Hawks want cheap big men, Teague looking like Paul and Deron?

[DeacKillsaDevil]

Who else is courting Joe Smith?

[MaceCase]

He will not land in Atlanta. At least I hope he doesn't. I wouldn't want to pay Smith 3 mill to back up Smoove, average 5 to 6ppg, and "teach" our players a thing or two. Why not bring in a couple young guys for very cheap that are athletic, can score, and can still learn and improve their game.

At some point these players need to learn how to be NBA players and they are not going to do it by listening to guys who never learned how to be NBA player's themselves.

[RedDawg#8]

I think the real problem is that veterans realize there's no playing time here...

I can see how it may seem that way but the truth is, 2 years ago when we had 6 "big men" on our roster (Horford, Smith, Zaza, Shelden, LoWright, and Solo) we found a way to get the combo of Wright (11) Shell (11) and Solo (4) 26 minutes collectively. Almost all those minutes can go to just one vet player with a guy like Morris recieving maybe 3 a game.

If we have the bodies and talent to back players up, they will see time

[hawksrule9]

At some point these players need to learn how to be NBA players and they are not going to do it by listening to guys who never learned how to be NBA player's themselves.

Who are you refurring to when you say "these players need to learn how to be NBA players"? I think Mike Bibby and Joe Johnson are leaders on this team. What is Joe Smith going to do? Teach Josh Smith something? I doubt that. Marvin Williams, Al Horford, and even Josh Smith are very solid NBA players.

Josh Smith had vetern players flooting around while he was playing. Kenny Anderson, Jon Barry, Kevin Willis, Tony Delk, Antione Walker.

Marvin Williams grew up with Joe, Tony Delk, and Al Harrington

Al has had Bibby, Joe, Zaza, etc...

I would much rather spend less money and aquire a couple young athletic players that can still improve their game. Mike Bibby and Joe Johnson are solid vets to me. Al Horford is a great guy to learn from. He plays like a vet.

[Kimsey]

http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/cnishared/tools/shared/mediahub/03/47/18/slideshow_1184732_hawks.0721_CC4.JPG

Dude looks pretty jacked up right here. No telling how big he's going to get by training camp in October.

Can't wait when he hovering over Bibby throwing it down.

[GameTime]

He will not land in Atlanta. At least I hope he doesn't. I wouldn't want to pay Smith 3 mill to back up Smoove, average 5 to 6ppg, and "teach" our players a thing or two. Why not bring in a couple young guys for very cheap that are athletic, can score, and can still learn and improve their game.

Exactly

I would love to bring in Pops, James Singleton, and/or Ike Diogu to work hard on the glass and add hustle, energy, toughness, and most of all rebounding that this team is lacking.

Edited July 27, 2009 by GameTime

[AHF]

From a financial standpoint the team has to worry about what kind of production are they getting per dollar for the little minutes they are seeing from the player. They can't just say my million dollar investment will be worthwhile only if my other million dollar investments fail on me.

I think that mentality would be dangerous for a GM. We have a rotation of Josh Smith, limited minutes of our starting SF Marvin Williams, Al Horford and Zaza Pachulia among our big men right now. We absolutely need more people who can deliver consistent production than those 4. There is a reason quality teams build depth in the frontcourt and if our team is willing to spend $12M this season to bolster our backcourt reserves with Teague and Crawford, why wouldn't we be willing to spend $3M on a guy like Chris Wilcox?

It would be a totally unreasonable expectation to believe that Marvin, Josh and Al are going to go through this season without an injury. Our GM better be planning for it.

Josh and Zaza missed double digit games 2 of the last 3 years; Marvin missed 18+ games 2 of the last 3 years; and Al missed 15 games last season.

Anyone expecting them to all be healthy is engaging in wishful thinking, IMO.

Edited July 27, 2009 by AHF

[Packfill]

He will not land in Atlanta. At least I hope he doesn't. I wouldn't want to pay Smith 3 mill to back up Smoove, average 5 to 6ppg, and "teach" our players a thing or two. Why not bring in a couple young guys for very cheap that are athletic, can score, and can still learn and improve their game.

Are you kidding? The Hawks absolutely would benefit by having a veteran bigman on the team to help mentor Smith and Horford, particularly one that has a reputation of being a good team guy. Realistically, the other "bigman" roster spot will be filled by some kid, which makes sense, put the real "developmental" guys the organization needs to concern itself with now are Al, Josh and Marvin.

[Admin]

Are you kidding? The Hawks absolutely would benefit by having a veteran bigman on the team to help mentor Smith and Horford, particularly one that has a reputation of being a good team guy. Realistically, the other "bigman" roster spot will be filled by some kid, which makes sense, put the real "developmental" guys the organization needs to concern itself with now are Al, Josh and Marvin.

And it couldn't hurt to have a big man on the roster named Smith that shows some interest in boxing out every game. How great would it have been to have Joe Smith to insert into the Lakers game when Odom made Josh Smith his girl out rebounding him what 22-0?

[MaceCase]

Who are you refurring to when you say "these players need to learn how to be NBA players"? I think Mike Bibby and Joe Johnson are leaders on this team. What is Joe Smith going to do? Teach Josh Smith something? I doubt that. Marvin Williams, Al Horford, and even Josh Smith are very solid NBA players.

Josh Smith had vetern players flooting around while he was playing. Kenny Anderson, Jon Barry, Kevin Willis, Tony Delk, Antione Walker.

Marvin Williams grew up with Joe, Tony Delk, and Al Harrington

Al has had Bibby, Joe, Zaza, etc...

I would much rather spend less money and aquire a couple young athletic players that can still improve their game. Mike Bibby and Joe Johnson are solid vets to me. Al Horford is a great guy to learn from. He plays like a vet.

Hmm playoff tested veteran or undrafted FA scrub, that's a hard choice. You look at the team and you see nothing but immaturity, Al talks a big game but then shows out when he gets a dunk for his first two points of the game in the third quarter, Josh is flawed in everything from his demeanor on the court to his game and Marvin is not assertive in his abilities. Joe enjoyed his one season playing winning basketball with Nash before coming to our playpen years ago. We acquired Bibby who was a big boost to having veteran leadership but even he is flawed as Team Dime will attest. At some point you need solid character guys that are hardworkers both on and off the court, guys that exhibit professionalism. You can underrate that all you wan't but this is a league of men and if you want to make any legitimate leap to being a contender you are going to need someone that instills in you those life skills. Look at Portland, an even younger team than us yet they spent their time and money pursuing tested veterans with their capspace rather than another young guy to compliment their team. You could say Millsap is young but he spent his previous seasons in Utah playing for coach Sloan who instills nothing but professionalism in his players. They finally settled for a 36 year old PG and that move will pay dividends for that team not just on the court but for the culture they are establishing off the court. Once again you can't expect flawed players to learn from other flawed players and expect any real success in this league.

[MaceCase]

I think that mentality would be dangerous for a GM. We have a rotation of Josh Smith, limited minutes of our starting SF Marvin Williams, Al Horford and Zaza Pachulia among our big men right now. We absolutely need more people who can deliver consistent production than those 4. There is a reason quality teams build depth in the frontcourt and if our team is willing to spend $12M this season to bolster our backcourt reserves with Teague and Crawford, why wouldn't we be willing to spend $3M on a guy like Chris Wilcox?

It would be a totally unreasonable expectation to believe that Marvin, Josh and Al are going to go through this season without an injury. Our GM better be planning for it.

Josh and Zaza missed double digit games 2 of the last 3 years; Marvin missed 18+ games 2 of the last 3 years; and Al missed 15 games last season.

Anyone expecting them to all be healthy is engaging in wishful thinking, IMO.

I'm not arguing the Wilcox deal, that was an extremely fair deal but I'm sure playing time was the main selling point for him, something he would not have gotten here. I'm arguing paying a guy like Gooden 4.5mill when he would come off the bench behind Zaza for even less minutes. Of course injuries happen but paying two capable subs for less than that amount is far more cost effective than just paying one sub.

Edited July 27, 2009 by CrawfulToCrawesome

[macdaddy]

I'm not arguing the Wilcox deal, that was an extremely fair deal but I'm sure playing time was the main selling point for him, something he would not have gotten here. I'm arguing paying a guy like Gooden 4.5mill when he would come off the bench behind Zaza for even less minutes. Of course injuries happen but paying two capable subs for less than that amount is far more cost effective than just paying one sub.

That's the point though isn't it. Can we find two capable front court subs for $4.5 million that will see the court. I don't think so. Woody has shown us that. So why pay two guys to do nothing when you could pay one that might actually contribute.

[Admin]

That's the point though isn't it. Can we find two capable front court subs for $4.5 million that will see the court. I don't think so. Woody has shown us that. So why pay two guys to do nothing when you could pay one that might actually contribute.

Yeah I agree, I'd rather spend 2/3 on 1 player who can actually start if needed like Joe Smith could. Until this team proves it has the ability to develop a project who isn't forced to start because of being on a 13 win team I would rather we avoid that type of player.

[MaceCase]

That's the point though isn't it. Can we find two capable front court subs for $4.5 million that will see the court. I don't think so. Woody has shown us that. So why pay two guys to do nothing when you could pay one that might actually contribute.

We could add someone of Joe Smith's calibre for anything from the vet minimum to 2, 3 million tops. That is a farcry from paying 4.5 million, that last spare million or so can be spent on people's project like Siler or yet another vet minimum player like Petro, Diogu hell even Warrick would come cheaper than 3 mill.

[DeacKillsaDevil]

Exactly

I would love to bring in Pops, James Singleton, and/or Ike Diogu to work hard on the glass and add hustle, energy, toughness, and most of all rebounding that this team is lacking.

Diogu? Why don't you just burn money. That guys is NEVER healthy.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

I think we fans need to start looking at this from the business side of the equation. We keep saying "why don't the Hawks do like the other teams, and spend some money on pieces that will make us more complete"?

The more I think about this, the more I believe . . ."why should they?"

I'll repeat this stat again, in case others didn't see it in past threads. In the past 2 seasons, including the playoffs, the Hawks are 62 - 27 at HOME. That's a 70% winning percentage. Yet, the Hawks . . .

- gave away an average of over 5600 FREE TICKETS away each game, the most by any team.

- took in less than $500K a game at the gate, which put us in the bottom 5 of the entire league

So my thing is . . . if the Hawks can't get the type of fan support that you see in Denver, Cleveland or even Sacramento, why should the ownership spend as much money as they can, to improve the product?

We all talk about a few MEASLEY millions of dollars, like that isn't mich money. LOL . . but it really is though. If the Hawks pay a guy like Siler a minimum rookie deal, to play 0 - 10 minutes a game . . . should they also pay a Joe Smith 2 million to also play 0 - 10 minutes a game?

The fans say YES . . it's ONLY a 2 - 3 million investment in 2 big-sized players. But the owners may be like . .

"hold up, you fans want us to spend 3 million on guys who may or may not help us . . but some of you won't even go to the games to help our revenue numbers?"

It could be that tight financially, or that petty of a situation here folks. The lack of game revenue is keeping ownership from spending money the way that the fans want them to spend it.

I think the Hawks have a set in stone, payroll number that they want to operate at for next season. Exceeding that number is out of the question.

I think they may have tried to negotiate a deal with Marvin that definitely paid him less than 8 mill a year. In fact, I bet the deal they tried to negotiate with him, paid him less than his QO of next year.

And even if they did offer him an 8 mill per deal, I bet the first 2 years pays him less than the QO ( 6 mill - 7 mill - 8 mill - 9 mill - 10 mill ).

So now they may be in a situation in which they may reluctantly match an offer in that price range for Marvin, but still aren't willing to go over their designated payroll operating number.

All of these things are probably coming into play, when we talk about even signing scrub big men. The ASG are probably pinching pennies as we speak.

We just don't have the revenue stream that some of these other teams have.

LOL . .and all of this is just a prelude for the REAL big decision that the ASG needs to make within the next 6 - 12 months. And that is what to do with the guy that is most responsible for putting the Hawks back on the NBA map . . .

Joe Johnson.

[thescout5]

I think we fans need to start looking at this from the business side of the equation. We keep saying "why don't the Hawks do like the other teams, and spend some money on pieces that will make us more complete"?

The more I think about this, the more I believe . . ."why should they?"

I'll repeat this stat again, in case others didn't see it in past threads. In the past 2 seasons, including the playoffs, the Hawks are 62 - 27 at HOME. That's a 70% winning percentage. Yet, the Hawks . . .

- gave away an average of over 5600 FREE TICKETS away each game, the most by any team.

- took in less than $500K a game at the gate, which put us in the bottom 5 of the entire league

So my thing is . . . if the Hawks can't get the type of fan support that you see in Denver, Cleveland or even Sacramento, why should the ownership spend as much money as they can, to improve the product?

We all talk about a few MEASLEY millions of dollars, like that isn't mich money. LOL . . but it really is though. If the Hawks pay a guy like Siler a minimum rookie deal, to play 0 - 10 minutes a game . . . should they also pay a Joe Smith 2 million to also play 0 - 10 minutes a game?

The fans say YES . . it's ONLY a 2 - 3 million investment in 2 big-sized players. But the owners may be like . .

"hold up, you fans want us to spend 3 million on guys who may or may not help us . . but some of you won't even go to the games to help our revenue numbers?"

It could be that tight financially, or that petty of a situation here folks. The lack of game revenue is keeping ownership from spending money the way that the fans want them to spend it.

I think the Hawks have a set in stone, payroll number that they want to operate at for next season. Exceeding that number is out of the question.

I think they may have tried to negotiate a deal with Marvin that definitely paid him less than 8 mill a year. In fact, I bet the deal they tried to negotiate with him, paid him less than his QO of next year.

And even if they did offer him an 8 mill per deal, I bet the first 2 years pays him less than the QO ( 6 mill - 7 mill - 8 mill - 9 mill - 10 mill ).

So now they may be in a situation in which they may reluctantly match an offer in that price range for Marvin, but still aren't willing to go over their designated payroll operating number.

All of these things are probably coming into play, when we talk about even signing scrub big men. The ASG are probably pinching pennies as we speak.

We just don't have the revenue stream that some of these other teams have.

LOL . .and all of this is just a prelude for the REAL big decision that the ASG needs to make within the next 6 - 12 months. And that is what to do with the guy that is most responsible for putting the Hawks back on the NBA map . . .

Joe Johnson.

Any one who owns a sports franchise should realize you need to put money in to make money otherwise don't own a franchise . I don't think Hawks fans are sold on the Hawks being able to compete vs elite teams thus they don't support the team. Other teams find a way to sign players why can't the Hawks. It's never a bad thing having to much talent but when your the Hawks it seems we have a skeleton crew and if injuries occur we use that as an excuse that the team lost because of it. Why is Morris on the roster? Is it because he is a local boy or are the Hawks owners believing he'll bring in fans because of the local ties?

We all know we needed a big man even after ZaZa was signed yet were going cheap as usual/

[Gray Mule]

Northcyde

Usually, when you post, I don't even bother to reply. Why? Because, I agree with you, so why bother

to give you a big AMEN!

Posters here talk as though 2 or 3 Million per year spent is nothing. Really? Where does this money

come from?

For an old man who, adding my income AND my wife's, we are probably nearing the 1 Million Dollar

income level - - - Only problem we have, this is not annual income, it's LIFETIME income!!

Yep. To some, 2 or 3 million extra per year may be nothing.

:sad:

[RedDawg#8]

Once again, here we are as Atlanta sports fans, cheering for a team on the verge of taking that next step, but because ownerships are pinching their wallets we start making excuses for them, throwing away any ambitions of a championship and sulk back into "reality" as we try to make sense and understand why we dont deserve to have a championship-caliber team. We cant even agree that we we need to spend money on a backup PF. now we are saying that its a better decision to go into the season with the same depth at PF/C and hope for different results. Guess what though, thats not reality people, thats called insanity.

Boston had declining attendance and a horrible record, but in one summer they changed that beacuse they dedicated themselves to building(or buying) a championship team.

I dont know about yal but I eventually would like to see our team win a championship, not just make a good showing in the playoffs. Ive watched thru all the struggles and im happy that we are past that now, but its only a matter of time before this roster will regress and we will be back at square one. And we will start these discussions all over again. Thats why when you build a team up, you jump at the oppurtunity to make that ONE or two moves that pushes them over the edge, not sit back and feed fans the same ish and say "they should be satisfied for a while with that". Im not saying Joe Smith is that move, but its the same mindest of balking at spending money on a big that will prevent ownership from spending on the piece we need to win a title.

Edited July 28, 2009 by RedDawg#8

[DrReality]

To this point the talent on our bench has limited how many minutes Woody gave guys. It remains to be seen what he would/will do if he has a lot deeper bench. We all hope that he will divy up the minutes. But in todays market you get what you pay for and we need a vet to play key minutes, not to mention when guys get hurt.