Who is your GM: Babcock or BK...

[AHF]

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You posted more than once that Babcock was essentially a do nothing general manager that inherited Moses Malone and Nique and that anyone could essentially make a playoff team with that.

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It is true that I posted that Babcock inherited a team with Nique, Moses, Kevin Willis, Doc Rivers, etc. Sorry this part got cut off -

I posted that Babcock inherited a strong veteran team and that a trained monkey could win coming out of the gates with that. And that is true. However, I didn't post that Babcock was a do-nothing general manager.

He didn't need to lift a finger to make the playoffs when he inherited that team but he made some outstanding transitional moves after we dealt Nique in trading Willis for Smitty (a good deal for both sides, frankly); acquiring Mookie; signing Deke (this was HUGE); etc.

My point was two-fold:

(1) I was comparing and contrasting the starting points for Babcock and Knight. They aren't remotely similar.

(2) I was questioning whether Ws and Ls is a meaningful measurement of GM success when two GMs start off at nearly opposite ends of the spectrum - one with very good, developed talent and a track record of making the playoffs. The other with overpaid, underperforming talent that hadn't made the playoffs in several years.

My point was not that Babcock was a do-nothing GM.

[Sothron]

Thank you for admitting what you did in fact post.

And your posts here just go to prove what I have maintained all along: Babcock not only inherited a good team but he made necessary PROACTIVE moves to rebuild this team with younger, better pieces before the wheels came totally off the bus. He accomplished this in spades in the early 90's and he has never gotten the credit for that. Trading away aging veterans for good young players is one of the hardest things to manage in sports and Babcock did it several times when the need arose.

So fast forward to his realizing that team needed to be rebuilt. He traded away Mookie for youth in Terry. He traded away Smitty for CAP ROOM which I can't believe some posters here still don't understand. We were never going to keep Rider past his one year here. We DID however need to move Smitty and his bad knees with his huge contract before we were forced to eat it.

He traded away Deke for great pieces. Hell in retrospect looking at almost all of his trades they should have worked. Who knew Ratliff was as brittle as he was? Who knew a frontcourt with THREE yes THREE All-stars couldn't win? Babcock put the talent on the floor. His big mistake at the end was in a horrible coaching hire (Kruger) and in not having better drafts before the end.

I have yet to see in two teams what Knight has done that even remotely resembles COMPETENCE let alone being BETTER than Babcock.

[Diesel]

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he made PROACTIVE moves to rebuild this team with younger, better pieces before the wheels came totally off the bus.

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This statement suggests that what happened was not Babcock's fault. As if Luck and time did him in or something. Babcock did himself in. 10 years of bad draft picks. 10 years of mismanaging budgets. The stupidest trade in the History of the NBA. These things led to the the bus being on the side of the road. You see, the wheels didn't come off on their own, but Babcock took off all the lug nuts before the trip started.

[AHF]

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Thank you for admitting what you did in fact post.

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I still have yet to see you admit what I posted!

[Sothron]

I'm sorry but I think Golden State hold the "worst trade in history" title for the NBA. Parrish AND McHale for one bum? WOW. 'Nuff said about that.

I have never defended Babs drafting because with the exception of one to three players his drafts were abyssmal. No question. I also specifically listed as one of his big failings/mistakes so please reread the posts.

My comment you quoted was in how Babs rebuilt the old 80's team into the very good 90's playoff team all on trades and in one big free agent signing. He was PROACTIVE instead of RETROACTIVE in realizing our needs and trying to fix them later instead of sooner (see Knight and his bandaid of IR Claxton for the PG position). He tried to do it a second time starting with the Mookie/Smitty trades and unfortunately it did not work out even though on paper it should have.

No one can tell me with a straight face that putting together a frontcourt with THREE ALL STARS all in their mid twenties to late twenties should have backfired like that team did. Babs almost always made great decisions in terms of trades but those did not work out. But I don't blame him for trying to rebuild an aging playoff team for the SECOND time and doing it PROACTIVELY to try and maximize the value.

[AHF]

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I'm sorry but I think Golden State hold the "worst trade in history" title for the NBA. Parrish AND McHale for one bum? WOW. 'Nuff said about that.

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Hopefully Diesel wasn't making that argument. There are a LOT of trades that rank worse than the Nique/Manning trade, as bad as that was. Heck, remember that the Hawks traded Bill Russell! (although at least they got back decent value in that one)

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My comment you quoted was in how Babs rebuilt the old 80's team into the very good 90's playoff team all on trades and in one big free agent signing. He was PROACTIVE instead of RETROACTIVE in realizing our needs and trying to fix them later instead of sooner (see Knight and his bandaid of IR Claxton for the PG position). He tried to do it a second time starting with the Mookie/Smitty trades and unfortunately it did not work out even though on paper it should have.

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It is tough to compare Knight and Babcock in this respect because I am of the opinion that Knight's hands have been tied either financially, legally or both much more than Babcock's ever were. When you have capital to spend, it makes it much easier to be proactive - for good or ill.

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No one can tell me with a straight face that putting together a frontcourt with THREE ALL STARS all in their mid twenties to late twenties should have backfired like that team did.

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I think it is a bit of an exaggeration to call them three All-Star players when Shareed had never made an All-Star team before playing in Atlanta and only made one in his career. Likewise, Theo never played a second in an All-Star game in his life. He made the end of the bench and didn't play (due to injury) in the strike-shortened season before coming to Atlanta.

When you call them All-Star big men it is misleading to the extent that these guys are not what you typically think of when you call someone an All-Star big man -- unless your version of an "All-Star big man" includes Jamaal Magloire and others of their ilk who were one and done selections.

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Babs almost always made great decisions in terms of trades but those did not work out.

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Babs made some stinker trades in there, too - the worst of which was two unprotected first round picks for Lorenzen Wright! I give him an overall positive rating on trades and FA acquisitions but it is a mixed bag. No GM is going to hit on everything.

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But I don't blame him for trying to rebuild an aging playoff team for the SECOND time and doing it PROACTIVELY to try and maximize the value.

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If you want to second-guess, I would think the Smitty deal would be one to second-guess if you truly believe it was a salary dump. It doesn't make much sense from a team-building perspective to dump a pretty high level guy for cap room if you are just going to trade young talent to acquire inferior veterans like Big og.

[Sothron]

He sent Smitty to Portland because they were A. willing to take on his huge contract and B. because they were tooling up for a potential championship and he wanted to put Smitty in a good position. People don't give Babs enough credit for how much of a geniune nice guy he was. I can tell you from personal conversations with him that he hated Rider and what he did to the team. The only trade he ever regretted was trading Smitty. But it did give us enormous cap relief. That is most definitely a positive very much overlooked in retrospect on that deal.

As for the All-stars, you can quibble if you want but all three were All-star players. And if you want to denegrate their status as "eastern" All-stars then they still played IN the East and it should have been more than enough to at least make the playoffs. AFAIK that team still has more wins than any of the joke squads Knight has tossed up both in Memphis and Atlanta.

[TexasPete]

How about Kareem Abdul Jabbar for Junior Bridgeman and Jon McGlocklin? That is the worst trade I can remember.

[Diesel]

We were a winning team.

The number one rule when you're winning (the way we was winning) is if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Babcock looking to Sylvia Brown or John Edwards to help him see the future didn't help us one bit.

Now, were there worse trades:

Maybe Mookie for Rumeal because Mookie was outplaying Kenny Anderson.

Maybe Parrish/#3 overall for #1 overall. But hell, Caroll wasn't that bad.... He averaged like 19/9 his rookie year. But it was too much to give up just to get Carroll.

Maybe Chris Webber for Penny Hardaway and 2 1sts?

However, I don't think you can say that any other team has ever traded the face of the franchise at a time when the franchise was winning and got nothing in return? Can you?

[AHF]

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However, I don't think you can say that any other team has ever traded the face of the franchise at a time when the franchise was winning and got nothing in return? Can you?

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That is what really peeves Hawks fans so much. Manning for Nique was bad on the Court but it was aweful from the perspective of the Atlanta fanbase. We loved Nique in Atlanta -- loved him -- and we dealt him when we were winning big behind him. That was harsh and probably could only have been forgiven by superior play from his replacement. Instead we got a pack of chewing gum. The trade was terrible from an emotional perspective as much as anything.

Sothron is right that Nique was starting on the downside of his career at that point and was never the impact player after his half season with the Clippers that he was with the Hawks (so it not like the Mookie trade where the best was yet to come).

[TheNorthCydeRises]

LOL . . what a great thread. Hilarious even.

My vote. BK, by a hair . . only because it's ovbious that we have talent on this team, and BK had to completely unravel the mess that Babock left us in. This team isn't digressing, it's improving. It may not be improving rapidly, but it is improving.

As far as Babcock goes, keep in mind that he came to the Hawks right when we were still a formidible team in the East. It's not like Petey was responsible for trading for Nique back in '83, or drafting Doc or Willis. Those players, the foundation for those great mid to late-80s teams, were already in place by the time Babcock took control in '89. And for the most part, we were a VETERAN ballclub.

As far as BK goes, he has completely rebuilt this team, and has put us in the position to at least be a competitive team in the East . . when healthy. His defining moment as a GM, may be to fire Woody, and bring in a good coach to maximize the total potential of this team. But right now, his defining moment is the acquisition of Joe Johnson . . with the non-acquisition of Chris Paul being a close 2nd.

Contrary to popular belief, Woody and BK will not be fired together. Woody will go first, and BK will have at least another year or two after Woody is gone, to right the ship with a good coaching hire, or a good trade. They may be boys, but when it comes to business, they are NOT a package deal. The coach is almost always fired FIRST, before the GM is let go.

Babcock's best move as GM wasn't any trade he made. It was the acquisition of Lenny Wilkens, which almost immeadiately transformed us from a mediocre team, to a damn good team. BK at least deseves a chance to see if Woody can turn this around this season . . or fire him at the end of the season and hire the type of "impact" coach that Babcock did.

His worst move was easily the Dominique fiasco. If anything, you let Nique play out the rest of the season without a contract, and see if he could get it together enough in the playoffs, to make a major run at a title. Sothron says that Nique was "done" after he hurt his achilles. LOL . . someone has a bad memory then. If memory serves me correct, Nique won "Comeback Player of the Year" in 1993, after coming back from that injury. ( His injury occured in the 91 - 92 season by the way ).

Nique struggled at times on that 93 - 94 squad, but he was still the leading scorer and the one guy that teams had to fear. The difference, is that he lost his explosiveness going to the hole and relied heavily on his jumper. But he was still the best "scorer" we had on that team.

I know why Pete made the trade. But with the way the league was during that time, it was absolutely the wrong decision. Even if you lost Nique for nothing at the end of the year, his presence on that team gave us the best chance to win an NBA Title. In the playoffs, you need people who possess the ability to take over a game. Nique was the only player on that squad who could do that. When we traded Nique for Manning, you essentially gave up that threat, for an all-around player who was more of a team guy, than a superstar type talent. In the NBA, superstars win titles, not great "team guys" who aren't superstars.

That Hawks team was unbeatable at home. And frankly, if he wasn't intent on resigning Nique, he at least owed it to Nique to keep him on the team, and see if the Hawks to get it done without Jordan being in the league.

So what happened in the playoffs? Danny Manning PROVED that he couldn't handle the burden of being a "go-to guy". He was merely an Al Harrington type, who could flourish with great players around him, but not handle being "the man".

( with all of the critics about JJ being a good role player but couldn't be "the man", Manning was the true "role player" who couldn't be a superstar )

His play in that Miami series almost had the Hawks make history. He alone almost cost us to be the first #1 seed to ever lose in the first round of the playoffs. Thankfully, Seattle lost to Denver in that same year, to inherit that dubious honor. But the top seeds in each conference could've very easily went down that year.

Then, we lose to an Indiana team in the 2nd round.

That's why Hawks fans hate . . ABSOLUTELY HATE BABCOCK !! He cost us an NBA title with that Nique trade. And who's to say that Nique doesn't resign with the team, if another team doesn't give him what he wants?

When you compare Peter to BK, BK looks like "Saddam Hussein" compared to Babcock's "Hitler". If given the choice, give me Saddam.

No Jordan. And we had home court advantage. And we couldn't even get to the ECF with that (( bleep )) Danny Manning on that team. Why? Because we'd lost our offensive firepower with the departure of Nique.

LOL . . Plus we gave Phoenix a 1st round pick in that Manning trade. And people think the JJ for Diaw + 2 picks was a horrible trade. Not compared to that.

One more thing.

For all of you people that think Babcock is "hands-down" the choice here . .

Babcock's first coaching hire . . was Bobby Weiss.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

LOL . . this (( bleep )) had me thinking about Phoenix. Manning went to Phoenix. The Clips got the 1994 1st round draft pick that year. It was a late round pick that they used to choose Greg Minor, from Louisville. A decent college player, but turned out to be much of nothing in the pros.

The best players remaining in that draft, if we'd kept our pick, turned out to be Charlie Ward and Howard Eisley.

So at the worst, we traded Nique and Charlie Ward, who could've been a serviceable PG behind Mookie, for nothing.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

One more Babcock nugget . . his draft picks

1990 Rumeal Robinson (10th pick)

1991 Stacey Augmon (9th pick)

1992 Adam Keefe (10th pick)

1993 Doug Edwards (15th pick)

1994 none

1995 Alan Henderson (16th pick)

1996 Priest Lauderdale (28th pick)

1997 Ed Gray (22nd pick)

1998 Roshwon McLeod (22nd pick)

1999 Jason Terry (10th pick)

Cal Bowdler (17th pick)

Dion Glover (20th pick)

2000 DerMarr Johnson (6th pick)

2001 none

2002 Dan Dickau (28th pick)

[AHF]

Picking behind Babcock must have been a dream. Kind of like the guy in a fantasy draft who sucks so badly that everyone counts on him to pass on the top player on their board -- and he does.

[Guest Walter]

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Picking behind Babcock must have been a dream. Kind of like the guy in a fantasy draft who sucks so badly that everyone counts on him to pass on the top player on their board -- and he does.

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Think about it...Iggy, Paul (ROY), and Roy (back in the lineup and already nearly a triple double). Clearly a field day drafting behind BK. Roy may still make a play for it, but had he not been injured, a sure ROY.

W

[Guest]

Notice, only 5 of Babcock's draft picks were in the lottery. BK has, count it, TWO first round picks that were not in the lottery. Just a little tid-bit, Babcock suffered from having a good team and thus having worse draft picks. BK continually sucks so therefor he gets better draft picks.

[Sothron]

That is an excellent point that is often forgotten. Who exactly are the bluechip prospects Babcock really missed out on? Not that many. Those 90's teams were playoffs teams that kept us from having great picks.

[TexasPete]

Its hard to draft a total bust where Knight drafts. But you can make a strong argument that BK has minimized every lottery pick, leaving a fair amount on the table. That is his largest flaw...getting a Chill over Deng...a Marvin over CP/DW...a Shelden over Roy. For all those who say Chill is as good as Deng, forget it. I like Chill, he is a nice player off the bench, but he isn't a Deng either.

And Brandon Roy will make us all sick in the next year or two. He is back and producing already.

Plus, the draft "promise" to Shelden was among the most bizarre things I have ever seen a GM do. There were a lot of ways Knight could have played that deal and still got his man...and some additional help. But he shut his draft down a month before...that was a less than professional way to run a draft.

[AHF]

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That is an excellent point that is often forgotten. Who exactly are the bluechip prospects Babcock really missed out on? Not that many. Those 90's teams were playoffs teams that kept us from having great picks.

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Babcock had lottery picks (here defined as top 14 since that is the current lottery) in the following years and did the following with them:

10th Overall - Rumeal Robinson

9th Overall - Stacy Augman

10th Overall - Adam Keefe

10th Overall - Jason Terry

6th Overall - Demarr Johnson

3rd Overall - Traded for Shareef

8th Overall - Traded for Lorenzen Wright

8th Overall - Traded for Glenn Robinson

Don't give me a sob story about him only having 2 lottery picks worth of draft capital. That is a ridiculous analysis, IMO.

Also, the two picks BK has made outside of the lottery were better than any of the many more picks that Babcock made outside of the lottery:

Josh Smith & Boris Diaw

[Sothron]

Diaw is a damnation of Knight, not a justification. His bumbling led to an inept coaching staff that could not coach or motivate him in the least and it took another team to do it.

And again, as I stated elsewhere, trading those picks for established All-star calibre talent was logical at the time of the trades.