SI's Marty Burns East Ranking--Hawks #13

[koncak]

13. HAWKS: So much for their fans' hopes of making a big splash this summer. Al Horford and Acie Law are decent prospects, but neither is likely to come in and make a big impact right away. It means another season of slow growth for Joe Johnson, Josh Smith and Marvin Williams.

[atlien]

ehh i think his list is off.

Cleveland at 1 is too high.

I'd put us above both the Bucks and the Knicks (they might look better on paper to some, but I like us better on the court).

I think the teams we are close to are:

Toronto, NJ, Washington, Orlando and Charlotte

These teams will finish 6-11ish in the east.

Miami is the one team I'm not sure about. I wanna say they're up there with Chicago, Detroit, Boston and Cleveland, but im not sure,

[oiatlhawksfan]

Wow, 2 of the most NBA ready rookies, aren't ready to make a impact!

[Peoriabird]

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13. HAWKS: So much for their fans' hopes of making a big splash this summer. Al Horford and Acie Law are decent prospects, but neither is likely to come in and make a big impact right away. It means another season of slow growth for Joe Johnson, Josh Smith and Marvin Williams.

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What team do you support? Obviously not the Hawks!

[atlien110]

marty burns wrote that.

[Peoriabird]

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marty burns wrote that.

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Marty Burns is not a Hawk Fan either. But people that post this negative stuff on a Hawks message can't be fans

[atlien110]

so you're basically saying true fans will and should only talk, read, post, write about positive stuff? how moronically absurd is that?

i read the article yesterday. i don't see anything wrong with sharing with other hawks fans a dumb article written by a so called nba expert.

[Peoriabird]

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so you're basically saying true fans will and should only talk, read, post, write about positive stuff? how moronically absurd is that?

i read the article yesterday. i don't see anything wrong with sharing with other hawks fans a dumb article written by a so called nba expert.

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What do I care about another dumb inacurate article about the Hawks? If someone was critical of one of your family members and you thought that it was unjustified, would you E-mail it to your brother just to show him a dumb article about him? I hope not!!

[leftwich]

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What do I care about another dumb inacurate article about the Hawks? If someone was critical of one of your family members and you thought that it was unjustified, would you E-mail it to your brother just to show him a dumb article about him? I hope not!!

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if you made a terrible point would you try to relate it to something irrelevant? I hope not!!!

[drzachary]

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13. HAWKS: So much for their fans' hopes of making a big splash this summer. Al Horford and Acie Law are decent prospects, but neither is likely to come in and make a big impact right away. It means another season of slow growth for Joe Johnson, Josh Smith and Marvin Williams.

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And there it is again. Do you see how the "Hawks *passed* on Amare/Gasol/other-big-player" meme has already transmitted itself? What was the big splash that we were supposed to make that we could have made? Horford/Law were at least "decent" uses of our picks. What bigger splash could we have made at 3 besides maybe Yi? I'm pretty sure he will make even less of an immediate impact than our 2 rooks.

[macdaddy]

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if you made a terrible point would you try to relate it to something irrelevant? I hope not!!!

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Freaking hilarious!!!

Even if you don't agree with burns its good for keeping perspective on where we stand. He makes a decent point. Its the same team as last year plus two draft picks. How often do two draft picks dramatically change your fortunes in their first year. At the same time I'm optimistic because I think we'll be healthier and we have a lot of young guys who are improving dramatically.

[Final_quest]

I expect this to be about where most "experts" project us. If anyone projects us in the top 8 that would be considered a bold prediction.

Also consider how tight the bottom teams of the east are going to be. A lot of teams are gonna be in the hunt for the final 2-3 playoff spots next year. The 13th projected team has a fair chance at the 8th seed this year.

[drzachary]

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I expect this to be about where most "experts" project us. If anyone projects us in the top 8 that would be considered a bold prediction.

Also consider how tight the bottom teams of the east are going to be. A lot of teams are gonna be in the hunt for the final 2-3 playoff spots next year. The 13th projected team has a fair chance at the 8th seed this year.

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True, I'd say that the general luck factor that affects an NBA season could move a team up or down 5 spots!

[AHF]

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But people that post this negative stuff on a Hawks message can't be fans

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I would be surprised if Hawks fans were not discussing where the national media projected the team - regardless of whether the projections were good or bad. And with the way the Hawks have finished the last few years, we wouldn't have much about the media to discuss if we only posted about media compliments.

[Peoriabird]

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I would be surprised if Hawks fans were not discussing where the national media projected the team - regardless of whether the projections were good or bad. And with the way the Hawks have finished the last few years, we wouldn't have much about the media to discuss if we only posted about media compliments.

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As Hawk fans, we all know what happened last year! Bunch of injuries, questionale coaching decisions and inexperienced players having trouble closing out games. Many outside observers will claim that the Hawks are the same plus 2 rookies but real Hawk fans know that those claims are not entirely true. So I don't waste my time reading uninformed articles that pretend that Marvin, Joe, Speedy, Childress, Zaza, Lue, Smith, Salim & Shelden were hurt last year and missed significant time. We don't pretend that the injuries didn't affect our win/loss totals. We don't pretend that our young player won't improve at all this year. We don't pretend that our young coaching staff won't improve this year. We don't pretend that the draft didn't improve our depth this year. Only uninformed or casual fans assume that we are the same as last year and write such things before the team ever has one practice this season!

[AHF]

That is worthy of discussion by Hawks' fans, though. Making the kinds of arguments you just made is something a real Hawks fan can do even in response to a negative article. On the side of devils' advocate, most of the other teams in our territory of losing games also had significant injuries last season (Milwaukee lost a ton of games to injuries including injuries to their starting SG, SF, PF and C; Boston lost/sat Pierce among others and added KG and Allen); Charlotte lost Okafor, May and others to injury and added Richardson; etc.).

[Peoriabird]

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On the side of devils' advocate, most of the other teams in our territory of losing games also had significant injuries last season (Milwaukee lost a ton of games to injuries including injuries to their starting SG, SF, PF and C; Boston lost/sat Pierce among others and added KG and Allen); Charlotte lost Okafor, May and others to injury and added Richardson; etc.).

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True, but i'm not sure those teams were reduced to giving players like Matt Frieje & Cedric Bozman major minutes. But the real difference is that the Hawks were winning before the injuries, I don't Boston, Charlotte, or Milwuakee can make that claim!

[Vol4ever]

Hey take a look at the experts last year. There was a thread on here about that last year and there are on here some that bashed the "so called experts" and how stupid they were. Those "experts" turned out to be right.

Until we win and have a good year we will get NO respect. I am optimistic about this year and hope we do well.

You are awful narrow minded!

[Peoriabird]

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You are awful narrow minded!

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You are right, I am narrow minded to the point where i think it is pointless to listen to an uninformed opinion and take it seriously. But of course the so called expert correctly predicted that the Hawks would have all of those injuries last year to determine their win total.

[Packfill]

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On the side of devils' advocate, most of the other teams in our territory of losing games also had significant injuries last season (Milwaukee lost a ton of games to injuries including injuries to their starting SG, SF, PF and C; Boston lost/sat Pierce among others and added KG and Allen); Charlotte lost Okafor, May and others to injury and added Richardson; etc.).

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True, but i'm not sure those teams were reduced to giving players like Matt Frieje & Cedric Bozman major minutes. But the real difference is that the Hawks were winning before the injuries, I don't Boston, Charlotte, or Milwuakee can make that claim!

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Boston and Milwaukee can.