Let's be honest, when will we make the playoffs?

[Sothron]

I'm not going to rehash the age old debates about who we should have drafted or traded or kept or whatever have you. I am asking a simple question to every Hawks fan on this site: when do you think the Hawks will make the playoffs again?

I honestly do not think this team will make the playoffs until the ownership situation is finalized. No coach or general manager of any ability will want to come here until that time. The court decisions greatly handicap our ability to sign free agents or trade for players with several years left on their contracts. Our drafting in three years under Knight has left us with two bench players and one player who may or may not be a bust. Ergo we can not depend on past draft selections to miracously "rise up" and take the team to the playoffs.

So, sadly, I came to the conclusion this past summer after talking to people inside the organization and to people like Jason Walker that with all of the handicaps in place there is simply no way for this team to make the deals necessary to upgrade our talent roster and coaching staff and front office to reach the playoffs. This means in real terms a minimum of one more season after this and quite possibly another two to three seasons depending on the legal issues.

[Lascar78]

I think that with very minimal upgrades we should make the playoffs next year. I felt that way before this season and still do. I think that the ownership may or may not prevent us from making plays for big contracts, but we are not that far from being a playoff team in the East at all. A little more health, another year under all the young guys' belt, I think next year should be good to go.

The ownership is no doubt one huge embarassment though. I don't know that it would prevent us from getting a decent coach though. This is a young, highly coachable team, and a coach could look good by coming in here and turning things around. I agree that no GM would want to come into a situation where he may or may not be handcuffed due to ownership

[Guest Walter]

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I came to the conclusion this past summer after talking to people inside the organization and to people like Jason Walker that with all of the handicaps in place there is simply no way for this team to make the deals necessary to upgrade our talent roster and coaching staff and front office to reach the playoffs. This means in real terms a minimum of one more season after this and quite possibly another two to three seasons depending on the legal issues.

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I agree, but even then do we have the capitol without RE-rebuilding. Once this ownership thing is resolved, likely JC and JS's contracts will have expired and MW's possibly. There's no telling what if any of that talent/capitol will be retained. Frankly, we may have to gut and rebuild again.

As it turns out, our only past hope, given it now appears ownership is not going to solve our remaining talent and positional needs problem, was for BK to draft well or at least not miss on 3 consecutive drafts and to not carelessly include a merely top 3 protected pick.

Fortunately, there is hope facing us now. We don't have to rely upon ownerships willingness to spend. We can retain our 3rd overall pick with a little work. It will take alot of people taking the same, honest look at this franchise that you are Sothron, to accept this and become proactive about retaining our pick and getting a franchise fortune changing talent in here.

W

[Guest Walter]

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I think that with very minimal upgrades we should make the playoffs next year. I felt that way before this season and still do.

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Have you under-predicted the Hawks' record in recent memory? I simply believe you're in fantasy land if you think this is remotely a playoff team. Every team has to deal with injuries. While ours have been bad, they aren't as bad as some teams with season long injuries or injuries to their star player for extended periods and they aren't to the level of making a playoff team suddenly the 3rd worst team in the league.

Just pointing out, there doesn't seem to be a single reason based in fact to believe your opinion about this team's playoff chances this or next year if dramatic changes aren't made. Said dramatic, franchise fortune-changing changes will not occur during this ownership fiasco unless we somehow will ourselves to a top 3 pick. We simply can't count on their wallets.

But if all that doesn't convince you, maybe this will: I predicted 27 wins last year and 34 wins this year. I have been and am overly optimistic! If that doesn't put your overly rosey playoff optimism in perspective I don't know what will.

[Lascar78]

And I predicted 25 last year and 38 this year. What's your point? I don't care about what you think. I try to avoid any thread you're in like the plague because I know it's going to be a vagina fest of whining and doomsday predictions about how nothing good will ever happen and how we should all hate everything hawks-related and give up, and tell you that you're right. And I'm supposed to be "put back in perspective" because your predictions were similar to mine and you don't think things will go well? I got the point that you think we suck and will always suck in your last couple of thousands of posts thank you very much. Why don't you go hang out on that phoenix suns troll's board, where people might be interested in your incessant repetition of the same old tired, pessimistic, and misspelled thoughts?

You hate the owners

You hate the team

You hate the coach

You hate the GM.

Got it.

Got it a thousand posts ago.

Guess what? You have no impact on what the team does, so why are you here on a hawks FAN MESSAGEBOARD spamming us with the same sh!t over and over? If I want to hear about how the hawks will always suck, I'll read a Marc Stein article.

But since you ask, yes I have underpredicted the hawks since I predicted 25 last year and you predicted 27, when we won 26. OOOOOOHHHH what a great revelation!

With the exception of this past week or two we've shown that even with an unreasonable amount of injuries we can consistently hang with every team in the league even though we haven't yet figured out how to win the close ones (poor coaching, young team).

Most young teams grow in steps:

1-lose damn near every game

2-inconsistency. Play really well in some games, don't show up for other games

3-consistency in being in just about every game until the end

4-learn how to win many of the close games, which results in a good record.

I think we're following the curve and we've moved from step 2 to step 3 (with the exception of the relapse of the past week or two). Our young guys will get more comfortable, the new guys will learn how to fit in better. It's called growth and it happens with young teams.

And yes our injuries have been as bad as anyone's in the league. A couple of teams have had their star go down (Gasol...), but it hurts just as bad to have 5 of your 7 best players go down for over a month apiece (Speedy, Marvin, Childress, Lue, Smith) this early in the season, and for 3 of them (Speedy, Marvin, Shelden) to be playing seriously banged up when they are out there. So yes, we've choked plenty of games and don't have a championship contender, but the deepest injuries in the league will take you from trying to push for an 8 seed to 3 games behind the 9th team in the conference, which is where we are.

Sorry for the bitterness but you are like a poisonous broken record infecting all the threads trying to convince people of how great you are, and that the hawks are doomed for failure. Get over yourself man, it's just a message board for fans to have fun talking about how the team's doing and how we can improve. Your spamming will have no positive impact on the team no matter how you try to convince yourself.

And with that, Happy New Year everyone!

[drzachary]

But how do you REALLY feel, Lascar?

Happy New Year to you, too.

[Guest Walter]

That might have been the single most silly post I've ever seen. Good one.

W

[drzachary]

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That might have been the single most silly post I've ever seen. Good one.

W

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Overwrought or not, I'd wager that a huge portion, perhaps a majority, of Hawksquawk feels the same way!

[Sothron]

I realize it may be futile to ask this but please do not flame each other in this thread. I am honestly curious what every poster on this site thinks about this question. When are we going to make the playoffs?

[Guest]

The east is so easy to make the playoffs, realistically all we need is one more player or a new impact coach that will get this team to beat the teams they are supposed to beat (Toronotos, Memphises, New Yorks...) and get a couple of wins against the really tough teams (Spurs, Mavs...).

How can we get that player/coach? Easy, fire BK and put anything that is somewhat smarter than a monkey and we will be good. People always defend him, but why? He has been in the league 6+ seasons and he hasn't had a 30 win team. This is his FOURTH season with the Hawks, anyone else remember when he took over the team and said he had a five year plan??? If that is his five year plan then god help us, it should take no one 5 years to get this team to .500 (which appears to be the goal) in the East. BK is really the whole problem with why we haven't/won't make the playoffs. The sad thing is, the only way that I can see BK getting fired is for Belkin to gain control of the team or have a completely new ownership come in.

As much as I bash BK I wouldn't mind seeing him still on the Hawks...just not as a GM. Maybe a director of scouting. And as much of an idiot I think Woodson is I wouldn't mind seeing him still on the Hawks, just not as the coach. Maybe one of the top 2 or 3 assistant coaches, just not the head. It is the same issue with these two guys, just because they were good at positions below HC and GM doesn't make them top candidates for HC or GM. It is like a factory, do you take your best assembly line worker and make them your product manager? No, not unless they have some other qualities, and BK and Woody do not.

[Guest Walter]

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Overwrought or not, I'd wager that a huge portion, perhaps a majority, of Hawksquawk feels the same way!

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This franchise doesn't need feel-good fan sympathy and do nothing optimism. It needs a kick in the rear realism. Unless Lascar wants to flame his angst over the Hawks consistently, year after year not living up to his "we're not dead yet" expectations, this team needs bold moves now. For Lascar's mental health (and others after loses like the one at Utah) the Hawks need to make franchise-fortune altering changes, quick.

W

[TexasPete]

I agree with you 100%. My honest feeling is that these Hawks will never make the playoffs with Woodson as head coach. They need a new face, a new approach. And BK's 6-year GM track record speaks for itself. I really don't think its that hard to draft the guys he drafted. And yet some here think he is this great draft wizard. This guy hasn't presided over anything close to a .500 ball club and that should be the determining factor in evaluating any GM. At what point do people here realize this ship isn't even close to sailing? We are headed for a bottom 1 or 2 record again. Unreal.

And before the injury defenders come out it is important to note how bad our execution is at the end of games...how many games have been blown in the last 30 seconds? Is that injuries? No.

These players will not let themselves win with Woodson because they don't believe in him. They say the right things in public but don't follow through in the games. We need a top notch coach in here, then we go to the playoffs. No way Woodson presides over a playoff berth. No chance. The sooner the Spirit realize this the better off we will all be.

[Buzzard]

I hope for next year. If not, Woody and BK are both gone. FYI Woody may be gone this season.

[Lascar78]

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As much as I bash BK I wouldn't mind seeing him still on the Hawks...just not as a GM. Maybe a director of scouting. And as much of an idiot I think Woodson is I wouldn't mind seeing him still on the Hawks, just not as the coach. Maybe one of the top 2 or 3 assistant coaches, just not the head.

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I think this is spot on. I will say this about BK, he hasn't put a great team together chemistry-wise, but he has put us in a great position to make a trade to make this a great team. So far he has been unable to find it, but if another GM were to take over, he would get the kind of franchise a GM loves to get, with young talent, low salaries, lots of trading pieces. When you compare it to what he inherited, we've come a long way. That's why I don't mind BK so much. He's made some mistakes and missed some opportunities, but he's also avoided some pretty big traps and had some nice finds.

Basically I would be fine with firing BK now, but I would feel like he did his job pretty well.