To all the naysayers......

[flava]

I'd like to point out that this team is not that much different than the team that went 9-4 without the big hog last year.

Minus Ira Newble, its pretty much the same team. I bet we re-sign Dion and DJ to the league minimum. With those moves and the two picks, I feel we are at least the same team we were while Glenn was out.

Furthermore, I feel Nazr could be a real contributor to this team. Don't forget, this guy averaged 10/8 during the 01-02 season.

We should probably re-sign Mikki Moore to a negligible contract and see if there isn't a trade opportunity to get us a decent SF (the Griz, E Rob of the Bulls, one of the Jail-Blazers).

Maybe I have rose-colored glasses on, but I just don't see it as being that much worse than last year. If nothing else, at least we have a real coach who lead this team to a .500 record the second half of last season.

comments....?

flava

[Guest]

At best 13 games is a short period of time. When you

go on those West trips you need to be able to score.

When you only have two decent players there isn't much

hope. In reality, Theo produces like a backup. Heck, he

only gave 8/7/3... We have no depth, no good coach, and

no PG or improved ball handling.... No France rookie that

turned the ball over at a high rate is going to help this

team.

And the east got a tad better....Cleveland, Chicago, NJ,

Orlando, Detroit have all got alittle better...And if they

Heat get Odom they will be better...

[Traceman]

Right now, having Ira back would be GREAT considering the other possibilities I see out there. Even if we resign Glover (BIG if because he will likely get more than the league minimum from SOMEBODY), we are looking at Diaw (or CC) at SF instead of Ira. You guys can hype Diaw all you want but that guy is FAR from ready to be a starter on a good NBA team. You think CC would have only averaged 5.4 ppg in the summer league? Please! When DJ averaged nearly 14 ppg last summer, people said he had a TERRIBLE summer league and yet he scored more than twice as many ppg as Diaw, shot a higher percentage and played MUCH better D. That doesn't mean that Diaw will be a bust but I do think it means he will need at least a couple of years to improve on his natural talents. He is only 19, let him develop.

As for DJ, I pray that he is healthy and that we re-sign him but BANKING on him to make up for the loss of Dog and even Ira is not realisitc. He couldn't even beat out the likes of Theron Smith for a spot on the Grizzlies roster.

Eddie Robinson? Why in the world would you want to trade for him? He is overpaid, overhyped, injury prone and apparently has a poor work ethic. I wouldn't trade CC for him straight up even if it did work under the cap. At least CC's deal is up in 2 years.

Flava, man, I get where you're coming from. I want to be optimisitic too but the Hawks will have to do SOMETHING before I get my hopes up. Right now, things just don't look very good. More than one publication thinks we could finish the season with the worst record in the NBA and at this point, I think we'll be closer to that than we will be to the playoffs.

[coachx]

The team still has hope to put up better record then last year.

With JT and Glover back the team has 4 of its 5 starters back.The one they are losing is the cancer that needed to bew removed. Bring in DJ and Smitty and this team could realistically top last years effort and the very least they will give more effort without Dog's lazy butt.

[Gray Mule]

With the eight players currently under contract who will

be active { we have the new guy on I.R. } add:

Jason Terry

Dion Glover

DerMarr Johnson

That's eleven. If we can work a trade where we gain

a player, we give them two and get three, etc. and

the deal includes Battier, we wouldn't be in real bad

shape. Maybe not great, but still, not bad.

Depends on who we get or give up to get Battier, which

I hope we can work out.

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast."

Yep! I'm still optimistic. I still have the rose colored

glasses. I still believe the victories are out there for

Atlanta and we will get several of them.

With this team, I expect to improve on last year's record.

I really do.

There are deals and signings yet to happen. There are

assistant coaches to be hired. Front office waited, in

my opinion, much too long to sign the coach & G.M.

to contracts. That is finally behind us and we can now,

finally, get on with the business of preparing for the

upcoming season.

GO HAWKS !!!!!!!!