BlackHawkDown

"That elitist wannabe-street attitude is why the NBA only has about 5 teams worth watching" Thats a load of S#it. The NBA is entertainment. Frederick Douglass High vs. Marietta High is basketball. Which would you rather watch? The Utah Jazz are probably the most boring team on earth because their team is built for technical play. Mind you they never won a championship with it.

Claiming flashy players ruin the league is a crock. Nique, early MJ, Dr. J, "Magic", all flashy players who played a more physically and mentally demanding brand of basketball than the Euros. Not to mention a point you dont seem to want to tackle, why are so many of the top players in Europe former CBA players or College All Americans that didnt or couldnt make it in the NBA. ????

I'm not anti foriegn player, when its Patrick Ewing or Dikembe or Tim Duncan. I am anti foriegn when its one of the countless sc rubs riding NBA benches that are never brought up when its time to talk about flops.

"quote all the ignorant rappers" those ignorant rappers have more fame money and musical talent than you so why insult them. And Biggie is dead do you really need to talk about him, what did he ever do to you.

"Biggie said... "either you slang'n crack rock or you got a wicked jumpshot." "

That was your greatest post ever. The fact is that European players have good technical play. In fact if you bought a textbook on how to play you will see they follow it to the T. The problem is they arent as good as the players coming out of high School here. Do a comparison.

Also Just lookup the Euro leauge leaders all are NBDL level players from here. Or African immigrants. Most of the European players are just below NBA level. But since 3 or 4 of them come over and dominate you guys are riding the whole of Europe

No Doubt Cleveland is vastly improved, but I think Denve had surpassed there win total for last season after something like 32 - 35 games.

I dont think there is anything charitable about tricking people to go a hawks gain if anything It would have the opposite affect.

The Answer is simple give season ticket holders something special, at least the one's with $50 tickets. Give them a free dinner at Maggio's or the Cheese cake factory. The truth is anyone who buys season tickets will be there regardless so why not fill the areana, get some excitement in there and I gaurantee you sales will go up. You want to see sales go up give out free samples of what the Hawks could be. An entainment company.

"That's the part that will be fad. Jason Kapano said that he should have went to Europe, put a towel on his hand and renamed himself Yuri Kapanovich and he would have gotten a much better draft position." Even though I think Jason Kapono is a pussyballing scrub the truth is he is right.

I have friends who have played in Europe, the level of play isnt there, nor are the atheletes. They can run and have strong technical play but when it comes to basketball as an art, forget about it. The sad part is there are players in Latin America and Africa that are getting shafted because the truth of the matter is there is too much of a focus on scouting susky von Sucksovich. The best European players are in Russia and the league doesn't even recruit heavily there.

What is worse is the league is letting several undrafted high schoolers sit while they develop players with less talent. Look at the Florida Gators Donovan chased away the best athelete to ever sigh with the program, James White, in favor of that pussyballing fraud Christian Drejer who bolted for Spain a couple of weeks ago. I'm saying this as a team booster,Drejer was garbage.

Hs vs Euros

1. KG. 1. Dirk

2. Tmac 2. Peja

3. Kobe 3. Pau Gasol

4. Lebron 4. Tony Parker

5. J. Oneal 5. Kirilenko

6. A. Harrington. 6. Boris Diaw

7. R. Lewis

8. D. Miles

9. T. Chandler

10. Kwame Brown

11. E. Curry.

12. DeShawn Stevenson

Game Set Match

Oh and by the way for those of you who say Kwame Brown, Chandler and Curry are bust guess what their not even old enough to be College senios yet.

"Its a Celebration Bitch" -Chappelle on Rcik James LMBAO

Every European Center in the draft is a flop waiting to happen. Europe will not provide many players... Dirk, Peja, Gasol, Parker that about it. Diaw, Ginobbli and Sophocles are okay. Now out of the 200 Euros drafted recently how many are actual players

Phoostal,

that slow an steady crap your talking about, building one one victory at a time is the kind of crap Babcock was doing. "Hey we got to the playoffs lost in the 1st round and with the addition of the 19th pick and some Mid Level Exception player, Oh and oh boy we will get the rights to some PG in France with our second round pick. WOW, Next year just you wait and see"Yeah that really lets everybody know we are interested in becoming an exciting team.

The Hawks are a laughing stock because they lose for 5 - 6 years and when they were winning they were always some second teir team. What, That makes you happy. SAy I'm not a fan, I'm Not I dont give a s#it about a bunch of sweaty grown men running around. I enjoy watching the game and supporrt the team but if I dont qaulify as a fan, oh well.

You have to take a risk to win. You used the example of McDonald's and Uncle Joe's. Yeah, there is a bigger risk that Uncle Joe's will fail but there is a bigger upside on success. There is huge chance the Hawks will fall flat on their face but there is just a much better chance for huge success.

Do you think that if the Hawks reel off some wins and get the 8th playoff seed that the franchise will be better off?

GrayMule I havent checked but I am confident the most improved team this year is Denver, and the 2nd most improved is Minnesota. Cleveland is probably 3rd.

I was fooling around trying to analyze the average revenue and profit of a Hawks Game and realized the Hawks lose huge amounts of money everytime they even play, because they only attract 1,500 to 2,500 fans.

So since the team hopefully will be absolute garbage for at least 2 seasons the best marketing strategy would be to sell something else altogether. So have no cost of admisssion to about 10 to 15 games that will bring in no fans. Let before, after and during halftime feature free concerts from big artist Outkast to Ludacris to Justin TimberFAKE. It will surely bring in 15,000 to 20,000 fans (whatever our capacity is), and bring in young fans. But here is the catch vending/concession sales will bring ing in way more than they made from the pidly 1,500 -2,500 fans they would have gotten from doing the same old crap.

Look at the synegery that rap record labels created by packaging everthing from clothing to video games to movies to liquor to television shows. And laugh if you want to but Phat Farm, Sean Jean, Rocafella will see a billion in annual revenue within the next 2 years. They sell mostly overagerations of African American culture, package it under the name "hip hop culture" and sell it to white kids and adults throught America Europe and Japan. So why not follow their model create buzz around the team, make a Hawks game more than just basketball make it a total entainment package. A Hawks game out to be a star studded event, there are more nearly as many celebs living in Atlanta as there are in L.A. or New York. So why aren't they at Hawks games the way they are at the Lakers/Knicks games. S#it, have Jeff Foxworthy and the Blue Colar guys perform after the game, or Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle or 50cent. Why? Because they have way more pull than the Hawks. Jeff Foxworthy sells out 2 shows a night Chris Rock 3 a night. The Hawks wouldn't sell out one. Those video game tournaments are extremely popular why dont the Hawks host some. How many thousands of dorks would come to an EA sports tourny. Nobody goes to the All Star game because of the basketball they buy the hype around having the game in the city. Buckhead was stupid enough to closed clubs early. Get developers to build restaraunts, nightclubs,etc. around Phillips. Look at the difference between Wrigley and Cominsky their in the same city, but the Cubs make money no matter what. Why, because going to Wrigley is an experience, who cares if the Cubs win or lose, People go to Wrigley for the fun of it.

What the HELL is fun about a Hawks game. Cold wheather, losing, mediocrity, hanging out with half drunk 40 year old men who listen to sport talk radio all day. This team needs an image. Image sells and you want to talk about signing free agents if the team was half attractive to Free agenents as it is to tourist, Atlanta was the #1 tourist destination for African Americans 10 years straight, then you will seea new era begin.

What is the point of watching mediocrity, thats foolish I am an intellectual I enjoy the strategy of the game more than anything. I love watch team make moves to position themselves for the future, the strategies to win games the poetry of strategic decision making. Fools play checkers Men play chess. So root on for a futile victory in a battle while the war is lost.

From your ranting I am confident you are not an engineer or a businessman so let me teach you one thing. If you have a manufacturing plant the plant that produces the most product isnt necessarily the most profitable. Some plants overproduce and end up with millions in unsold product and lose. Sometimes its better to produce based on sales, right now our production is wins, but too many wins are just useless inventory at this point that could be used on capital investments that might benefit us in the future. A winning stategy is lose big now and win big later

Amen, Choro44

I remember mentioning the Hawks when I was talking to some friends about basketball. One guy said " Oh, I forgot Atlanta had a team." No real fan wants to watch his team struggle in mediocrity for years and thats all this team was doing. Just enjoy the losses, you should be used to it

Its not about one getting ripped off or not in this deal.The Hawks get cap room and the #1 or 2 pick because they made this deal. Portalnd got rid of a F###ing idiot in Sheed Wallace. Portlands players were unprofessional and dont forget 4 years ago the problem was they had to many stars, S#it when Jermaine O'Neal is your 11th man you definitely have some stars. With reef they get a calm professional sissyballer, who can play the role of a 2 scorer and in Theo they pick up a undersized no rebounding shotblocking Center. But the deal works for just because the Blazers dont need to rebuild the way we did because they have the peices they just need to put them together.

"You guys don't have to worry, your boy B. Knight will make sure it doesn't happen. Someone mentioned that Crawford has been playing well of late, but he will have an injury in a week or so. You are absolutely right. Knight will see to it. A mysterious ailment that finds him on the injured list. We can not have us winning games." - phoostal

Someone else finally noticed. Christina will be be injured soon enough.

KB21 your one of the most sensible people around here

MSU still sucks though......

I thought we talking contracts only the K.Smith/Blair Rasmussen deal was the worst in history of the league(or best depending on your perspective). We gave up an all-star point the year of the Rumuel Robinson/Bob Weiss debacle. And dont forget Babcock was GM in Denver before he came to destroy Atlanta no doubt he probably signed that 7yr/17mill deal. Oh and dont forget the 89 team hired a psychologist because Nique/Theus and Doc were fighting all the time.

BHD is no @sshole I will diss you when you are a scrub and praise you when you deserve it. Christina played his slow candy butt off against Orlando and I am giving him all the credit in the world. Shame in a couple of weeks he will decide he is tired and break his leg or tear a muscle so he can get back to what he does so well sit on the bench and collect a check for nothing. But tonight he showed me alot, his play over the last 2 weeks though not great at least proves to me that he is an nba worthy player. Though still a pussyballing scrub.

"Its a celebration, bitch" Chappelle on Rick James. LMBAO

This team has been garbage for like 5 years now. Its about time we get something for our suffering and any combination of Okafor,Howard or Smith would be a wonderful reparations package for the fans after 15 years of Babcock.

Where where Christina Crawfo9rd and Booby Sura tonight. You guys got all hyped about to close loses and a win and you all want to resign CC and talk crap about how they hustle.

Livingston is an 05 pick.

Look at their career #s especially when he was with sacramento Reef/Tisdale have similar heights,weights, rebounds, shooting%, and scoring. Both player PF for horrible teams. And both were as soft as dough.

Hendu actually earned a deal he has always at least until recently put up some decent #'s 13ppg/7rpg the year he got the deal Konkak got the biggest deal on the team after 4.7ppg/7rpg/1bpg not great #s from acenter who later that su mmer would become the 3rd highest paid player in the NBA. Hendu was no where near the top 10 paid players. Ask me Cris Crawford deal was the 2nd worst in Hawks History.

By the way the SF Nique had more rebounds than the center Jon Contract.

I am completely sold on Shaun Livingston. I am tired of us settling on the Rumeul Robinsons,Dan Dickaus and Jason Terrys of the world. Livingston is a 6'7" point Gaurd with superstar potential.

Nelson look at the stats Nelson has a low Assist/TO ratio and turns the ball over more than JT in the a weak conference.

As for Duhon my gut just tells me he wont be a player.

If dolfan can complain about how much athletes make I can refute the logic of it. his entire subject is off topic so why is my post in particular mentioned. Because you dont agree?

Rasheed Wallace is an idiot, he's emotional and immature but aside from his attacks on david stern he has made some valid points. I'm a millionaire so I am not complaining about a damn thing. But the point is that there are desparities in a capitalist system so lets never desparage someone for doing well because there is always someone doing better. So what if athletes make millions there not affecting you other than you might have to pay more for ticket to a football game. But executive pillfering of pensions, which is rampant, executives making poor short sighted business decisions just to temporarily raise shareholder prices, or maybe the exec who decides to close down a textile mill in the carolinas move operations to Vietnam and exploit teen laborers who work 80 hour weeks for $40 or the company that lobbies Congress or State Capitols for tax breaks claiming that it is needed for capital investments but instead makes wide sweeping layoffs, Or the bank that traps college students with high interest Credit Cards or charges higher rates to homeowners in African American communities.The list goes on and these people who through the media control you so well that they have you critcizing 22 year old atheletes who make less than the vast majority of high level executives. Believe me if you add up every pro atheletes salary and compare it to the revenues of Microsoft(just one company) and you will understand who is really controlling the economy.