Is this HatetheHawks.net? C'mon people

[Hawksman]

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Hawks suck. Hawks suck. That's what I hear all the friggin time, but you know what, I think that's [censored]. This team has the talent to be effective. With Dog gone, we should jell a lot better. We are going to resign JT and likely Glover too, along with that, we are looking to bring back Smitty, and we are looking at others like Voshon Lenard, Kenny Anderson, and some other good vets. Did I even mention that Nazr Mohammed is back and 100%? That will add another 10 and 7 off the bench. We have a very good coach, and a respectful GM. Stotts has gotten 45-50 calls from former coaches or players to join the bench as assistants. Wake up people! We are Hawks fans, not Hawks haters. I might get suspended from the site for saying [censored], but I don't care. Stand up Atlanta. Come the games and support your team. No matter how bad it is and it aint bad to me right now. C'mon guys. GO HAWKS!!!!

[Guest]

Why don't the Hawks support fans? They don't care about

putting the best product on the floor that they possible

can... So why does a team that cares nothing about winning

deserve support?

[Hawksman]

Of course. AOL Time Warner didn't care at all about the team. Once McDavid is here, fans will come. They will come Ray, they will most defenitley come.

[KB21]

Yeah. This team doesn't listen to the fans. Just look at what happened in 1998. The Hawks fans were screaming for a change, and what happened? Wait a minute. They made a change.

The Hawks could have stood pat and kept that team that was caught in the trap of being good with no potential to be great. They could have continued on winning their 45-50 games with Mookie, Smith, Henderson, and Mutombo as the main cogs.

They didn't though. They took a chance and blew it up. In retrospect, it was something they should have gradually done. But they did it all at once, non-the-less. And here we are again, with you people wanting to blow the team up again, all at once. Not a stinking one of you learned anything from the last time!!

This team made a jump of +10 games upon the aquisition of Shareef Abdur-Rahim two years ago. They went from winning 23 games in 2000-01 to winning 33 games in 2001-02. They TRIED to get even better by adding another proven scorer to the line up, but that move failed.

This is a team that won 33 games two years ago when all they had was Shareef and Jason. And I'm supposed believe that this team is going to take a nose dive from that season just because Glenn Robinson was dealt and a rookie will take his place?

The only thing blowing this team up again will accomplish will be putting the fans through 4-5 more years of losing.

[Traceman]

more disruptive than anyone could have imagined. Couple that with the fact that Lenny had no desire to play or develop the young guys and you had a recipe for disaster. I still think the Mookie for Bimbo/#10 trade was a terrific trade. The Smitty for Rider/JJ trade was an unmitigated disaster but hindsight is 20/20.

As for the jump from 00/01 to 01/02, please! We HAD to be better! We couldn't possibly have put a worse team on the floor than the team we played with that year. Deke was BY FAR our best player and he was hurt to start the season. It's a miracle that team won 25 games (not 23).

As for blowing up this team, it can be done now or it can be done in 05/06 but it WILL be done. If Reef, Theo and JT are all on this roster to start the 05/06 season I will be SHOCKED.

[Kaviar]

Correction.... they did not blow it up enough. They mortgaged most of their draft picks over the last four years on mediocre talent, instead of building from scratch. Kasten/Babcock thought they were on to something. If they would have kept all those picks Hawks fans would have something to get excited about this season, and maybe would have already made the playoffs.

[KB21]

The decision to make mass changes all at once was what did the Hawks in.

They could have made the Mookie for JT trade, but they should have waited to deal Smith. The fact remains that you can't combine that many pieces at once and expect them all to gell together. Especially when you introduce a known volatile substance like JR Rider to the mixture. Robinson wasn't quite as volatile, but adding him to last year's team had a similar effect. It made the mixture bad.

I'm willing to bet that both JT and SAR will be on this team in 05-06. I don't think Theo will in the long run. When his contract comes up, he will be 33. Atlanta won't sign him to a long term deal at 33. I'm not adverse to trading him. My only stance is that Atlanta get a capable center in return. Centers are too hard to find to deal one for just anything.

SAR may not be worth the money he is making, but there aren't very many players that are worth the money they are making. If Kenny Thomas is worth $50 million over 7 years, then Shareef is [censored] sure worth what he's getting. Kenyon Martin isn't the scorer nor the rebounder Reef is, but he's asking for a max contract? Sorry. Reef may not be in the upper echelon with McGrady, Bryant, and Iverson, but he isn't that far off it. I'd still put him in the echelon that is right below that one.

[KB21]

You haven't quite figured out that youth doesn't win in this league, no matter how much potential they have. Experience wins in this league, and the more players you have that know how to win, the better off you are.

That's why the Hawks are looking into signing Stephen Jackson. That's why the Hawks want to bring back Steve Smith. These are players who know how to win. These are players that can come in and serve a veteran leadership role because they have been to the playoffs and won in the playoffs.

[Diesel]

When the Hawks Blew up the team in 1999.... It was a BAD move. It was done without really thinking.

The Hawks had:

4 1st round picks, a 4.5 Million dollar exemption and a 1 Million Dollar Exemption.

Instead of building on that strength and reloading, the Hawks traded... They traded away their BACKCOURT for characters who couldn't understand TEAM.

Bad Move.

[Guest]

Mookie the brick layer sure as heck wasn't a team

player. That team deserved to be broken up. Do you

not remember how terrible they looked in the playoffs?

The only thing they did in the playoffs was beat a few

untalented Detroit teams.

Steve Smith know how to win? Win what? It isn't like

he contributed to the Spurs championship. All he done

was rode the bench and took the ring.

[Diesel]

The problem with that season was that it was a short season. Teams coming out of the lockout and players coming back not in basketball shape. ON top of that, those players who were not in basketball shape were expected to play 4 or 5 games a week. That leads to injury.

That's what happened with us.

Hendu had his eye injury.

Mookie had nagging injuries.

Smitty's knees were injured.

Then even Grant Long got injured.

However, NY was in good shape. Their only injured piece was Pat Ewing.

Everybody forgets that they went to the NBA finals that year.

Everybody forgets that we beat Detroit that year.

Yes, we had a bad series against the Eastern Conference Finalist. So did Indy... But did they rebuild?

The problem..

I could have accepted the Mookie trade. In fact, I had. But it made NO Sense to trade Smitty. With JT coming in, he was going to need vet Leadership and on Floor guidance. He certainly didn't get it from JR. IN fact, JR taught JT to give up the ball and go and set up for your shot.

With 4 1st rounders we could have come up with a better plan than we used.

[Kaviar]

Well, if they had kept their picks what would the team look like now?

Quentin Richardson

Gasol or Curry

Stoudemire or Butler

TJ Ford or ?

Subtract Rahim and Robinson and add Terry, Ratliff & Mohammed (or Mutombo's expired contract), Digaw,

Glover (?), Johnson (?), etc....

That would be a team ready to contribute now and have the city and the NBA talking. That would be a team with a future instead of a team that will have to be dismantled again because of short cuts taken with the franchise.

[Guest]

Smitty had to be traded... Face it, he wasn't that good

anymore. His FG% had alreadyed droped down to 40%

and he had his knee drained several times if I remember

correctly. He has done...He didn't look as bad with the

Blazers because of the overall talent and he really didn't

have to be a main scorer most nights.

Who cares if we beat Detroit in the playoffs those years?

All they had ws Hill and a old Joe Dumars. They had sorry

Brian Williams starting at center and Lindsey Hunter.

Mookies last couple of years were a pure joke here. What

was his fg% percentages again? How many shots did he

actually make? It seemed like about 20% of them.

[Guest]

I remember when we nearly had Chicago on the ropes

a few seasons earlier...I think we barely lost the first

game in the last minute and won game 2 by like 10...

I remember the turning in my stomach when MJ would

hit unstoppable mode. I did go over that series realizing

Chicago was simply better.

However, I was a rah rah rah fan like Mike until that

butchering with NY. I hated basketball that whole

summer.... I thought I'd never watch another game.

I don't think I've truely forgiven this franchise since

that playoff series.

[Diesel]

http://www.nba.com/playerfile/steve_smith/...ayer_files.html

Year TEAM G GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% OFF DEF RPG APG SPG BPG TO PF PPG

99-00 POR 82 81 32.8 .467 .398 .850 1.50 2.30 3.80 2.5 .87 .38 1.43 2.60 14.9

00-01 POR 81 36 31.4 .456 .339 .890 1.10 2.30 3.40 2.6 .59 .30 1.69 2.50 13.6

01-02 SAS 77 76 28.7 .455 .472 .878 .60 1.90 2.50 2.0 .70 .19 1.40 2.10 11.6

02-03 SAS 53 18 19.5 .388 .331 .833 .40 1.50 1.90 1.3 .53 .17 .81 1.50 6.8

Since Leaving us...

His FG% went up significantly, his three point shooting went up Significantly. Although age and other things brought his numbers down, the thing is he was still able to produce. He's been to 4 playoffs since he left. IN year one, away from us, he and Pippen dominated Kobe in the LAL/PorT series. This past year was his worst year, but the man has gotten old. I think keeping him would have been a whole lot better than going through what we went through with JR/JJ.

[Guest]

His FG% went up and everything else went down

because of less pressure to produce. It's that simple.

Look at the teams he's been with since leaving Atlanta..

OF course he made the playoffs! He ever got a ring for

being a bench cheerleader.

[Diesel]

I wont disagree about the ring.

However, let's talk about less pressure.

ON the squad that Smitty played on for us.

It was Mookie, Smitty, Corbin, Hendu, Deke.

In that Lineup, Smitty had to be a goto guy.

However, just 2 short years later, it could have been:

JT/Smitty/CC/Lo/Deke

JT/Smitty/Glover/Lo/Nazr.

JT/Smitty/Toni/Reef/Nazr.

JT/Smitty/Grob/Reef/Theo.

Honestly, I think our fortunes would have been a lot better had we kept Smitty.

[Guest]

I do know this....after the playoff failures I was glad to

see everyone on that team go.... They are the example

of what this franchise has been for far too long...

[Traceman]

will make this year even if he is overpaid. Thomsas will make about $5.5 million this season compared to Reef's 13.5 million. Is Reef worth $8 million/season more than Thomas? Next year, Reef will make $14.6 million to Thomas' $6.2 million. As you can see, the size difference in their salaries increases every year. Thomas is a 14/8 guy and Reef is a 20/8 guy. Neither has prototypical size for the PF position and both can be taken advantage of by bigger PFs in the low post. I guess the question is whether you would rather have Reef or Kenny Thomas and player like Gilbert Arenas.

As for Reef versus K-Mart, K-Mart may be ASKING for a max contract but Reef HAS a max contract. Reef is CLEARLY the better offensive player but because K-Mart is so much better on D, I think they both have about the same value.

[Diesel]

There is a good way to reload a team... and it doesn't always have to be with a wrecking ball the way that Babcock did..

Have you ever noticed that the good teams never rebuild?

Lakers... Name a rebuilding Moment for them?

NJ...Since Thorn has been there, they have been a team of trade but not ReBUILD.

SacTown... No rebuild in sight. They reload very smoothly. See how they replaced Clark with Miller this year.

Dallas.... They have been to the playoffs for the last 4 years with meager results... But do they blow up the team... NO.

Point is, I think we would have done a lot better by trading Mookie for JT, but having Smitty here to guide him and help him develop. We basically sent JT to the Wolves and it retarded his development.