RAHMOR

Not soon enough. We really need both of these guys back. Especially Chilz as I suspect Marvin may not get off to a fast enough start to make the immediate diffence I see him making. I hope at least Chilz is back for our west coast swing starting soon.

I can't wait. I've missed the last three games b/c I was out of town and am dying to see my boys play tonight.

No kids along for the ride just a bunch of music and the a/c.

I made it too. Atl. to Md.- 13 hrs. Back from New Jersey to Atlanta - 13 hrs.

Congrats.

Quote: Damn that is too far, have a safe trip though. Thanks.

Ga.to a stop in Maryland to New Jersey.

Happy Thanksgiving squawkers. I'm out of here in the morning for a 12 hour drive

Quote: The Hawks were in a zone forcing outside shots. Its harder to rebound to begin with in a zone because you cant immediatly body someone up. Thats why you have to give extra effort. Employee 8 shot a ball from the corner in front of the bench. Josh ran out at him and past him, thats good. The bad part. As a shooter espically from that spot you are taught to follow your shot because 9/10 times it is short and comes right back to you. Josh kept running into the bench (not out of control, just lazyly) turned and watched. Walker did the same, he didnt even move, guess what the ball literally rolled out to him. With any effort Smooth could have taken 2 steps and got in front of him when the shot went up and had an easy reb. I cursed my televion on that play as well. I think this game more than any other helped me put into perspective that Josh Smith is really unpolished and very prone to have spurts where his focus is dismal at best. I think this is the curse of him being only 21. Some people mature physically faster than others. I've seen some girls that when I found out their age of was like OMFG but that's another story. Why isn't it the same mentally? Josh is not mentally maturing fast enough. In a way it's a good thing if looking at the whole picture. Josh is not franchise player material yet. This slow pace could effect his next contract allowing us the sign him cheaper and have a situation similar to Al Harrington or Ron Artest where their second contract is not worth their value. On the court it's a bad thing because these little things can cost us games and have but no more than anything else we've done(ie all the missed shots, Joe's free throw performance). I don't want him to become the new Al Harrington, or Antoine Walker of this board receiving the blame for our losses. I think his age and lack of experience are reasonable excuses for his lapses as opposed to Al and Antoine who's age and experience were not. There was a play when I think it was Jason Williams was driving to the basket faked right and Josh went with him, then he went left. Josh recovered got the blocked shot and managed not to foul him somehow. The block was easy for him with his athleticism, not getting the foul was smart basketball. He's capable of playing smarter and with time I belive he will he's just not there yet. On another play JJ made a great pass to Josh and instead of shooting it with 4 seconds on the clock he tried to thread a pass back to JJ but the clock expired. JJ jumped his sh*t(good for JJ btw) and told him to shoot. That was a dumb play by Josh. I guess the point I want to make is that Josh is going to do dumb things like that probably for at least the rest of this season but I don't think you can say he's hasn't improved from his rookie season. The real question is whether he will eventually mature enough to get past these mistakes. I believe he will because by most accounts he works his butt off in the offseason. He's dedicated to improving his game which is what it takes. We all disagree on how much Josh has or hasn't improved, we all disagree on what type of player he is, SF/PF, but I think we all agree that he has the potential to be incredible on both ends of the floor. Are we willing to wait for that to happen? I have more to say but I hate these long post so I'm stopping.

Dear Hawksquawk: We're shot outselves in the foot over these last three losses. Alot like the Hawks of the past couple of seasons. A sign we haven't quite turned the corner yet. Given the age of most of your players not such a surprise. These are the kind of things we ALL expected before we got off to such a hot start. Go Hawks. Sincerly, Still not worried.

I wasn't trying to say Deng or Iggy were better I was saying it may be time to stop comparing these guys to him. His learning curve is diffent. I don't think those guys would have made our record 7-1. Look at their teams records. I for one would rather have Josh Smith b/c his ceiling is higher than theirs. You're right about them being top 10 picks. We couldn't have gotten those guys with the 17th pick. It would be either one of those guys in addition to Smoove and minus Childress, who I wouldn't trade for those guys either.

Quote: What I don't get is why people are trashing him so much this year? We're on a losing steak. His FG% is low which as you mentioned is because of his shot selection. I think he supposed place on this team is hurting him in the eyes of most fans. He has had high expectations set upon him even sometimes has been called the second coming of Nique. I myself expect alot of him but understand he has a long way to go. I get fustrated during the game but try not to let it carry over after the last second has ticked off the clock. His age or number of years in the league are irrelevant. He's not Iggy, Chilz, or Deng(all of whom played in college btw). He's Josh Smith and he simply needs more time to become what I'm sure he will.

Quote: Well we did have depth at the SF position. Now we have none. That would be funny if it wasn't so scary. And true.

Josh Smith is better than he was just he hasn't been consistent this season. He seems to start slow every season which is the same curse Chilz suffered from prior to this season. Watching Josh Smith so far has put into proper perspective how raw he was coming out of high school. If you think about it the only thing about his game that was NBA caliber was dunking. He lucked up with his shot blocking ability but a smart post player knows how to negate this 90% of the time. I'm not worried that Josh will never be good I just think it will take him longer to be consistent. IMO and observation players usually breakout by their 3rd year(see Chilz) and I think Josh may not have that brekout season until next year or maybe his fifth since he has so much to work on. Unfortunately for him Marvin's skill set is such that this maybe his year and if not I'd put money on him breaking out next year.

It seems everytime we get someone back we lose another player. Tonight we get Speedy and lose Chilz. Despite our last three losses I can say with much confidence we are not a bad team. We are an average team in this league. With Marvin and Chilz on this team we may even achieve above average status. With Marvin back not only will our starters be better but our bench will be better. Go Hawks.

Not watching this game on TV makes this loss suprisingly easy for me to take even though I wish we could be 5-1. Anyway, we know we have flaws on this young team but I still believe. It's going to be great watching this team grow to championship form over the next couple of seasons. Go Hawks.

Interesting stat from the Sonics website Quote: We might just have to accept that the Hawks are for real. Over the last five years, teams that have started 4-1 have made the playoffs 81.3% of the time http://www.nba.com/sonics/news/preview061111.html btw congrats to the guys who were smart enough to bet on the Hawks over/under for the season...bastards.

Quote: i guess the T.I. concert afterward has something to do with it The T.I. concert has everything to do with the $10 and $15 dollar tickets being sold out. A year or so I go I went during Busta Rhyme after game concert and those tickets and those same priced tickets were sold out.

I was looking at the schedule for the Hawks for the rest of Nov. trying to figure what our record would be and realized this. Nov. 22 vs. Det. Nov. 24 vs. Tor Nov. 25 vs. Orl. Nov. 28 vs. Was. Nov. 29 vs. Cha. That's 5 games in 8 days. All in our conference and 3 in our division. Just like last night was huge test and indicator of what we are this is going to be a really good test of what this team is made of. Even if we win our next 4 games I think most of the national media will wait for this before they even consider giving us any respect. I will reserve my Hawks playoff predictions until this stretch is complete but for the month of November I predict...I'm not superstitous(sp) but I just can't do it. Go Hawks. P.S. My prayers will be with the corndog people during this stretch. P.S.S. Just looked at December and there is a two week stretch that made my jaw drop.

This was a great game to watch. I can't believe how good the defense is. It's not a mirage at all. The Hawks just may be able to keep this up. Big ups to Lue Hefner and JJ is a killer, good god.

I forgot we beat this team in the preseason. I know it doesn't count for much but that should give our guys some confidence tonight.

It's good to see JJ get some recognition for his talent. He was on the radio last week with T. Lue(who says everybody calls him Lue Hefner) and Lue said that he's has been trying to get Joe to be more vocal and bring out his natural personality and it did seem like Joe was joking and alot more comfortable on the radio then when I've heard him in previous interviews.

They have just as many weapons as Philly. Larry Hughes is back this season and Drew Gooden just had a double double. It all depends on how much energy we bring.

Hawks win, Giants win. I'm good.

This should be a fun game to watch. JJ vs. Larry Hughes. Lebron vs. Josh. I think Josh will probably get into early foul trouble. It's not out of the realm of possibility for us to beat Cleveland, after all they just lost to Charlotte. The could also beat our brains out because they just lost to Charlotte and we'll be playing in Cleveland. It all depends on how much energy we come out with.