Chat wrap: Basketball News (Ken Bikoff) June 10

[HawkTodd]

Chat wrap: Basketball News (Ken Bikoff) June 10, 2003

"MJ (Saginaw): Do you think there is a chance that the Atlanta Hawks -- an NBA team in a large market that only draws about as well as the Montreal Expos -- could be relocated? It is pathetic to look at a professional franchise play in an arena that empty every night. David Stern has to be thinking about the Hawks future in Atlanta, right? Could they move to a city in an untapped market, like say Louisville, KY?"

"Ken Bikoff: (5:35 PM ET ) The Hawks are about to be sold and I believe there is a pretty firm committment to stay in the city. I haven't heard any rumblings to the contrary, although the attendance at Philips Arena is pretty appalling."

link to complete chat.

http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/chatESPN?event_id=3646

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The Hawks can't even plan to improve (6-10-03).

http://www.sportingnews.com/voices/sean_de...y/20030610.html

There sat Hawks reps Billy Knight and Terry Stotts on the front row at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago last week, watching the scrimmages that are the main part of the NBA's predraft camp. They made notes. They talked about players. They joked around. They almost looked like every other general manager and coach who crowded the bleachers and rafters of the gym.

But Knight and Stotts are very different from most general managers and coaches. They are in the awkward position of doing work not for themselves but for the people who will take over for them. Essentially, they are running an organization that has no organization. The Hawks were put up for sale by their parent company, AOL Time Warner, and a buyer was found in early May -- Texas car dealer David McDavid. But the sale will take time to finalize, and it's complicated by the fact the NHL's Atlanta Thrashers also are part of the package. On the NBA side, the league's accountants still must pore through the paperwork to ensure McDavid's bid is legitimate. The paperwork then gets sent to the league's board of governors, which will decide whether McDavid should be an owner. It will be weeks -- after the June 26 draft, most likely -- before McDavid takes over the franchise.

In the meantime, Knight and Stotts are working for a boss who probably will get rid of them at the earliest opportunity, a guy with whom they have had no contact since the sale was announced. Knight is the interim general manager, having replaced Pete Babcock, who was canned in April. Stotts is the Hawks' interim coach, having taken over for Lon Kruger in December. Also part of the Atlanta contingent in Chicago was Hawks legend and front-office assistant Dominique Wilkins, who says all of the Hawks' representatives have been instructed not to talk about the sticky situation. Still, Wilkins says, "As far as I know, no one has talked to (McDavid). No one knows what he wants, really. We're all in limbo here.

"We don't know what our jobs are going to be. Billy and Terry don't know, either. They're just trying to do what they can, but they don't know if they're staying or leaving. We have to get a lot of things put into place."

It's safe to say that McDavid will want changes, and who can blame him? Though the Hawks finished well under Stotts -- they were 21-19 in their last 40 games -- this was a 35-win team short on chemistry, one that inspired no fan enthusiasm. The Hawks averaged just 12,894 fans, which would have been the league's worst attendance, if not for the bottomed-out Cavaliers.

The Hawks are stuck with a poorly constructed roster, too, featuring a shooting guard (Jason Terry) at the point, an underachiever (Shareef Abdur-Rahim) at power forward and a black hole at small forward (Glenn Robinson). There is no bench, and there's little hope of adding one. The team's payroll is perilously close to the luxury-tax threshold and will go over it if Terry, a restricted free agent, is re-signed.

Knight did not construct the roster, nor did he botch nearly every draft the Hawks have had in the last 10 years. That was Babcock's doing. But McDavid probably will want his own people in charge of the team. Here, another problem arises: While the NBA flips through the details of the McDavid purchase, the Hawks languish. By the time McDavid takes over, eight other teams will have chosen new coaches and three other teams will have new general managers. Not that the Hawks had much chance at guys such as Larry Brown, Paul Silas or Jeff Van Gundy, but because of the uncertainty, Atlanta never was able to make a pitch for them. Instead, the Hawks will pick through whatever candidates are left over. Knight and Stotts will lead the team through the draft, in which Atlanta owns the 21st pick. Even in doing that, they are uncertain about the team's intentions on the free-agent market, so making an educated pick is a tough prospect.

Speaking to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week, McDavid said, "Because we don't (own the team), we can't really go reach out to anybody. We can't go talk to anybody that's there. It's got to be an uncomfortable position for them because they don't know what we're thinking. And I hate that."

Let's face it: Most of Atlanta does not care about the Hawks. Even when Wilkins was one of the most exciting players in the NBA in the 1980s, fans did not pack the Omni to watch. But the city has gotten a jolt from its NFL franchise, the Falcons, whose enthusiastic owner, Arthur Blank, is given a lot of credit for turning around the team. McDavid, a former minority owner of the Mavericks, will have to do the same. As more time passes, though, it becomes clearer that it's not going to happen this year for the Hawks.

"I think it would be great for the city to get the team going again," Wilkins says. "Fans would come back if we give them an exciting team. But you have to start somewhere, and we can't start yet. That's frustrating."

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2003 NBA Mock Draft

By Tony Mejia

SportsLine.com Staff Writer

"21. Atlanta Hawks (from Indiana): Boris Diaw-Riffiod, F/G, Pau-Orthez (France). The 6-9 Frenchmen has a lot of athleticism, sees the floor well and could develop into a defensive stopper. Those are three strong ingredients for a team that needs plenty of help. He's an unknown commodity, but at this pick, the Hawks have no choice but to shoot for the moon."

link to complete mock draft.

http://www.sportsline.com/nba/story/6386508

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Mailbag: (6-4-03)

by Sean Deveney

"After the Lakers went hard at Jason Terry just before the trade deadline, do you see them making a move to acquire a free agent such as Gary Payton or Terry to bolster the point guard spot?

Drew Davis

Spokane, Wash."

"***Drew: As far as I know, the Lakers had only mild interest in Terry at the trade deadline---they were more interested in Hawks power forward Nazr Mohammed. Point guard would be a nice place to upgrade, but this team needs a power forward, plain and simple. So that will be the offseason focus. I've said before that I think they should take a big gamble and go for Karl Malone, but they'll probably be more conservative than that and will shoot for P.J. Brown or Keon Clark."

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[TheDude]

that has to be the most depressing article i've read in awhile...

that writer can kiss my red and black, hawk-lovin azz... he sounds like he is basically trying to convince the hawks to move to another city!... there CAN be a turnaround but like nique said, we have to get started...

i mean couldn't mcdavid just like call billy knight and stotts and tell them "on the side" if he plans to keep them? at least call to say he's keeping them both(i guess i'd be ok with that if fratello wasn't coming in) so they both can do full effort..

f*cking sh*t......

[Traceman]

We ARE in a kind of holding pattern with everything until the ownership situation gets resolved. It is tough for even die-hard fans like myself to get excited when there are so many unknowns out there. I have no idea what the plan is for the future of this team and that makes it tough to get excited about anything. I even find it hard to get excited about the upcoming draft because I have NO IDEA what the long term (or even the short term) plan is for the team. I know what I would do but that may be completely different than what actually happens. The funny thing is that I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. There are a number of routes that can be taken that COULD lead to success for this team but those very same routes could also lead to the same type of results we have seen for the last 4 years.

[Gray Mule]

If I were the potential new owner of the Hawks, I would

at least meet with the present coach & G.M. and talk,

even if it wasn't about basketball.

It has to be a hard thing for all people involved. Just drop

by and say, Hi! Wanted to meet you guys. Act like a

fan. That couldn't take too much effort and would

end some of the tention.

Not knowing -- That's got to be hard on everyone.

Meeting as potential friends couldn't hurt and might help.

[Traceman]

I think that if McDavid were reasonably sure that the deal was going to go through, he would contact those guys if he were going to consider keeping either of them. The fact that he has not had contact with them suggests to me that he is probably going in a completely different direction. Obviously I could be wrong but that's what it looks like to me.

[Guest]

It would be stupid to fire Billy Knight and hire a

average coach/GM at best in Dunleavy.There is

no reason Knight can't remain the GM.In fact,if

he does fire Knight I think that will open up more

questions.

[Traceman]

for GM. Still, I think if McDavid were going to keep him around, I think he would have said something to Knight by now. I know if I were buying the team and I were considering keeping Knight around, I'd give him a call and let him know so that he could go about the business of making my team better without distractions. I guess we'll see but I'll be surprised if Knight is kept.

[Guest]

I understand people like to bring in they're own guys.

That's the way it goes 95% of the time.I just can't

see a better guy out there.

Doesn't the sale have to be completed by the end of

the month.

[Traceman]

but I sure hope it is. Not having it completed by the draft is going to be bad enough but it REALLY needs to be done by the time we can start negotiating with FAs.