Seano

LOL. This whole BasketballPrincess thing is wicked over the top. Quote: This pretty much tells me that you're a gimmick. Probably Johnny Bravo, maybe KB or hotlanta or Diesel. Where's Chillz? How DARE you question a Princess??? In the olden days, you could have been beheaded for doing such a thing.

I voted Will Blalock, because his name reminds me of Mookie.

The pitching is terrible. The bullpen is an abomination. Leo Mazzone is gone, and we haven't had the financial resources to make up for all the free agent losses the team has absorbed over the past 3-4 seasons. Maddux, Glavine, Javy, Sheffield, Drew, Farnsworth etc. etc. etc., all gone via free agency. Millwood, Estrada, and many others traded because they were becoming too expensive. Our farm system is good, but hasn't been able to keep up with the massive loss of talent occurring at the big league level. No farm system could.

Quote: It was TW who sold the Hawks and Thrashers but held on to the Braves. And the Braves are suffering the effects to this day, as AOL-TW is squeezing the last drop of blood out of them by reducing their payroll year after year after year, despite the Braves incredible run of success over that time. Now it appears as if all that bloodletting has finally caught up with them, as we are seeing the worst Braves team in probably 15 years. Corporate ownership of sports teams really sucks, because they don't care about the team. It's all business, and it's all about the bottom-line.

Or better yet, these shoes. Frankenshelden, indeed.

Nah, the Braves were bought by Time-Warner, which eventually became swallowed up by the media conglomerate which was to become AOL-Time Warner.

Quote: My question is.... do they have to wear some kind of standard shoe? Or can they wear whatever they want? Can they wear the platform shoes with aquariums like Flyguy in "I'm Gonna Get You Sucka?" LOL. Maybe Shelden could wear these at his official measurement.

Well he sold the Braves too. Didn't seem to hurt them too badly....well not until this year, at least.

Man it sucks to be a Hawks fan. It just seems like one terrible disappointment on top of another. This should be one of the most exciting times of the year for us. A high pick in the upcoming draft, tons of money available under the cap, having the trump card of Al Harrington to deal in an SNT and hopefully getting back some really good (or at least non redundant) players in return.... These should be salad days for Atlanta Hawks fans- but they're not, because of all this bullshit going on. Now nothing is certain, except for more uncertainty, more turmoil, more BS. It all seems terribly unfair. What did we, as Atlanta Hawks fans, do to deserve all this?

It doesn't surprise me that he's wicked strong. Just by looking at him, you can get an idea of it. He's built like a brick sh*thouse.

Quote: I also don't understand giving him a guarantee since we don't know how the draft will play out. Yeah, I don't understand that either. In fact it sounds pretty foolish to me. Why do you need to give anyone any kind of 'guarantee'? What purpose does that serve? Why would you paint yourself into a corner like that? And in that same vein, why the hell would we not be working out Brandon Roy? Even if we didn't want him or had no plans on taking him, what harm does it do to bring him in for a workout? Why wouldn't you work out everyone who has the possibility of being a lottery pick? Hell, work out all the guys you might be considering in the 2nd round as well. Work out as many players as possible, the more the merrier. The more first-hand information you've got, the better off you are. And it also serves to keep all the other teams guessing, because with the amount of players we'd be working out, our competitors would have no idea which direction we'd be leaning.

Quote: we did not give up too much to get a star player like Joe Johnson. I agree. I'm not worried in the least about the Joe Johnson trade. The bottom-line is that we did what we had to do to make *certain* that we got him, and I'm glad that he's here. However, if we tank this year and end up giving Phoenix a lottery pick next season, then you will hear a lot of complaining and even more second guessing. But not from me.

Agree. Relying on Stern to fix this situation is not likely to get us anywhere. And I don't know that he'd have any kind of jurisdiction over this matter anyways, even if he wanted to. This ruling came from a Federal court, which supercedes any kind of authority David Stern might have. The only way to reverse this kind of ruling is through the Federal appellate courts, which is where we'll soon be headed. I wish Stern could help us, but it's all gonna come down to a judge.

Quote: As much as people don't want to admit it he was right in his stance. Well, we don't know that for certain. There's no way that any of us could know whether Phoenix would have matched or not. Obviously Billy Knight and the other partners felt otherwise, and thus the trade. The only people who really know whether or not Phoenix would have matched are the higher ups in the Suns organization- and they ain't saying.

Nice work, Diesel.

Ooph, that'd be ugly. Billy would tear lil Belkin limb from limb, and would probably take great pleasure in doing so.

There's no doubt but that he's a shrewd mofo. Well either that, or his former partners are such a bumbling bunch of nincompoops that it seems almost incomprehensible that they could be extremely successful businessmen. But at any rate, Belkin appears to have outflanked them completely. Now, if he could only run a basketball team half as shrewdly as he ran this latest escapade, we'd be all set. But, I'm not gonna hold my breath on that one.

Quote: The point is that even though I'm disappointed that our owners seemingly has lost the fight, I'm not going to fall to pieces if BK is replaced. I wouldn't be broken-hearted if BK were to lose his job, but I'd rather see that happen due to merit (or lack thereof), rather than as the result of some stupid ownership fight. I was content to give him this season. See how he did in the offseason, the draft, how he handled the Harrington situation, and how he would do during the season with a team that's getting more experienced and mature as far as NBA playing time. Then, if it's not working out- axe the guy. But to fire him because of this...where would that leave us? Would we have to start some entirely new 'rebuilding' process under a new GM? Firing BK now would be a massive disruption to this franchise, and I'm not sure where we would go from there.

Quote: Maybe Belkin can gain legal ownership of the franchise but Stern can block his operational rights, meaning that he is basically forced to sell it stright away and get the money which is all he wants anyway. I don't know that the money is all Belkin wants. In fact my understanding is that he really wants a team. If that's the case, then I don't know what will happen. I imagine if worse comes to worse, we'll be stuck with Belkin as our owner.

I would hope to see Diesel hired as our new GM.

Hissy fit? Pot meet kettle. Quote: There's your new GM. Now, maybe all of you that threw little hissy fits over Billy Knight being gruff to the media will have your way. You will have your GM that will smile, dance around, and pet your god damn little peepees. Now *that* is what I would call a hissy fit.

I think it all comes down to the viewpoint that Williams is considered more of a sure thing, while O'Bryant is less sure but still a great prospect based on his potential. The thought is that possibly O'Bryant's NBA ceiling is higher than that of Williams, but again that's just speculation and is based only on potential.

PPS ~ sorry for the infrequent posts and haphazard style of late...I'm moving to Memphis and have been blessed with the birth of my son( first child) Hey, congrats on the birth of your son.

Quote: It's his natural position. It fits our need. He's good at what he does. He just might be the best fit for us right now, but #5 is probably still too high to take him. In order to get full value for our pick and not make a reach, we might need to trade down- but possibly not below #9 or #10. Thus the dilemma, who do you trade down with, and for what? Of course all of this is entirely speculative, since no one right now is even positive about exactly how tall he is. All of that will be known in a few weeks though....

Quote: That said, people dismiss him because of his limited "upside" when all of the guys that have so much "potential" are really just guys that we all hope can produce the way Sheldon already has. That's pretty much the way I look at it. I don't look at Shelden and think in terms of potential. I look at him as being basically 'what you see is what you get', and as being ready to play in the NBA right now... not at some unknown future point that is entirely dependent on whether he ever reaches his potential or not. He's already there, now whether he can get even better is the million dollar question. I think the 4 years at Duke really helped him refine his game. I agree with the thought that he plays a center's game (rebounding, blocking shots, rugged interior D) in a power forward's body. There no doubt that he's tough, and unafraid to mix it up.