Seano

Yeah that was awesome. Kudos to the bench.

Da Bulls went from a #8 seed last year to a #1 this year. Impressive, especially given how pretty much everyone wrote them off after whiffing on the Big 3 FA's, and then whiffing on Joe Johnson. They had taken a major gamble getting themselves into position to be big players in 2010 FA, letting Ben Gordon walk away for nuttin and trading off Tyus Thomas and John Salmons for virtually nothing, all in an effort to free up cap space. Boozer was at best their fourth choice, but look how that's worked out for them. Boozer is an excellent post player, he's got a very good mid-range jumper, and he's a damn good passer for a big man and most importantly he plays exceptionally well off D-Rose. That's been a great combo for them.

I can totally feel what you're saying and I'm sure a lot of other people feel it too, but I guess I continue to care because I really love basketball and I just don't have it within myself to abandon this team. Teams that I really enjoy watching because I love the way they play, run and gun teams like Denver and Oklahoma City, part of me would love to say screw it and just ditch the Hawks and find a team more suitable to my taste like that, but that would be totally lame and I couldn't do it even if I wanted to because I'm a Hawks fan at heart and have been since I was a young kid back in the late 1970s, and that's just the way it is. The irony is that I did live in Denver for about 10 years and so could have become a Nuggets fan without having to feel like a 'bandwagoner' about it, but I just couldn't do that cause I'm a Hawk fan, and you are who you are. I don't know, but loving this team is about an exercise in frustration, and there is absolutely no doubt about that.

If he's on the playoff roster, he could be used as part of a 'Hack a Dwight' strategy. I mean that's how a much less talented Bobcats team gave Orlando much more trouble than anyone thought they ever could in the 1st round last year. They just threw wave after wave of marginal bigs with fouls to give against Dwight, and they manhandled him, pushed him around, scratched him, scraped him and played him VERY physically and rough and that visibly frustrated Howard and got inside his head and drew him into uncharacteristic retaliation, which put him into early foul trouble in every single game and limited his minutes to 28, 29, 26 and 23 in the four game series and caused him to foul out of the last two games. I thought that was a hell of a strategy by Larry Brown there, and really it was the only way in which he could ever hope to win. Dwight can't hurt ya if he's not out there, so fricken rough him up and wait for him to retaliate and get himself into foul trouble.

I'd be taking this one with a HUGE grain of salt. I'm not quite sure how a football writer would know something like this when the local basketball writers apparently don't even know it or are not reporting it. This type of thing has got 'BS' written all over it in my opinion. It might begin to have some legs only if it came from a much more credible source than a football writer making some throwaway comment on his blog.

I wasn't all that thrilled with the Hinrich trade to begin with, because I thought we'd given up too much for an older player who was on the decline, and especially as compared to the rumored Ramon Sessions trade we were talking with the Cavs at the time. Now that to me seemed like a heck of a trade, basically giving up a platter of crap for the possibility of acquiring a young and talented PG who still had upward potential as opposed to one who's best days were behind him, but for whatever reason that Sessions trade did not happen. Hinrich to me seemed like more of a stop-gap type move and somewhat of a token effort, whereas Sessions in my opinion offered help right now and much more importantly for the future, and we reportedly could have gotten him for disposable pieces and not had to send off our draft pick.

Hi Mrs. Joe. Welcome back. :spiteful:

Heh. :) Yes. I noticed the unspeakable one is averaging over 22 points and 5 assists per game in his past ten games and has averaged over 17 PPG per game since the trade. That's kind of painful to see as a Hawks fan, but at the same time I say kudos to him and I'm happy for him that he's having success, and all this does is offer further confirmation of the fact (as if that fact should ever need to be confirmed) that sometimes all a guy needs is to be given a chance. The more he's been given an opportunity to play, the better he's been. FG percentage WAY up since the trade, and he's gone 68-78 from the FT line, which is a cool 88%. Still can't really hit a 3 pointer to save his life, but maybe that will come, and given the way his play has improved with increased minutes and responsibilities, there's no reason to think he can't improve so far as hitting 3 pointers goes too. Even if it doesn't, he's still proven he can be a very effective player and one worthy of starting in the NBA. So hey, at least we drafted a good player, even if we didn't keep him. That's at least something I guess. Anyway, go Hawks!

I wish I could have seen him play, just to see him for the first time. And yeah, I hope both he and Teague both get plenty of minutes the rest of the way. We've got nothing to lose by and potentially quite a bit to gain by resting starters, so rest the starters and let the youngsters and bench warmers play. Nuttin to lose, and gains = getting these young guys some NBA playing time, resting starters and preventing the possibility of any one of them getting injured heading into the playoffs.

What I'm wondering is how Marvin can have only one rebound in 23 minutes played. Geesh. :beathorse:

I think we could take them. As others have said, they are not nearly so strong a team as they were last year. Making that big a roster change up during the middle of a season, I think that's been a negative factor for them and it makes them much more beatable because they are not nearly so cohesive a team as they once were. I am really glad Mikael Pietrus is no longer on that team, because in that 2010 series I felt like he was definitely an underrated X-factor coming off their bench. He killed us with the three ball that series, and his defense just kicked *ss. He was a wicked pest in that series, and he really helped them out a lot. I really like that player, and believe he's a fantastic 'glue' type guy to have coming off the bench. Really useful, very valuable, and really nice to have a guy like that who can make that kind of positive contribution in the postseason. So I think that overall the Magic have weakened themselves and are less than they were, and hopefully we are to play disciplined ball and attack their weaknesses and take advantage of all that and get some payback for last year's humiliation at their hands.

RE: your trade proposal (Al/Pachuila for Iguadala/Speights), uhmmmm how bout just 'no'?. Iggy's contract for the next three seasons: 2011/12 $13,531,750 2012/13 $14,718,250 2014/15 $15,904,750 Don't you think we're paying enough money towards SF/SG types as is? I just don't see the use in us locking ourselves into another long-term and very expensive contract for positions we've already got at least adequately covered. Rather than that, how bout trying to really upgrade at either the center or PG position? And beyond that, Igoudala has got some seriously gimpy legs, and who knows how he's going to be in three years, when he's getting paid 15M+? **shudder** Beyond the fact we don't really need him, I'd stay far away from that on principle. I love Al Horford, but you make some valid points and I agree with you that he should not automatically be deemed untouchable. Far as I'm concerned, anyone on this roster should be considered 'touchable', so long as trading them nets us an upgrade somehow. If we got a killer offer for Al at a position that clearly upgrades us, then go for it or at the very least consider it. Just do what it takes to get better. My love for the team supersedes any individual player. I just want to see us get better, and I'd love to see us win a championship before I'm taking a dirt nap permanently. I've been a fan for a number of years now, and I haven't seen diddly-squat yet so far as championships go, and the clock is always ticking, because you never know how long you're going to be here. So I'd like this fricken outfit to win pretty much ASAP, and to do whatever it takes to get there. I'm not so sure I'd want the ASG running that show though. I'd just as soon roster turnover happen under a new owner, with a more long-term view involved.

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.