OK...I am confused.

[KB21]

Yep.

I see us in the playoffs in two years, and I see us making a move up the playoff ladder within three years, which will be year five of Billy's five year plan. In four years, I see us playing for an NBA championship.

[Johnnybravo4]

As I said a couple of months back, Hawks fans live in a world of perpetual Christmas Eve. We never want to take that final step. We keep throwing out lines like

"we don't want to compromise our youth"

"he isn't a great fit"

"he'll take all of Chill's minutes, or JJ's minutes."

Until we as a fanbase have the confidence to help this front office make a leap of faith, we will always be "rebuilding".

[KB21]

That's about as warped of a thought process that I've seen on this board. The attempts to justify wrecking our salary structure by taking on bad contracts held by players who will not make this TEAM better are laughable at best.

Also, Hawks fans don't live in a perpetual world of Christmas Eve. I would venture to guess that a majority of Hawks fans, based on what I've seen on various message boards, live in a perpetual world of "the grass is always greener on the other side."

[mrhonline]

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a majority of Hawks fans

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I agree with that. The "average" Hawks' fan is wholly different from most of the posters on this board.

[CBAreject]

Bravo doesn't remember what it was like trading for all those contracts under Babcock...

He wants Murphy and Bonzi Wells

[DrReality]

All the frustration and tension of no trade with Al is erupting in some heated exchanges. That's one thing about being a Hawk's fan: gotta learn to deal with frustration over and over.

Bottom line is if BK's trade isn't pretty darn good, all the frustration is gonna erupt and it will be yet one more public relations fiasco for the Spirit to deal with. I hope we get surprised and come out of this smelling like a rose. But I am not holding my breath. Peace.

[BusBoyIsBack]

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Yep.

I see us in the playoffs in two years, and I see us making a move up the playoff ladder within three years, which will be year five of Billy's five year plan. In four years, I see us playing for an NBA championship.

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You do realize this is his 4th year, so really what you are envisioning is a communist plan. Say 5 years, keep postponing it and claim it is better than what you planned.

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Next year is only the 3rd year of the rebuilding plan.

Year 1- Build the team from the ground up. Things are obviously not pretty as we barely manage to avoid losing 70 games.

Year 2- We double our win total and the core of this team including the young players show flashes of greatness especially near the end of the season.

Year 3- First year without Al Harrington giving members of the core even more playing time. We will see what happens.

[Lascar78]

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So he got hired, and then he decided to wait around and not rebuild until a year later?

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Are you even serious man? Everyone knows he was not given the green light to rebuild until the sale was completed, the spirit took over in march 2004, and they gave him the green light, which is why he suddenly shipped every one on the roster. Do you think he decided to just wait for a while before shipping everyone??

No one is saying that it's about to be BK's 3rd year, it's year 3 OF THE REBUILD. He wasn't allowed to rebuild prior to that because of the potential impact on the value of the franchise during a sale. Come on man...

He shipped everyone in early 2004

04-05:year 1 of the rebuild

05-06:year 2

06-07:year 3

[Lascar78]

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So then why did he trade Big Dog, Theo, and Reef all before the ownership sale was completed? Wouldn't that have "affected" the value? Please, people just want to keep pushing back the start date. Next thing you know people will say BK didn't start rebuilding until he brought in JJ and sent out Diaw making his roster turnover complete.

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Stop being an ass. That is exactly when it began. When the deal had been agreed upon in principle but before it officially went through with the NBA is when the new owners told him he could go ahead and rebuild

TIMELINE:

-BK prior to 2004: not allowed to make any drastic rebuilding moves

-September 2003: Atlanta Spirit agrees in principle buys the hawks, a deal that is finalized in march 04

-During the sale process, when it is almost over in early 04, the new owners give BK the green light to rebuild as he sees fit and tell him they're willing to be patient and do it the right way

-Feb 04: The rebuilding begins. We ship reef, ratliff, dickau, Nazr, waive Glover. All in one month. This is the big clearout

-June 04: draft chill, smith

-July 04: we get Al

-August 04: the rebuilding continues, we ship Terry

-04-05: season 1 of the rebuild

-december 04: get lue

-february 05: ship walker

-June 05: draft marvin, salim

-August 05: ship diaw, acquire Johnson

-05-06: year 2 of the rebuild

-June 06: draft shelden

That's how the rebuilding has happenned. You can criticize the rebuilding all you want, but the fact was that it didn't begin until feb 04 when the new ownership allowed it.

If you want to be exact, we're 2 years and 5 months into the rebuild. It did not begin when BK got a job here

[AHF]

I agree with Hawksfanatic that BK was rebuilding from day 1 with the Hawks. I do think that Babcock inhibited the ability to rebuild to a large extent by trading away our lottery pick and loading the team with bad contracts and that our rebuilding was slowed some by the ownership transition but he was trying to rebuild from day 1 and if we had gotten lucky in the lottery and gotten Lebron we wouldn't start BK's rebuilding era from 2004 forward.

[Lascar78]

I suppose you can get technical and define it however you want. The fact is that he wasn't given the green light to truly clear the roster until early 2004 when the sale was nearly complete, that is a fact.

If you want to say that you don't care about that and that BK's rebuilding began months before he was allowed to do what he wanted, then go ahead, it's all a matter of semantics.

But don't act like people who see it the other way are just continually giving him more and more time. Clearly he got the job on a certain date, and clearly he didn't get full freedom to do what he wanted to do until months later. At the very least, we should be able to agree that there are legit reasons for considering either date as the beginning of rebuilding, and it's not like people who see it my way are continually pushing it back.

[KB21]

Well, I don't agree with it, because it is a fact that the rebuilding didn't start until Billy was able to get rid of Shareef Abdur-Rahim's, Theo Ratliff's, and Glenn Robinson's contracts. Billy was not armed with a high draft pick in the 2003 draft, thanks to Pete Babcock, and there is no way that his rebuilding could have begun without having a high pick and getting rid of those contracts.

The rebuilding started with the 2004 draft. That's when Billy put the first two bricks of the foundation he is building upon into place. It wasn't until the 2004 offseason that Billy was able to bring in "his" coach and make moves to bring in "his" players.

This idea that his rebuilding started in 2003 is nonsense and is only a fabrication by the idiots who simply want him gone. Billy didn't even know if he was going to be in Atlanta long term till the Atlanta Spirit took over in March of 2004.

[AHF]

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The rebuilding started with the 2004 draft. That's when Billy put the first two bricks of the foundation he is building upon into place. It wasn't until the 2004 offseason that Billy was able to bring in "his" coach and make moves to bring in "his" players.

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Do you think BK was trying to win until the 2004 draft? I am not sure what he was doing until the 2004 draft if that is when the rebuilding started?

Personally, I think he was rebuilding from the time he took over but that his hands were tied for the reasons we've discussed until 2004.

[Nicholasp27]

i believe, as i always have, that the rebuild started the day we traded sar/theo

that's when we started rebuilding

so we played 1/2 a season after that with smoove and 2 with him, so 2.5 years ago...it'll be 3 years this february (2/2007)...

[Lascar78]

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It is pointless to even discuss this, clearly you believe one thing and I the other. I don't know how you could say he didn't have a green light, he traded Big Dog, matched JT, and signed S-Jax, Vaughn, and Nailon. For someone who didn't have a green light that seems like a lot of moves to me.

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In the process of the sale they wouldn't allow him to gut the roster like he did in 2004, because a team with a gutted roster leads to a horrible record, and a franchise with no players and a horrible record is not worth much obviously.

It's not like he wasn't allowed to do any moves, he wasn't authorized to gut the roster. Paying Terry, signing Jaxson Vaugn and co. are not rebuilding moves, and that's exactly my point. Those are moves that would (arguably) increase the worth of a franchise. He was allowed to bring good players aboard, he just wasn't allowed to ship everyone and rebuild through the draft like he eventually was allowed to do in 04. Shipping GRob would be the only move pre-authorization that could be construed as rebuilding like, but honestly, that was just a good move, rebuild or not.

But like you said, no point arguing. I don't even care about this really

[KB21]

Having the plan of rebuilding in mind and actually making the moves to put the plan into action are two different things. Just because he knew he was going to rebuild the team when he took over in April of 2003 doesn't mean that he had started the rebuilding. Had he started the rebuilding then, you would have seen him deal Glenn, Shareef, and Theo before the season ever started. Billy didn't even have the green light to trade Jason Terry until the 2004 offseason, and I'm sure he could have worked out a sign and trade with JT when he was a restricted free agent in the 2003 offseason.

[AHF]

This may be a case of semantics but I think BK did what he could to rebuild the team from Day 1 and that his options were just limited (although not non-existant).

Re Jason Terry it is pretty clear BK's hands were tied during the sale:

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The Jazz were hoping McDavid's protracted ownership bid for the Hawks would hinder the organization's ability to re-sign Terry. But with the sudden, surprise sale to a group led by Boston businessman Steve Belkin, those hopes have all but vanished. Hawks GM Billy Knight has said all along he wanted to keep Terry, and it appears likely he'll get the approval.

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http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2003/writ...friday.insider/

[DJlaysitup]

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...But with the sudden, surprise sale to a group led by Boston businessman Steve Belkin, those hopes have all but vanished...

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Interesting in light of recent history. At this point in time one could have envisioned a solid group of owners led by a savvy businessman (and a bright future!)

Instead it all breaks down into a bunch of back-biting litigants holding the Hawks future for ransom.

[mrhonline]

I'm too lazy to debate each individual argument in this thread, but I agree that the rebuilding started with the Big _og trade. That was the first real action Knight made in the "scrap everything and start over" process. That happened July 23, 2003.

However, there isn't a single player from the 2003-4 roster on the Hawks. Within the last two years, Knight has added:

Tyronn Lue

Salim Stoudamire

Speedy Claxton

Joe Johnson

Josh Childress

Josh Smith

Marvin Williams

Shelden Williams

Esteban Batista

Zaza Pachulia

Solomon Jones

John Edwards

In other words, every single player on the current roster was added within the last two years. So, you can draw your lines wherever you want, but this team, the one that will step on the court this season, is only two years old. The only other team in the league that can make that statement is Charlotte.

I still think that this team should be considered an expansion team.

[AHF]

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In other words,

every single player

on the current roster was added within the last

two

years. So, you can draw your lines wherever you want, but this team, the one that will step on the court this season, is only two years old. The only other team in the league that can make that statement is Charlotte.

I still think that this team should be considered an expansion team.

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I think the Bulls are in the same boat except that Hinrich has 3 years with the team on his belt. Not too much difference in that regard. However, I consider the Bulls rebuild to have been going on since they ditched Jordan, Pippen and Co.