Letting Knight go was a stupid move

[asdogg]

Knight is responsible for all the players here. Because of him we went from a team no one cared about, even when we were winning (remember the empty omni in the 90's), to one of the most exciting, atheletic, fun to watch, and most importantly promisng teams in the NBA. Everyone says we need to run more and we are built to run. We hardly ran last year under Woodson. Imagine this team under D'antoni. I think we could of had D'antoni if ASG gave Knight freedom to make moves. Look you can knock Knight for passing up on guys in the draft but remember hindsight is always 20/20. Every team makes draft mistakes because no one has a crystal ball. The bottom line is the team, talent and and financial flexiablity improved with Billy at the helm.

The problem now is after 6 years of rebuilding a new GM is going to come in and break-up the core, and we will go in for another few years of rebuilding. At the best you hope the new GM builds on what we have now, but I ask you is that not what Billy Knight was doing? You can only hope the new GM would continue to carry out Billy's vision. That is going to be a big leap. Bottomline, the ASG should not have accepted Billy's resignation and instead given Billy the authorty to see his vision through. I think letting Billly go at this time point has set this franchise back.

You seem to forget the reasoning at the time for some of the moves that unfortunaltly did not pan out:

Chris Paul vs MW: Marvin consensus top 2 pick

Sheldn vs Roy: Big hole at PF spot we only had Zaza. Billy would have gotten crucifed if we had gotten another 6'9 wing player. Plus after the Marvin draft, Billy got railed for going after potential and best talent instead of drafting for postion of need.

Signing Speedy Claxton: We needed a vet point gaurd in the worst way. And not making a move for a free agent that summer with the cap space we had would make this franchsie look as if we were not interested in winning and trying to run the team on the cheap. Furthermore Speedy was not even the first choice, remember Sam Cassel turned down our max offer. Plus speedy was somming off a career year.

[AnakinJoe]

The owners won't allow the team to be gutted for another rebuilding effort. So the new GM, with limited autonomy, will need to work the fringes of the roster. And significantly improve the talent drafted when we have draft picks again (in '10). But I also think the GM needs to be media-friendly and help sell season tickets, now that the city has had a chance to experience playoff basketball. The irony is that BK did a good job of selecting draft picks later in the draft... at least based on Smith and Diaw. And hopefully, we will be selecting after pick 16 for many years to come.

[exodus]

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We hardly ran last year under Woodson.

We were top 5 in the league in fast break points, second in the East to Philly.

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Chris Paul vs MW: Marvin consensus top 2 pick

Sheldn vs Roy

This is a total contradiction. On the one hand you applaud him for taking talent over need in 2005 but then say he was right to take need over talent in 2006.

Bottom line is that he got it wrong both times.

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Billy would have gotten crucifed if we had gotten another 6'9 wing player

Roy is not a 6'9" wing player. He is basically a smaller, quicker version of JJ. We could have easily moved JJ to the 3 if Roy couldn't handle the point.

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Signing Speedy Claxton: We needed a vet point gaurd in the worst way.

The reason we were desperate for a pg is that BK refused to draft one, or more accurately didn't see the need for one. Remember that he said JJ would be the pg.

[AHF]

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Sheldn vs Roy: Big hole at PF spot we only had Zaza. Billy would have gotten crucifed if we had gotten another 6'9 wing player. Plus after the Marvin draft, Billy got railed for going after potential and best talent instead of drafting for postion of need.

Billy would have been railed in the short term for the Roy pick or Gay pick but would have been hailed in the long term for getting a real player with the pick. Billy got railed not for his draft approach after taking Marvin but for missing the stud player.

Anytime you miss the best guy you get hammered for your approach. The only defense against that is not to chase your tail and react to the media but to get it right.

[asdogg]

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The owners won't allow the team to be gutted for another rebuilding effort. So the new GM, with limited autonomy, will need to work the fringes of the roster. And significantly improve the talent drafted when we have draft picks again (in '10). But I also think the GM needs to be media-friendly and help sell season tickets, now that the city has had a chance to experience playoff basketball. The irony is that BK did a good job of selecting draft picks later in the draft... at least based on Smith and Diaw. And hopefully, we will be selecting after pick 16 for many years to come.

I do not hink it is feasabile to hire a GM and have his hands tied. i.e can not fire the coach, can not trade core players, no draft picks, and after resigning smith and chills no cap room.

It does not bode well my friend.

[exodus]

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The owners won't allow the team to be gutted for another rebuilding effort. So the new GM, with limited autonomy, will need to work the fringes of the roster. And significantly improve the talent drafted when we have draft picks again (in '10). But I also think the GM needs to be media-friendly and help sell season tickets, now that the city has had a chance to experience playoff basketball. The irony is that BK did a good job of selecting draft picks later in the draft... at least based on Smith and Diaw. And hopefully, we will be selecting after pick 16 for many years to come.

I do not hink it is feasabile to hire a GM and have his hands tied. i.e can not fire the coach, can not trade core players, no draft picks, and after resigning smith and chills no cap room.

It does not bode well my friend.

The reason we are just a 37 win team with no draft picks and no cap space is because BK f'd up.

[TheDude]

while i'm not as down on his as some and a lot of it is purely bad luck, the fact that he not only gave shelden a promise but also didnt trade down for him was a huge mistake.

[asdogg]

You seem very anti BK, exodus. What moves whould you recommend now? It is easy to assign blame after the fact. Can you deny that this team has a bright future? A team that BK built. My point is you will not get a good GM who is willing to be handcuffed and that is precisely why letting BK go at this time did not make sense. Granted if BK got his way (fired Woodson) and this team did not live up to expectations with his moves than that makes sense, but how do you let him go now?

[gsuteke]

Some say it does a Body Good

Others say It Distorts your Perception of Reality

I say Stop Puffing and Start Passing ASDogg

I think you've had Enough

[gsuteke]

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You seem very anti BK, exodus. What moves whould you recommend now? It is easy to assign blame after the fact. Can you deny that this team has a bright future? A team that BK built. My point is you will not get a good GM who is willing to be handcuffed and that is precisely why letting BK go at this time did not make sense. Granted if BK got his way (fired Woodson) and this team did not live up to expectations with his moves than that makes sense, but how do you let him go now?

This team has as many holes now as it did when BK took over. Sure you can acquire talent through losing. BK acquired alot of young talent with all those lottery picks he got over the past few years.

The problem is he didn't hit any home runs with those high picks, and more importantly he flat out struck out multiple times up.

Don't praise BK's accomplishments like he put together this young talent drafting in the Teens. Call it what it is man. Underachieving.

[exodus]

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You seem very anti BK, exodus.

Correct

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It is easy to assign blame

after the fact.

It was also easy to assign blame at the time of the Marvin pick (witness Diesel and Walter), the Shelden pick (the whole board), etc.

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What moves whould you recommend now?

Dumping BK was a good first step. Dumping Woody and Childress (another BK mistake) would be the next moves. Getting a GM who has a clue would help also.He won't have picks this year but he will in the future and BK has shown he can't make good use of them. He also has tradeable young talent to work with.

Just look at all the deals Prichard did when he took over a complete mess of a roster in Portland.

[AnakinJoe]

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I do not hink it is feasabile to hire a GM and have his hands tied. i.e can not fire the coach, can not trade core players, no draft picks, and after resigning smith and chills no cap room.

It does not bode well my friend.

I don't think it is logical to hire a GM and extend/hire a Head Coach when according to David Stern, the judge may rule in February that there is a change in ownership. Potentially, the Atlanta & DC factions could agree on GM X and Coach Y and 8 months later, Belkin takes over and fires them both and brings in his guys. Belkin is left with the remaining contracts of GM X and Coach Y and our players potentially could have 3 different GMs and coaches in a span of less than 12 months.

And those are the very same reasons why GM X and Coach Y will not likely appear at the top of the lists for other franchises... because those guys (Walsh, D'Antoni, Avery, Van Gundy, Fratello, etc) would not likely put themselves (or their families) through the possible scenario outlined above. So I'm expecting a GM with limited autonomy and a few holes in his resume.

[pimp]

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Chris Paul vs MW: Marvin consensus top 2 pick

Sheldn vs Roy: Big hole at PF spot we only had Zaza. Billy would have gotten crucifed if we had gotten another 6'9 wing player. Plus after the Marvin draft, Billy got railed for going after potential and best talent instead of drafting for postion of need.

Signing Speedy Claxton: We needed a vet point gaurd in the worst way. And not making a move for a free agent that summer with the cap space we had would make this franchsie look as if we were not interested in winning and trying to run the team on the cheap. Furthermore Speedy was not even the first choice, remember Sam Cassel turned down our max offer. Plus speedy was somming off a career year.

1.Paul vs Marvin

The Hawks biggest need was point guard and center.

We already had 5 fowards . Smith, Harrington, Childress, Diaw , and Donta.

We had no point guard or center..

We already had a project at sf , with Smith coming straight out of High School, and we just got Harrington.

Most teams that win only 13 games would get a starter with #2 pick.The hawks got a backup for a postion that was already filled.

2.There was not excuse for reaching For shelden.If they wanted .I BK wanted him so bad he could have traded down or traded the pick for a vet.But that wasn't possible after he promised a non top 10 player that he would be taken at 5.Also, we could have taken Roy or Gay, but Drafting Marvin the year before made that unlikely.

3.It was Knight own fault, that we needed a point guard so badly.

Bk signs Paul's backup.

Forget about the bad knees....Speedy couldnt hold on to starting jobs in Golden state and N.O , because he is a worst shooter that Josh Smith.

[Packfill]

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The owners won't allow the team to be gutted for another rebuilding effort. So the new GM, with limited autonomy, will need to work the fringes of the roster. And significantly improve the talent drafted when we have draft picks again (in '10). But I also think the GM needs to be media-friendly and help sell season tickets, now that the city has had a chance to experience playoff basketball. The irony is that BK did a good job of selecting draft picks later in the draft... at least based on Smith and Diaw. And hopefully, we will be selecting after pick 16 for many years to come.

I do not hink it is feasabile to hire a GM and have his hands tied. i.e can not fire the coach, can not trade core players, no draft picks, and after resigning smith and chills no cap room.

It does not bode well my friend.

The reason we are just a 37 win team with no draft picks and no cap space is because BK f'd up.

That is not fair. All BK had to work with was:

- 7 first round draft picks (Diaw, Childress, Smith, Marvin, Shelden, Horford, Law), including 4 high lottery picks (Childress, Marvin, Shelden and Horford);

- 5 second round picks (Hansen, Donta, Ivey, Salim, Jones);

- two trades for max contract guys (JJ and Bibby); and

- a bunch of free agent coin (LoWright, Speedy, Zaza, etc.);

[gsuteke]

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we are just a 37 win team with no draft picks and no cap space

Anyone and everyone participating in this thread, or pretty much any thread on HS ought to read that statement again. And again. And again.

[Dejay]

I think GSUTeke, EDS, Exodus, and Co. said enough. My appearance on this thread is no longer needed....

[Cwell]

Billy Knight is still one of the worst in the league.He had lotto pick after lotto pick.DUH!!! you're gonna get some talent,but if u make the wrong picks the team as a whole will suffer.

Diaw-18th pick-6'8 forward

Childress-6th pick-6'8 forward

Smoove-17th pick-6'9 forward

Marvin-2nd pick-6'9 fprward

Shelden-5th pick-6'9 forward

Horford-3rd pick-6'10 forward

Law-11th pick-6'3 PG

Only one of those guys isn't a 6'8"-6'9" forward.

[NJHAWK]

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Knight is responsible for all the players here. Because of him we went from a team no one cared about, even when we were winning (remember the empty omni in the 90's), to one of the most exciting, atheletic, fun to watch, and most importantly promisng teams in the NBA. Everyone says we need to run more and we are built to run. We hardly ran last year under Woodson. Imagine this team under D'antoni. I think we could of had D'antoni if ASG gave Knight freedom to make moves. Look you can knock Knight for passing up on guys in the draft but remember hindsight is always 20/20. Every team makes draft mistakes because no one has a crystal ball. The bottom line is the team, talent and and financial flexiablity improved with Billy at the helm.

The problem now is after 6 years of rebuilding a new GM is going to come in and break-up the core, and we will go in for another few years of rebuilding. At the best you hope the new GM builds on what we have now, but I ask you is that not what Billy Knight was doing? You can only hope the new GM would continue to carry out Billy's vision. That is going to be a big leap. Bottomline, the ASG should not have accepted Billy's resignation and instead given Billy the authorty to see his vision through. I think letting Billly go at this time point has set this franchise back.

You seem to forget the reasoning at the time for some of the moves that unfortunaltly did not pan out:

Chris Paul vs MW: Marvin consensus top 2 pick

Sheldn vs Roy: Big hole at PF spot we only had Zaza. Billy would have gotten crucifed if we had gotten another 6'9 wing player. Plus after the Marvin draft, Billy got railed for going after potential and best talent instead of drafting for postion of need.

Signing Speedy Claxton: We needed a vet point gaurd in the worst way. And not making a move for a free agent that summer with the cap space we had would make this franchsie look as if we were not interested in winning and trying to run the team on the cheap. Furthermore Speedy was not even the first choice, remember Sam Cassel turned down our max offer. Plus speedy was somming off a career year.

I agree with this 100%. We all wish now in hind sight and some of you back then that we would have taken Paul. However those players were CLEARLY RANKED 1 AND 2 BY EVERYONE NBA WISE. Most said in 5 years Marv would be the best player out of that draft. Paul and Deron had alot of ? marks and dammit this whole league drafts on POTENTIAL. There was alot of B.S. behind the scenes tieing up BK as well. I think we will regret letting him walk. However your fear of the team being broken up is prolly unfounded BECAUSE OUR OWNERS WILL NOT BREAK THEM UP and THEY WILL WANT A YES MAN AS GM. Thats why BK RESIGNED, he knew that he wasnt needed anymore because Gearon and company will MICRO MANAGE NOW.

[Cwell]

in 05 I wanted Chris Paul.(I was one of the few),Marvin was a backup and never looked like a future anything.Deron was very good but playing with Dee Brown and Luther Head takes some spotlight.

06 I wanted Marcus Williams and Paul Millsap.I would have been wrong on Williams but I was just hoping for a PG because he kept passing on them.

07 I wanted Mike Conley and Sean Williams but i'm fine with Law and Horford now.both look like future all-stars.

[atlien]

Whenever you miss on a top 5 pg in the HISTORY of the game when a) you needed a pg badly and b) that pg DREAMED of playing for you, you're pretty much done. Sure, Marvin was the consensus pick. But, a good GM's job is to move beyond the consensus and select the right player. He didn't do that.

The Shelly pick hurt hte most though, because there were MANY people (including myself) that saw just how Shelden would struggle in the league. I was dreaming for Roy and Millsap, but instead we got Shelly and Solo!

Thank god he didnt screw up the Horford pick and select Chaiman Yi. I dont know if I couldve gotten over that one.