Why am I not surprised...

[Wretch]

Magic Diaw.

[macdaddy]

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The Hawks, as dumb teams do, focused on what he couldn't do. The Suns, as smart teams do, saw what he could do.

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Replace 'The Hawks' with 'the Hawks coaches' and its more accurate. I don't think BK who drafted him didn't understand what Boris offered, but why keep a guy if he's not going to play.

[drzachary]

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The Hawks, as dumb teams do, focused on what he couldn't do. The Suns, as smart teams do, saw what he could do.

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Replace 'The Hawks' with 'the Hawks coaches' and its more accurate. I don't think BK who drafted him didn't understand what Boris offered, but why keep a guy if he's not going to play.

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I don't think Boris understood how to offer the ball up and into the basket while standing underneath it. In my totally uneducated opinion, Boris simply quit on the Hawks because the Hawks sucked.

[Lascar78]

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I don't think Boris understood how to offer the ball up and into the basket while standing underneath it. In my totally uneducated opinion, Boris simply quit on the Hawks because the Hawks sucked.

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I think this is true, and I also think he particularly quit on Woodson because Woodson did not "get" him. It's too bad

[drzachary]

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I think this is true, and I also think he particularly quit on Woodson because Woodson did not "get" him. It's too bad

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It's bad, and it's immature. You should follow your coach's instructions, not give up if it doesn't match what you want to do (pass up open layups.)

[Lascar78]

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It's bad, and it's immature. You should follow your coach's instructions, not give up if it doesn't match what you want to do (pass up open layups.)

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Agreed, but I think Woody failed also.

[Guest Walter]

Woody will continue to fail without Diaw and not vice versa.

W

[Guest Walter]

This is what happens when you have 10 players all the same height with similar skill sets. Somebody gets pushed out. Diaw was far better than his role here for personel and coaching reasons. I expect the same will be said for Childress, Josh, and/or Marvin one day soon.

W

[CrawDaddy]

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the #1 picks we sent to Pheonix for JJ were lottery protected. Am I wrong here?

[sirchaz]

Lottery Protected next summer.

Top three protected the following year and unprotected after that.

The second is the worst of the Lakers/Celtics pick which is top ten protected next year.

[hawkman]

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This is what happens when you have 10 players all the same height with similar skill sets. Somebody gets pushed out. Diaw was far better than his role here for personel and coaching reasons. I expect the same will be said for Childress, Josh, and/or Marvin one day soon.

W

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And it will continue to happen if we don't realize that if you draft based on potential, that you actually have to develop the player's skills and put them in a position to succeed. The hawks seem to have a recent history of not developing players, labeling them busts, then trading them (or giving them) away and having it blow up in their faces later.

[Final_quest]

I have to say that I think this is as good as it gets for Diaw. As young as he is I don't see him a leading a team or doing much more than he is doing now. Like Chillz said some fool team will sign him to a big contract thinking he is Magic Diaw, and they will be sorely disappointed.

[Diesel]

About Stotts. I won't say that he was a bad coach. I liked Stotts. I don't think you should over emphasize what Stotts did with that team.. Mainly because The Hawks were a losing team and down the stretch other teams don't show up.

Moreover, most of those guys were playing for their next contract. So Jax, Sura, and the rest were trying to make their mark.

But like you, I would have liked to seen what Stotts could have done here with more time.

[mudderfudder77]

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About Stotts. I won't say that he was a bad coach. I liked Stotts. I don't think you should over emphasize what Stotts did with that team.. Mainly because The Hawks were a losing team and down the stretch other teams don't show up.

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Diesel,

Aren't you the same guy who try's to use Harrington and Chills stats in March as some sort of evidence as to what they are capable of? You know the same period of time you're saying other teams don't show up.

[drzachary]

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I have to say that I think this is as good as it gets for Diaw. As young as he is I don't see him a leading a team or doing much more than he is doing now. Like Chillz said some fool team will sign him to a big contract thinking he is Magic Diaw, and they will be sorely disappointed.

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Or better yet, what if Coach D'Antoni quits or retires, and the new coach isn't someone that sits well with Diaw's discerning palate? He'd just quit again.

[KB21]

I actually agree with you on Stotts. If you remember, I was one of the lone voices that actually supported keeping Terry Stotts as the head coach. At that time, Terry Stotts was demonized by the fans though. IMO, Terry fit the style that Billy was wanting to employ, as Terry comes from George Karl's school of up tempo, fast paced play and trapping style defense.

However, Billy felt he needed to make a change. I really can't blame him for the change.

The point I want to make to the fans is this though. Back then, many of the people who are NOW saying that we should have kept Stotts were the very ones wanting him gone. He was criticized for substitution patterns and wasn't considered by the fans to be a very good X's and O's coach. Many of the fans gave up on him.

Is the same thing happening with Mike Woodson?

I haven't seen enough Hawks games this year to have an educated opinion on whether the Hawks problems are coach related or whether the Hawks problems are related simply to poor chemistry among the players. Something tells me that the problem lies somewhere in between.

Will a coaching change fix it? Who knows? I'd like to know who is currently available that is an experienced, veteran coach, and I would like to know if that coach can come in and get the team to the turning point.

In my opinion, this team is a more talented team relative to athleticism and skills than it has been in the past 10 years. For whatever reason, that talent simply isn't jelling together. Is there a lack of defined roles? Is the system being run a bad fit? I don't know the answer to either question.

[Diesel]

Wow..

We agree. The same voices saying we should have kept Stotts were saying down with him.

About coaching style, we agree and disagree.

I don't think BK wants defensive... Or at least it's not one of his prerequisites...

Otherwise, we wouldn't have signed Lue...

BK wants a long team to clog up passing lanes and hinder offenses.. But really what BK wants is a scoring team... Maybe UPTEMPO.

I think Stotts would have been good for that.

I think Woody is more defensive and less offensive than BK realized. Woody will put a defense in place that mirrors the Pistons... One based on Switching and zone matchup coverage. This is why we suck defensively. Our people have to know where to switch to and they also have to have some semblence of one on one defense. I don't think we have more than 2 good one one one defenders on our team.

Stotts was a better fit because we would have just trapped for 42 minutes and maybe matched up those other 6. There's not much thinking involved in a trapping defense. Ask coach K. Actually, I think Smoove would thrive in a trapping defense. Moreover, Stotts offense was run and fun similar to Phoenix. I think BK couldn't have asked for better.

People are calling for Silas (myself included) but stylewise, our team doesn't fit his style. He likes to run a halfcourt set. I think that's part of what got him put out in Cleveland. Too much slow it down and pass it in to Big Z.

I think for that reason Coach PJ Carlisimo is probably a bad choice too. Even though he's more experienced than Woody, he also tends to slow the game down too.

An interesting name that nobody has called is Nellie.

Nellie builds teams that out offense everybody else.

Although I highly doubt that BK would call him.

Then there's my man... Frank Johnson...

[CHORO44]

Bring back Eric Musselman.

Stotts sucked. His substitution patterns were horrible as were having DJ camp the three point line in the corner. He's doing better his second time around as I think Musselman can also.

[Lascar78]

I tend to agree. Musselman is the only coach that I think we let get away. I wanted him to stay in the first place. Stotts is nothing special, and looked rather clueless here. He looked intimidated by the position, and just let the players do what they wanted. He looks like he's learned from the experience and is doing a little better now.