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Joe Johnson is a great player, and I think he's our future at the two along with Marvin at the three. Other than that I'm not really sure who's in the Hawks' longterm plans. The thing I like about JJ and Marvin though is that they're deadly from the perimeter and can also take it off the dribble or post guys up. I think all we really need now is a dominant power forward and a dominant point guard (if only we could steal more players from the Suns...Amare Stoudamire and Steve Nash come to mind).

Thanks for the video, that was a pretty sweet pass. The way he got into the lane reminded me a little bit of Manu Ginobilli.

Darko is averaging almost 4.5 blocks per 48-minutes...about a block-and-a-half more than Josh Smith, and right up there with the best in the league. He's a face up power forward on offense, but he's a shotblocker on defense. He's also going to be far more skilled and a much better passer.

Marvin is going to be good; I'm completely sold on him.

I would do it in a second.

Nice call on the "ugly."

I've heard at times that the Grizzlies were open to trading Pau Gasol. I'm not sure if he's really on the trading block, but if he is I think we should try and get him. Trading Al Harrington, Josh Smith, and Tony Delk for Gasol works under the salary cap, and I'd be willing to do it. Then we could be looking at a lineup like this a year from now: PG: Rajon Rondo SG: Joe Johnson SF: Marvin Williams PF: Pau Gasol C: Zaza Pachulia Tyronn Lue, Salim Stoudamire, Josh Childress

There's basketball, football, and then there's mixed martial arts (like the UFC)...the 3 best sports of all time. I've actually seen every UFC since the very beginning, back in the day of Royce Gracie and the elimination tournaments where you had to fight 3 times in one night. Bascially, I would recommend the UFC to anyone -- just don't expect viscous knockouts in every single fight. There are some really incredible knowckouts in every UFC, but at the same time to truly appreciate mixed martial arts as a sport it's important to learn what's going on inside the octagon; how an arm-bar works, how a triangle choke works, the importance of hip positioning on the ground, the importance of not giving your back to your opponent -- otherwise some pretty incredible fights may seem a little boring at first, like a pitcher's duel in baseball. Once you understand what's going on in there (and even before that, actually) it's an amazing sport. I'm hoping it will eventually become totally mainstream, with highlights on Sports Center and everything else. The Ultimate Fighter reality show has done incredible things for the sport in terms of exposure, but if you're interested make sure you get a look at what the truly elite fighters can do during actual UFC events. You can get tapes of old UFC's at Blockbuster, under new releases and also under either sports or special interest. PRIDE Fighting also comes on the TV every now and then, which is about the same thing as the UFC. Spread the word and help mixed martial arts overtake boxing as the most popular combat sport in the world!

There's no one formula for winning. Duncan has already been mentioned as a winner who doesn't necessarily have that "fire." Also, Shaq is a winner and has a lot of solid leadership qualities -- but he's not the guy you want with the ball in his hands at the end of games b/c of his foul shooting, so Kobe filled that role. To me, it could be the case that someone like Al Harrington becomes our firey leader, and Salim takes the last second shots, while JJ is still considered our best overall player and leader -- or it could be Joe Johnson doing both of those things. Who knows how it will actually go, but I think you look to the entire team to get all the components you need, not just to one guy.

I just can't wait to finally get a look at him myself. I'm glad his field goal percentage is going up, though, and I'm glad he seems able to get to the line and make his free throws. Overall, I'm a little surprised at how well he's done so far.

While Zaza probably won't be as good as Bogut, I've watched Bogut a few times and never come away all that impressed, and I'm still skeptical that Bogut will be worthy of a number 1 pick. Here's my question: Couldn't Zaza have put up close to the numbers Bogut did in the Mountain West? After all, Zaza is still only 21 years old and the Mountain West just isn't that good. After watching Bogut get dominated by Kentucky's big men (and don't just look at Bogut's final stats, which he mostly got in garbage time after the game had long since been decided), I'm just not sure what Bogut's college career really meant in terms of future NBA potential.

Last year Charlie Rosen ripped the Hawks for signing Travis Best, even though he meant Kenny Anderson. This year he didn't mention Josh Childress except when he confused him with Josh Smith, didn't mention Marvin Williams or Salim Stoudamire at all, spent all his time breaking down our backup pointguard and barely mentioned Joe Johnson, and then wondered how much gas a center that's not on our roster has left in his tank. Besides, Charlie Rosen is totally negative about everyone. His typical review of someone like Shaq would sound like this: "He's a purely one dimensional offensive player who doesn't defend the pick and roll, can't shoot freethrows, and is barely an adequate shotblocker and rebounder." Basically, if you didn't know Shaq was the most dominant center in the league you would think he was total garbage from reading his review, and that's how all his other scouting reports are: start by minimizing the positive, then put a spotlight on the negative.

Look y'all, Marvin was the consensus number two pick of the draft this year. Any team picking number two would have picked Marvin, not just the Hawks. I honestly think it's popular to bash the Marvin pick at the moment simply because the Hawks chose him. The Hawks are an easy punchline right now because of our low attendance, our 13 wins, the Belkin fiasco, and our alleged over-abundance of swing men. If the Hornets had taken Williams you'd be hearing all kinds of priase for the pick and how they took a potential superstar that fit a need well. There are good reasons why we added both JJ and Marvin this summer. As for JJ, I think BK wanted a big, long, versatile PG (unlike Chris Paul); and he wanted a G who could shoot (unlike Deron Williams). JJ fits into both those categories better than either Paul or Deron. As for Marvin, we needed more shooting, and Marvin gives us that. While it's true that Harrington, Smith, Marvin, JJ, and Childress can all play Small Forward, the pieces we've assembled are not duplicative. Harrington will be gone by the trade deadline; JJ can play the one, two, or three; Childress can play the two or the three; and Smith or Marvin can play either the three or the four. So those pieces fit together well and give us an extremely long, extremely athletic, extremely versatile, and now a very well rounded balance of shooters and slashers at the 1-4 spots. Two years from now this could be a very, very good team.

New member here. I've been posting for a while on RealGM and recently decided to join over here at HawksSquawk. As far as Marvin Williams' future ability to play PF, one thing that sticks out to me is that, although Marvin is all of 4 inches shorter than Andrew Bogut, his standing reach is only 2 inches shorter. And to me, standing reach is far more important than height.