What exactly did you guys want for Al

[foeteen14]

I don't understand what some of you were expecting the hawks to get for the Al trade. the only thing that i see is bench players with bad salaries. i think BK and ownership were content on taking the team as is into next season. this season will be the first true indication of BK's brilliance or misguided stupidity.

why did we draft m. williams? because BK knew Al was not the answer long term and he probably had (and probably still has reservations about j. smith being a star).

why did we draft s. williams? because there were too many times that hawks games turned into dunk contest, layup drills, and tip drills for our opponent.

why did we not draft c. paul? because BK is banking on m. williams being a star, and on paul being injury prone. both of which are a possibility.

Honestly i love the hawks team right now and can't wait to see them fly up and down the court on a nightly basis.

speedy, JJ, marvin, smooth, zaza (starting)

speedy, JJ, chillz, smooth, zaza (1st change)

speedy, JJ, smooth, shelden, zaza (defensive)

JJ, chillz, marvin, smooth, shelden (6'8''lineup)

JJ, marvin, smooth, shelden, zaza (rebounding)

speedy, JJ, chillz, marvin, smooth (fly time)

I can go on and on redundency is fun to play with

[gutz]

I agree we got a 1st rounder for next year which was crucial since we gave our pick to PHX in the JJ deal. I really like this Hawks team too!! I honestly believe Smooth and Marvin will blow up this year especially Smooth. Its his 3rd year and he blew up the second half of last year. Supposedly he has been bulking up too this offseason and working on his game. JJ is a Olympian for petes sake and will average at least 25pts a game now that Speedy is on board running the point. We all saw how how Marvin straight dominated the SL and won MVP albeit against lower competition but still. He showed tremendous improvement and should be able to average 15pts, 7-8rb. a game this year easily. Zaza is improving as well and with Lo Wright on board it will take some of the ease off him not having to be the only big body on the team like last year. We drafted the Landlord to bring some tough defense and rebounding. We have Chill and Salim coming off the bench who can score! We have a very solid team right now and our success all depends on how Marvin and Smooth come out of the gates. Personally I think they both will surprise a lot of people. GO HAWKS!!!

[Plastic Man]

i'm just glad the al saga is over. time to move on and work with what we have. this team will be fun to watch.

[DJlaysitup]

Quote:

---

...JJ is a Olympian for petes sake...

---

Well not to be picky-picky, or to dis JJ by any means, but he is on the USA National Team representing us in the World Championships. That's not the Olympics. I certainly hope JJ becomes an Olympian - but if Kobe gets healthy and decides to play come Olympic time, one would think somebody has to go.

[mdawg]

anything

[sturt]

...in this league, and even from IND, that wouldn't have helped this team next year and beyond... certainly, cap space presents some trade flexibility, but it takes space + current assets to = talent upgrade, vis-a-vis, playoff opportunity.

I'm not mad, but I *am* very disappointed. There is not one acquisition this off-season that stands out as a grade-A move for a proven asset. Claxton isn't. SWilliams isn't. And the draft pick we're getting, won't even be a person for awhile... and as-if this team needs to get any younger?

I've stood by BK, and continue to trust his judgment more than maybe I ought. But the empirical evidence suggests that any progress this team makes in 06-07 is going to come almost completely from the ability of JJ, Smoove, and Marvelous to take their games to the next level... and certainly, we're all rooting for that to happen. But I guess I just want BK to be "man enough" to admit that there *are* players he could have acquired that are *not* simply "bad contracts," and further to admit that *either* he miscalculated the market or that he has had parameters placed upon his work such that he wasn't able to do what he would have liked to have done.

[Guest Walter]

...and like many have been for too long.

In addition to there being no "grade A" moves this offseason there were some god awful ones. The two that come to mind are the SW pick over Roy, Foye, or even Gay at 5 and the Indy PUNT rebuilding deal.

Every single move was directed towards the mediocrity and all but the Indy pick for the now. We needed a young talent at the center position to grow with the team and we needed legit, quality help. We had Al, a redundand Childress or even JS or MW, to trade, massive cap space, a #5 pick and we essentially tread water. If I'm a young hawk I can't wait to get off this team. There's too little PT or opportunity at my prefered position, too many loses, and no direction towards title contention.

Anyhow, just shameful to go through this offseason and not improve our title contention potential. None of these moves put us any closer to a title. Not one. Just shameful.

W

[Lascar78]

Quote:

---

SW pick over Roy, Foye, or even Gay at 5

---

LMFAO!!! Yeah, I'm sure you would have been happier and less critical if we had drafted Gay. Yeah right! You're funny man. I can just imagine your next 1000 posts would have had something about a 3-SF lineup without a 2-way dominate center... yawn

[TheRealDray]

Quote:

---

...in this league, and even from IND, that wouldn't have helped this team next year and beyond... certainly, cap space presents some trade flexibility, but it takes space + current assets to = talent upgrade, vis-a-vis, playoff opportunity.

I'm not mad, but I *am* very disappointed. There is not one acquisition this off-season that stands out as a grade-A move for a proven asset. Claxton isn't. SWilliams isn't. And the draft pick we're getting, won't even be a person for awhile... and as-if this team needs to get any younger?

I've stood by BK, and continue to trust his judgment more than maybe I ought. But the empirical evidence suggests that any progress this team makes in 06-07 is going to come almost completely from the ability of JJ, Smoove, and Marvelous to take their games to the next level... and certainly, we're all rooting for that to happen. But I guess I just want BK to be "man enough" to admit that there *are* players he could have acquired that are *not* simply "bad contracts," and further to admit that *either* he miscalculated the market or that he has had parameters placed upon his work such that he wasn't able to do what he would have liked to have done.

---

Absolutely the same way I feel. We really needed a veteran "dirty work" blue collar kind of guy. As well, some extra leadership on the team would have been nice as well.

Not gonna quit being a fan of the Hawks, just disappointing after all the wait until the offseason when we trade Al talk.

GO HAWKS!!!

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Quote:

---

...and like many have been for too long.

In addition to there being no "grade A" moves this offseason there were some god awful ones. The two that come to mind are the SW pick over Roy, Foye, or even Gay at 5 and the Indy PUNT rebuilding deal.

Every single move was directed towards the mediocrity and all but the Indy pick for the now. We needed a young talent at the center position to grow with the team and we needed legit, quality help. We had Al, a redundand Childress or even JS or MW, to trade, massive cap space, a #5 pick and we essentially tread water. If I'm a young hawk I can't wait to get off this team. There's too little PT or opportunity at my prefered position, too many loses, and no direction towards title contention.

Anyhow, just shameful to go through this offseason and not improve our title contention potential. None of these moves put us any closer to a title. Not one. Just shameful.

W

---

LOL @ Walter. Always the pessimist.

The ONLY grade "A" move made by ANY TEAM this summer, was made by the Bulls when they acquired Ben Wallace and got rid of Tyson Chandler's contract to bring in PJ Brown. Other than that, there's not a single team in the league that made some "great move" in the offseason.

And people are still complaining about the Shelden pick at #5? Please. Adding Roy or Foye to this team would've been counterproductive. People are so certain that Roy or Foye can play the point. But what if they can't? What do we do then? Do we STILL go out and get Speedy, causing a backlog of guards on this team?

As has been said on this board countless numbers of times . . picking Foye or Roy would NOT HAVE HELPED THE INTERIOR DEFENSE OF THIS TEAM. And that is our main problem. Not the overall talent on this team.

And if we didn't have a chance to snag Ben Wallace, who in the heck is going to even spell guys like ZaZa, Marvin, and Smoove when they play the 4?

Oh but of course, we could've traded down, got Shelden, and picked up some other guard who isn't even as talented as Tyronn Lue.

I love how all of the Hawks critics have a problem with just about every move we've made in the past 3 years, but also say that our team has great young talent. If that's the case, we can't be messing up as bad as people seem. You can't blast us one minute, then praise us the next for our talent. People talking out of both sides of their mouths need to stop.

LOL @ the notion that any of these young guys can get more PT somewhere else?

Like where?

Where is Josh Childress going to get 30 minutes a game, even coming off the bench?

Where is Smoove going to get 31 minutes of PT ( probably upwards of 35 minutes a game this year )?

And NONE of those guys are going to get a chance to be a star player anywhere else but HERE. Right here is their best shot at becoming a player that can put up major numbers.

It's time for Hawks FANS to choose a side and stick with it.

If you don't think this team is going in the right direction, then stay over there >>>>>>>>>>>>

If you think this team is going in the right direction, come here

But DON'T WAFFLE BACK AND FORTH, according to what our record is, or what moves we should/shouldn't have made.

Hindsight makes everybody look like a genius. Even if we'd made all of the moves that people said that we should've made, we'd STILL have some holes on this team that needed to be filled.

Damned if you do . . damned if you don't.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

...in this league, and even from IND, that wouldn't have helped this team next year and beyond... certainly, cap space presents some trade flexibility, but it takes space + current assets to = talent upgrade, vis-a-vis, playoff opportunity.

I'm not mad, but I *am* very disappointed. There is not one acquisition this off-season that stands out as a grade-A move for a proven asset. Claxton isn't. SWilliams isn't. And the draft pick we're getting, won't even be a person for awhile... and as-if this team needs to get any younger?

I've stood by BK, and continue to trust his judgment more than maybe I ought. But the empirical evidence suggests that any progress this team makes in 06-07 is going to come almost completely from the ability of JJ, Smoove, and Marvelous to take their games to the next level... and certainly, we're all rooting for that to happen. But I guess I just want BK to be "man enough" to admit that there *are* players he could have acquired that are *not* simply "bad contracts," and further to admit that *either* he miscalculated the market or that he has had parameters placed upon his work such that he wasn't able to do what he would have liked to have done.

---

Absolutely the same way I feel. We really needed a veteran "dirty work" blue collar kind of guy. As well, some extra leadership on the team would have been nice as well.

Not gonna quit being a fan of the Hawks, just disappointing after all the wait until the offseason when we trade Al talk.

GO HAWKS!!!

---

The ONLY guy out there left in free agency like that . . is BONZI WELLS.

But what do we do if we bring Bonzi in?

He's better than Smoove and Chill and Marvin. So bringing him off the bench may cause major problems.

But if you start him, you limit the development of Smoove, Marvin, and Chill even more.

Lineup with Bonzi:

PG - Speedy

G - Bonzi

G/F - JJ

F - Marvin or Smoove

C - ZaZa

Everybody thinks they have a "magic bullet" to our solution here. We probably need to do just like Chicago did the past 2 years, and just TRUST THE KIDS.

THEN . . if we become a playoff team, we'll have tradeable assets to improve the squad.

Until then, give the kids a chance to either become big time players . . mediocre players . . or guys who will always be bench/role players.

But we won't know if we keep bringing people in.

[exodus]

Quote:

---

It's time for Hawks FANS to choose a side and stick with it.

---

So we can't agree with some moves and disagree with others? We have to be on one side or the other? So in order to be Hawks fans we have to be like KB?

Sounds like you have appointed yourself as the Hawksquawk thought police. If you don't like what I say then go ahead and write me a ticket. I'll see you in court.

[Seano]

Quote:

---

The ONLY grade "A" move made by ANY TEAM this summer, was made by the Bulls when they acquired Ben Wallace and got rid of Tyson Chandler's contract to bring in PJ Brown. Other than that, there's not a single team in the league that made some "great move" in the offseason.

---

Yeah that's true. Bill Simmons wrote a very funny piece about that recently, wondering how it was possible for 90% of the teams in the NBA to actually get worse over the course of the offseason.

[Guest Walter]

But there isn't one team in the league that wouldn't trade more for Gay than SW. Not one.

W

[Lascar78]

I am not talking about what you would have done, I am talking about how you would have reacted if BK had drafted him. We would have endured 1000 posts of you telling us that because the whole league knew that we had such an overload of SF's, it would screw up our bargaining position completely and we wouldn't get anything good for Gay, and how we'd be stuck with a 4 SF, no 2-way dominate center team forever that will never win a single game, bla bla bla bla ... more gloom and doom stuff.

For you to pretend that you would have prefered for BK to draft Gay over Shelden is well beyond laughable.

[Guest Walter]

Quote:

---

The ONLY grade "A" move made by ANY TEAM this summer, was made by the Bulls when they acquired Ben Wallace and got rid of Tyson Chandler's contract to bring in PJ Brown. Other than that, there's not a single team in the league that made some "great move" in the offseason.

---

1) They paid less than market, for a shorter length than market, sending out less than market (lotto protected pick) than market.

2) Portland made several great moves this offseason reforming a team with positional redundancy to one with quality and potential at every position.

3) Toronto and Milwaulkee both reshaped there team and filled positions of need with their excess.

The two points are that you don't have to sign a superstar to vastly improve your team's chances for title contention and we had FAR MORE capitol with which to work than any of these teams save perhaps Chicago. WE had 2, max players worth of cap space without Al, a #5 pick, similar prospect redundancy, and Al to reshape our team. How do Portland, Milwaulkee, Toronto even outperform us in this regard. They may not each win as many games but they have improved their future potential.

We for example needed a true, potentially dominant center or center prospect to free up the opportunity to seriously run JS and MW alongside each other.

Instead we REACH for a true Pf to bench on of them further. How does BK continue to manage to either not fill needs with talent and potential and when he tries actually create even more problems for ourselves (like Bernie said with JS and MW either being benched at Sf and SW starting).

And people are still complaining about the Shelden pick at #5? Please. Adding Roy or Foye to this team would've been counterproductive. People are so certain that Roy or Foye can play the point. But what if they can't? What do we do then? Do we STILL go out and get Speedy, causing a backlog of guards on this team?

Quote:

---

As has been said on this board countless numbers of times . . picking Foye or Roy would NOT HAVE HELPED THE INTERIOR DEFENSE OF THIS TEAM. And that is our main problem. Not the overall talent on this team.[/uote]

WRONG! The overall talent is a problem because much of our overall talent sits the bench or is played out of position! Roy was so far and awy more talented than SW the SW pick will be worse than the MW over Paul selection. It's not like you can't get a defensive minded Pf in this leagë for alot less than the #5 pick. Hell, people praise the Lo pick-up (for his defense?) and he cost us zilch. Why invest a top draft pick for the same thing in a much shorter player?

Quote:

---

who in the heck is going to even spell guys like ZaZa, Marvin, and Smoove when they play the 4?

---

[/indent]

And you want a #5 pick to "spell guys".

YOU ARE [censored] CRAZY TO SUGGEST SUCH A THING!

That's [censored] UP! STUPID! I can get the version of LO Wright at Pf for $3 million per. Why do I need a to spend a GD #5 pick on that nonsense so they can BU people?!? My response stops now or else I'll red flag the censors even more. Go home.

W

[Guest Walter]

or Chillz, MW, or JS for similar talent at another poisiton your are correct. But I hardly see your point. Maybe it's that BK has already drafted too many SFs and has yet to utilize our talent to acquire similar talent at another position (of need). Good point.

W

[Lascar78]

my point is that you'd [censored] almost regardless of what he'd do at this point. Just like KB would praise anything he does at this point.

The fact that you say that picking Gay would have been better than Shelden is further proof. I'm sure there would be good fun to be had by looking up what you had to say about us drafting Gay pre-draft, but I don't feel like it.

[Guest Walter]

Quote:

---

I'm sure there would be good fun to be had by looking up what you had to say about us drafting Gay pre-draft, but I don't feel like it.

---

Since I would only want Gay in order to trade him or another of our swings/forwards, I hardly see the issue. You, however, do not disagree that every team in the NBA would trade more for Gay than SW. Interesting. Simply put. If I couldn't get Roy or even Foye, then I'm thinking draft capitol. What player could return me the most in a trade. I'm working the phones either then or soon after. I'm not settling for reaching for SW.

W

[exodus]

I did my share of Marvin bashing earlier in the year.

I didn't really have an opinion on him one way or the other when he was drafted so at the start of the season I had an open mind. Then Marvin showed nothing the first two months. I couldn't see how they could pick him over pg's when the Hawks needed a pg AND the pgs were better players.

Here are some of my comments from one thread (there are others for sure) in mid-December;

Quote:

---

I would have no problem with Marvin being sent down(to the D League), since he clearly isn't making any progress where he is.

---

Quote:

---

On the season Marvin is averaging 5 points and 4 rebounds in 22 minutes per game. He is shooting 39% from the field. He has contributed nothing.

---

Quote:

---

So were were supposed to know he would give us 5 points and 4 rebounds, shooting 39% from the field? They could go down to Run-And-Shoot and find a guy who could give them that.

---

Quote:

---

He was supposed to be a guy who could play the 3 or the 4 but he has yet to show any post game or any moves off the dribble.

---

Finally i got bored with it and said this;

Quote:

---

I think a lack of confidence and a lack of skill go hand in hand. Have you seen him make any good moves off the dribble or in the posts? Any at all? Is it lack of confidence that is getting half his shots in the lane blocked, or lack of skill?

Anyway I am tired of talking about him. I am going to refrain from discussing Marvin until he actually does something worth talking about.

---

Marvin

Not long after that Marvin had a big game (in garbage time) against the Suns. And as the season wore on his talent became more apparent. So basically I had two choices

A)continue to bash him to prove that i was "right"

B)start becoming a fan and appreciate the talent and potential that he has

I chose B. I wonder if you are capable of making the same choice.