offers pouring in, because you know there would be some true stunners. He'd be a 26 year old franchise C with a great health history and great personal character, so everybody and their dog would be after that guy, and it's very possible that ORL wouldn't even want to trade him within the division. So we would have to outbid everyone else, and also overcome the possibility that we might have to give the Magic even more than others would just for trading him within the division. Our hope would lie with the hope that he really wants to come back home and play, and if that's true, then that would be our chance to make it happen. And no one on the Hawks would be untouchable in that situation, at least not for me.

That was an excellent game, maybe our best all season. HUGE win, especially given the fact of no Josh Smith, and everything else we had going against us, It looked like we were going to blown out of the building there for awhile, and to come back from that with all the obstacles we had working against us, you can't really overstate how big a win this was. Joe not able to hit the broad side of a barn, but still he almost put up a triple double. Just a great effort by these guys for not giving up and outplaying a really good team at the end. Kudos to the Hawks, and forget Elvis because Al is THE KING.