Who is your GM: Babcock or BK...

[vdunkndunk]

Here's how I feel about BK. I think he did the right thing in blowing up the Hawks, going younger, and getting the cap space in good shape. I think he did a great job there.

The problem is, he didn't do as well as I hoped in building things back up. It would be nice if we had Deron Williams or Chris Paul right now. I agree with the best player available theory, but the best players available played a position that we really needed, and we didn't take them. That's a hard one to get over. Right now Andrew Bynum even looks like a better pick than Marvin to me.

And I think Shelden Williams was a mistake too. He's not making much of an impact and he's not all that valuable of an asset either. If we had taken Roy or Foye, at least we could trade them for something we needed. And I still get the sense that we could have given up a little less for JJ. If we could have even just kept the Lakers pick, we could have grabbed Jarret Jack, for instance. We can't really know, though.

So the idea was good, but the execution has been spotty. Too bad BK hasn't been able to pull off another Pau Gasol type of deal to get us a dominant big man.

[Diesel]

The sad truth is this ron, ANY other GM would have won a championship with the means and the talent that Babcock had. All Babcock could manage was 50 wins and a string of 2nd round exits.

Moreover, Babcock left this franchise, In Debt, with no up and coming youth except Travis Hansen.

[Diesel]

Name 3 Atlanta draft picks, in Babcock 20 years of being a GM, that made it to a second contract (aside from JT).

[Sothron]

You are a complete fool if you seriously believe that. Who was that team in the 90's that killed everyone in the playoffs? Oh yeah that's right the BULLS. NO OTHER TEAM IN THE NBA BEAT THEM. So don't make some insane claim and try to pass it off as a factual statement.

And I just have to add that our salary cap situation was fine under Babcock. You people seriously are either intentinonally forgetting things or just too young to remember (I think its the latter) all the good things Babcock did. Every single one of those players he brought over in trade were on the last legs of their contracts that would terminated leaving us gobs of space if no one traded them. So don't tell me Knight "saved our cap" when he got almost nothing from dismantling that team. It would have expired naturally after one more season anyways.

[AHF]

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The sad truth is this ron,

ANY other GM

would have won a championship with the means and the talent that Babcock had. All Babcock could manage was 50 wins and a string of 2nd round exits.

Moreover, Babcock left this franchise, In Debt, with no up and coming youth except Travis Hansen.

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I am no Babcock fan but I think that stating that ANY other GM would have won a championship with the Hawks roster is just not true. Most GMs would not have won a championship with our team, IMO, because they were going up against some very heavy hitters including the Bulls teams.

I also will totally agree with Sothron that the Deke signing was fantastic and the trades for Mookie and Smitty were incredible. The Laettner deal was also a good one but he gave us a borderline All-Star year and was never a big impact guy, IMO, so that one may be a little overrated. However, Babcock did make some nice moves with an established playoff contending team. He was always a disaster with the draft, though, and when he did try to blow a team up he could not have failed worse. Given the question of which GM you want to build a team from the ground up, I don't see how Babcock would be a good fit at all. Dikembe isn't going to sign with an expansion team and if you can't draft it is tough to get assets to acquire guys through trades who will make a big difference in your roster. The guys that Babcock did acquire by trading our draft picks sure as heck weren't worth the talent we gave up for them.

BK is far from a polished product either, but I think his drafting record is worlds better than Babcock and his ability to acquire FAs and established vets through trades has really been hurt by our ownership issues, which is something that Babcock never faced.

I do know that Babcock would rank near the bottom of GMs I would want for an expansion franchise. BK...he is going to have to redeem himself quickly to save his job but he ranks ahead of Babcock for me for the Atlanta Jaguars team.

[Diesel]

The Bulls run was interrupted when David Stern secretly Kicked MJ out of the league to work on his gambling addiction.

During that time, The Hawks got a new coach named Lenny and became one of the better teams... IN fact, when we traded Dominique, we were the best team in the East and had beaten the Houston Rockets Soundly!

Your good Buddy Babcock couldn't stand to see the Hawks win... so he traded Dominique for several reasons which broke down to nothing.

You know, Contract negotiation... Aging star.... Previously injured... all the excuses in the world that Babs gave for making that trade MADE NO SENSE!!!

[Sothron]

Uh you just listed exactly the reasons why Nique was traded. Care to compare the career of Nique after he left Atlanta to before he left? What a crock. Nique told Babcock he wanted a huge contract to stay and Babs refused to give it to him. That move turned into Dikemebe who was LIGHT YEARS better from 1994 onwards than Nique was.

What other fantasy worlds did you visit in the 1990's? The Bulls killed everyone in the playoffs but somehow "any general manager" would have been the Bulls then? LOL please.

Did you guys start early on the New Year's alcohol?

[AHF]

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Every single one of those players he brought over in trade were on the last legs of their contracts that would terminated leaving us gobs of space if no one traded them. So don't tell me Knight "saved our cap" when he got almost nothing from dismantling that team. It would have expired naturally after one more season anyways.

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Josh Smith and parts for JJ aren't exactly nothing.

Roshown McLeod, Ed Gray, etc. are nothing.

[gutz]

Yeah I don't think Sothron realizes what BK got for trading Walker and Rasheed(both trades that freed up capspace and got us 1strounders in return). Yeah Smoove and JJ both suck. JJ was a horrible FA signing by BK.

[Sothron]

Yeah giving up on Diaw the MIP and a possible All-star the last two years and two first round picks one of which could be the 4th pick in the deepest draft in over twenty years really makes a positive argument for Knight.

We traded both SAR and Theo and Rasheed and only get a 17th pick in the first round for it. That's not a good return on capital.

[gutz]

OH yeah I forgot that Ratliff, SAR and Rasheed all have BLOATED contracts too that didn't free up any capspace either. Ratliff and SAR have been washed up for years anyways! Rasheed was the only good player to get anything for.

[AHF]

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OH yeah I forgot that Ratliff, SAR and Rasheed all have BLOATED contracts too that didn't free up any capspace either. Ratliff and SAR have been washed up for years anyways! Rasheed was the only good player to get anything for.

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Sothron is arguing that the Hawks could have continued wallowing in mediocrity with these bloated contracts rather than trying to get rid of them quickly and lose more games and that this would have been an attractive rebuilding idea.

[gutz]

Oh and yeah BK doesn't have his hand tied or anything right with all this ownership garbage going on?

Just as a follow-up, here is John Hollinger's comment on BK's ability (or lack thereof) to complete a trade due to ownership constraints:

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Forget about a trade -- [the Hawks] have their hands tied behind their backs until the ownership situation gets settled, which should happen some time after the sun runs out of energy and becomes a white dwarf.

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[Sothron]

You are like a broken record. Do you actually even read what I post? Their contracts had one more year left on them. GASP! So much for that "cap" nonsense. Babcock traded for them knowing they had short years left on their deals so if they did NOT work out then we could either trade them as valuable big men with one year left or we could bite the bullet and let them walk and STILL have cap space.

So for about the fifth time...Babcock never left Knight with a bad cap situation or a "bloated aging" team. Total nonsense.

[Sothron]

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OH yeah I forgot that Ratliff, SAR and Rasheed all have BLOATED contracts too that didn't free up any capspace either. Ratliff and SAR have been washed up for years anyways! Rasheed was the only good player to get anything for.

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Sothron is arguing that the Hawks could have continued wallowing in mediocrity with these bloated contracts rather than trying to get rid of them quickly and lose more games and that this would have been an attractive rebuilding idea.

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Another one that apparently has problems with reading comprehension. If by "continued to wallow" you mean trade player withe ONE YEAR LEFT on their contracts then you would be accurate. Laughable.

[gutz]

I have no idea what he is talking about. He acts like Ratliff and SAR are good trade bait or something at the time. They both had BLOATED contracts and were washed up. We were extremely lucky BK could even get some suckers to take them. Anybody know who or what we got for SAR and Ratliff? I can't remember but we didn't just give their bloated contracts away I know that.

[gutz]

So your saying we should have just paid bums like Ratliff and SAR another year of bloated salary instead of trying to trade them and get something in return? Are you in love with Babcock or something? Babcock and BK both suck but Babcock has hurt this franchise more than BK has whether you see that or not. I'm sure they really wanted to gut the whole roster and rebuild from scratch because of Babcock's inability to keep this team competitive through the draft, trades and signings. He was fired for a reason! He ruined our Hawks

[hawkman]

Where's Hotlanta when you need him? I'll make this brief: THEY BOTH STINK ON ICE AND SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO MANAGE A POPEYE'S CHICKEN AND BISCUITS, LET ALONE AN NBA FRANCHISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[gsuteke]

you guys are taking the wrong angle on Sothron with this Nique/Manning stuff.

this is a breakdown of the 93-94 season

http://www.phys.utk.edu/sorensen/cfr/cfr/N...anta_Hawks.html

here's a breakdown of Nique's stats after he left Atlanta

http://www.nba.com/history/players/wilkins_stats.html

here's a breakdown of Manning's career

http://www.nba.com/playerfile/danny_manning/index.html

In the end we may never know though as after signing Danny Manning to a bargain one-year contract on Sept. 8, 1994, the Suns caught fire, going 36-10, with the forward averaging 17.9 points and 6.0 boards a game. Unfortunately, Manning tore his ACL during a mid-season practice and was lost for a year. Despite the injury, the Suns re-signed him to a substantial deal, both for his loyalty and a show of confidence. "D" returned in January 1996 and had returned to his old form by the 1997-98 season, in which he was named the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year. Manning was traded during the 1999 offseason in the deal which brought Penny Hardaway to Phoenix. This was way back when Penny Hardaway was a hot commodity. Ultimately despite tearing up his knee (and we all know how devestating that is to a basketball player) he had 9 more years in the league with 4 or 5 of them being quite productive.

If Manning hadn't walked at the end of the season we very well may not be having this discussion.

[AHF]

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You are like a broken record. Do you actually even read what I post? Their contracts had one more year left on them. GASP! So much for that "cap" nonsense. Babcock traded for them knowing they had short years left on their deals so if they did NOT work out then we could either trade them as valuable big men with one year left or we could bite the bullet and let them walk and STILL have cap space.

So for about the fifth time...Babcock never left Knight with a bad cap situation or a "bloated aging" team. Total nonsense.

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They didn't have one year left.

Shareef's first season under a new contract was the 2005-06 season.

Also, check out their new contracts to see what their value was. Portland tried to trade Shareef and couldn't get anything for him (they almost had a deal to S&T him to NJ and that fell through meaning Portland enjoyed overpaid mediocrity and watching him leave for nothing). He signed for something like the mid-level exception after his previous $14M/per contract expired.

Theo, of course, got signed to a ridiculous contract by Portland that helped lead to the firing of John Nash in Portland.