The one thing the new owners must do...

[KB21]

.......EXPAND THE SCOUTING DEPARTMENT......!!!!!!!

That is the key in building a successful franchise. You have to be able to scout talent. You can't rely on just one person to scout and evaluate players.

With international scouting getting bigger and bigger, the Hawks need to have 1 or 2 FULL TIME international scouts. We need enough scouts that we can have them scouting a certain area of the country and only that area full time. One scout could scout the Northeast teams. One the Southeast Teams. One the Midwest teams. One the Southwest Teams. One the West Teams.

This business where they have been trying to scout talent with one of the smallest scouting departments in the NBA is for the birds. It is time to rectify this.

I'm very confident in Billy Knight's ability to scout talent. Let's get him some legitimate help!!

[Inside_Man]

that's exactly how the Braves found Andruw Jones. They didn't rely on the scouting services, but rather extended their search further than other teams.

[Gray Mule]

I agree 100 % !!!!! I have been saying this all the time.

Teams think nothing of spending millions in salary, fighting

to keep the spending under the salary cap.

Spend some money to expand the scouting department.

Full time scouts. Part time scouts. Make it a priority

to make this part of the orginization top notch!!

[hawkster411]

Bump!

[hawkszone]

like every other team in the league does. I am sick of signing CBA players over and over. Not to mention playing with 10 or so guys healthy.

No doubt about it (as Lenny would say) on the scouting situation !!!!!!

The scouting department is way too small and it showed the way the Hawks drafted. I swear the Hawks asked future employees whether they wanted to answer the phone in the office or do a little scouting.

Good call.

http://www.hawkszone.net

[Dejay]

I posted something to this effect earlier when McDavid and Co. was in the initial stages of buying the team, so I'm gladly someone else picked up on it also. The state of the scouting department has to be addressed immediately after league approval. There's a reason why Jason Terry is the only Hawks' draft pick since the advent of the lottery in 1985 to have a double-digit scoring average for his career. Couple that along with management's notorious track record of not being able to attract/retain free agents that other teams actually want (and no, Ennis Whatley, Matt Bullard, and Snoop Graham doesn't count) have forced them to rely totally on good trades to field a decent team with no depth because their draftees just weren't any good. As we all know, all it took was one really bad trade (Smith/Gray for Rider/Jackson) to throw this franchise into a complete tailspin, which probably would've been avoided had the scouting department pinpointed some guys that could actually play instead of continually bringing in the Adam Keefes and Ed Grays of the world. It has to be priority one.

[Boondocks]

True, extensive scouting is what got the Mavericks where they are now, and the Pistons actually bought away their most famous scout (Tony Ronzone who is helping Chad Ford out when he goes overseas).