Macon Telegraph Column on the Hawks

[TheBillShanksShow]

Here is a column I wrote on the Hawks:http://www.macon.com/2012/05/12/2023472/hawks-make-us-not-want-to-care.html

[Sothron]

I can't really find anything to disagree with in that column. This franchise is dead in the water as I have said for years as long as the A$G owns it. They proved last summer they can't even find a new buyer that actually has enough cash on hand to even buy the arena and team away from them.

[AHF]

Good article. Hard to argue with much of anything there. This is why selling the team to a good owner is the only "move the needle" thing that is reasonably likely to happen to this franchise in the foreseeable future.As a matter of semantics, the Hawks didn't fire Woodson. Actually it is more than semantics because firing him would require them to pay the rest of his contract and the ASG won't do that. If they let Drew walk, it will be the same thing.

[tonegully]

you know we in a recession if we cant find someone to buy the Hawks. They cant be worth that much lol

[Vol4ever]

Very Good article Bill, sad but the truth.

[NekiEcko]

Very good article, it tells the sad and painful truth about the Hawks. As long we got this ownership, this team will never go far. They are getting up there with the Falcons of years and years of Rankin Smith. I wish we can do something as fans to get this team sold.

[KB21]

The interesting dichotomy that exists with the ASG is that this is an ownership group that struggles to mobilize the funds needed to operate this team, yet they want to give the impression that they are willing spenders. Hence, you get the Joe Johnson contract. They don't seem to have a good feel on how to operate the team within the constraints of their budget. When this happens, you make poor financial decisions that have lasting effects.

[OldTimeHawk]

I didnt think Gearon inspired KG to do anything extraordinary, I think he knew ( as we all did ) once the Celtics got back to the Garden they would be able to clutch, grab, and get away with physical play and the Hawks would get called on ticky tack stuff and limit what they would be able to do. A Great coach would have called out the refs after game one and went ahead and got fined and also probably got a tech or 2 called - but it might have made a difference , especially in the ending sequence of game 6 where the refs jobbed the Hawks . A great coach would have played Ivan Johnson and let him bang on KG and possibly get him off his game some. Instead the Hawks suffered from the starting 5 absorbing fouls and it limited how aggressive they could be. I dont know where this franchise goes from here, but the fans are going to get tired of this same old crap, and fan apathy will spell the end of the Hawks in Atlanta.

[Admin]

I didnt think Gearon inspired KG to do anything extraordinary, I think he knew ( as we all did ) once the Celtics got back to the Garden they would be able to clutch, grab, and get away with physical play and the Hawks would get called on ticky tack stuff and limit what they would be able to do. A Great coach would have called out the refs after game one and went ahead and got fined and also probably got a tech or 2 called - but it might have made a difference , especially in the ending sequence of game 6 where the refs jobbed the Hawks .A great coach would have played Ivan Johnson and let him bang on KG and possibly get him off his game some. Instead the Hawks suffered from the starting 5 absorbing fouls and it limited how aggressive they could be.I dont know where this franchise goes from here, but the fans are going to get tired of this same old crap, and fan apathy will spell the end of the Hawks in Atlanta.

I agree with most of what Bill Shanks had to say in his article, although I have to side with you on the Gearon / KG bit as I've never believed in bulletin board material and great players always say that they don't need anything to get them motivated and like it or not KG is a great player. I believe like you that he got the benefit of the garden and the officials and that's why he had such a good game, although it's not like it was far and away his best game of the series or anything.I don't necessarily agree or disagree about the Ivan Johnson thing. Yes I think he should have gotten more playing time but I can understand the apprehension of playing a guy who was struggling to finish inside or to hit his outside shots and looked like he was nervous while shooting about 30% and fouling every 4 minutes.

[AHF]

I've never believed in bulletin board material and great players always say that they don't need anything to get them motivated

Michael Jordan = opposite of this.

Many great players step up when they feel slighted and look for slights to seize on and motivate them.

Here is an excerpt from the article on his retirement speech talking about real and imagined slights Jordan used to motivate himself:

You don't get his triumphing again and again without his using every sleight -- real or perceived -- to motivate himself.

Deep inside Jordan is "an assassin," as former Chicago Bulls assistant coach John Bach once described him. And so when it was his turn to take the stage in Springfield, Mass., the final act after we heard from a gracious David Robinson, a surprisingly funny John Stockton, a thoughtful C. Vivian Stringer, and an uncomfortable-at-the-thought-of-speaking-about-himself Jerry Sloan, Jordan aimed his sight and gave thanks and payback to every foe and ally who provided him with incentive.

He got the high school coach who cut him and the guy who beat him out for the final spot on the team. He got his beloved North Carolina coach, Dean Smith, for keeping him off the Sports Illustrated cover that went to the upperclassmen instead. He got Pat Riley and Riley's "little" protege, Jeff Van Gundy, for all of their gamesmanship during the Bulls-Knicks rivalry in the '90s. He got his old Chicago general manager/foil Jerry Krause, delivering the final refutation on Krause's ill-advised "organizations win championships" remark. He got every media member who doubted Jordan's ability to win an NBA championship. And he went on an extended riff on Bryon Russell, the man forever frozen in the highlight of Jordan's final shot in a Bulls uniform.

Jordan said that came from Russell's expressing a desire for Jordan to come back from his first retirement so he could guard him. He asked Stockton if he remembered that conversation, prompting the second-greatest reaction shot of the weekend. (The first was Beyonce's how-did-I-get-dragged-into-this? expression following Kanye's mike-grab from Taylor Swift.) Stockton looked as if he had no recollection of that discussion at all, and I wouldn't be surprised if it never actually happened.

Jordan has made stuff up before, most notably when he claimed Bullets rookie LaBradford Smith said, "Nice game, Mike," after lighting up His Airness for 37 points. Jordan returned fire with 36 points in the first half against Smith the next time they played. Years later, he confessed Smith never said anything to him.

When the Bulls played the Cavaliers in the 1993 playoffs and Cleveland guard Gerald Wilkins was asked about his ability to guard Jordan, Wilkins always pointed out that nobody could shut Jordan down, but he had been somewhat effective against him. Jordan scored 43 points in the first game of the series, and afterward said with a smirk, "I guess the 'Jordan-stopper' had a pretty tough night." No one else heard Wilkins call himself a Jordan-stopper. But Jordan did, in his own mind, which shows you just how differently things worked in there.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/halloffame09/columns/story?columnist=adande_ja&page=JordanSpeech-090914

[Admin]

That's MJ though and he's a different breed. I don't have time to go looking for quotes but I've heard countless stars say they don't need outside motivation to get up and I've heard analysts say that players who do are in trouble.

[Gray Mule]

Sadly, you've told it just like it is.

The battle cry for the old Brooklin Dodgers was, "Wait until next year."

Finally, they won the World Series.

As Hawk fans, we keep hoping, yet knowing "It ain't happening."

[AHF]

That's MJ though and he's a different breed. I don't have time to go looking for quotes but I've heard countless stars say they don't need outside motivation to get up and I've heard analysts say that players who do are in trouble.

I strongly disagree. How many "nobody respects us" or "it is us against the world" types of lines have you heard from championship teams?

I have heard a ton. That is all a variation on the same motivation theme.

You can find tons of examples of teams feeding off of insults.

For example:

* Urban Meyer's Gators stomped my Georgia Bulldogs the year after the big on-field celebration and called two late timeouts to rub it in despite being up 39 points.

2008 Florida 49 Georgia 10 “Revenge”

Head coaches: Florida – Urban Meyer; Georgia – Mark Richt

Notable players: Florida – Tim Tebow, Percy Harvin, Brandon Spikes, Joe Haden; Georgia – Matthew Stafford, Knowshon Moreno, AJ Greene, Mohamed Massaquoi

What happened: Despite downplaying the incident a year earlier, it was obvious to all fans, and later admitted by Urban Meyer, that Georgia’s celebration a year earlier extremely bothered Gator players and coaches. With revenge on their minds, the Gators embarrassed the Bulldogs with the second worst loss ever suffered by Georgia in the series. Meyer called timeouts in the final minutes of the blowout, seemingly to extend the beat-down as long as possible, and to give the fans more time to celebrate the victory.

* KG saying he was motivated by Gearon's comments.

“They are old,” Gearon said at a luncheon. “I know what happens when you play basketball, old guys foul. Garnett is the dirtiest guy in the league.”

So when KG was asked about the 28-point, 14-rebound, five-block tour de force in last evening’s 83-80 Celtics [team stats] elimination of Atlanta, he took a detour.

“First off I want to say thank you to their owner for giving me some extra gas tonight,” Garnett said. “My only advice to him is next time he opens his mouth actually know what he’s talking about — X’s and O’s versus his checkbook and the bottom line.”

Later, KG added, “We’re not dirty. We play aggressive. We’re not dirty. You have to understand the word dirty in this game is very defined — going under guys, trying to hurt guys, ill intent. That’s not the way we play basketball. We play very, very respectable to the opponent, the city we’re in, the game. We play with a lot of passion, play with force. It’s the playoffs. I haven’t been here trying to hurt anybody, nor has my team. I just found that comment to be a little rude and a little out of hand, and I wanted to address it. Just because you’ve got a bunch of money don’t mean you can open your mouth.”

This isn't new for KG. Like many other stars he does this all the time to motivate himself and his team:

Gasol did say Friday that Garnett has “lost some explosiveness,” as if that’s a shock regarding a 34 year old, and that “He’s more of a jump shooter now, you could say, comes off the lane. Before, he had a really, really quick first step and was getting to the lane and he was more aggressive then.” Gasol also added: “Time passes and we all suffer it one way or another, but he’s still a terrific player, a terrific competitor, and he’s going to bring everything he’s got. You can count on that.”

By Saturday, Gasol was angry the story had become entirely “lost some explosiveness” when he clearly also complimented Garnett, calling the focus on the snippet “pretty pathetic.” Gasol naturally blamed the media, because that’s the easy way out, though he did note that – oh, yeah – he said it.

“Sometimes I extend my answers too long,” Gasol said. “Maybe I shouldn’t do that. I should be shorter with my answers and don’t give away just anything so it can’t be manipulated that way and used. But it is what it is. It’s the Finals. It’s going to be a little bit of chaos.”

Or not so little.

The Celtics, controlled in the Game 1 loss, seized on the quote, with coach Doc Rivers responding to a question about Garnett’s knee problem by saying, “Well, that’s what Gasol said, that he can’t do what he used to do. I don’t think Kobe [Bryant] believes that. I don’t think Kevin believes that. He’s not injured, I can tell you that. He just didn’t have a good game. He’s as healthy as he’s been all year. And I think he plans on trying to prove that to a lot of people tomorrow.”

Said Celtics forward Glen Davis, when told by a reporter that Gasol had called Garnett soft, that Garnett had lost a step and that he’s not as aggressive: “Pau Gasol said that? He shouldn’t have said that. Shouldn’t have said that.”

And what impact do you think it will have on KG? the same reporter asked Davis.

“He shouldn’t have said that,” Davis repeated. “We’ll see what happens. I know Kevin. I’ve been around him for almost three years now, and he doesn’t shy away from competition at all. I wish the best for Pau Gasol.”

http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/2010/06/06/motivation-real-or-otherwise/

* Arkansas cited the insult of Les Miles intentionally mispronouncing their team's name as motivation for their upset of #1 ranked LSU in 2007.

Maybe McFadden was running a little angrier than usual after hearing Miles purposely mispronounce Arkansas as ar-KANSAS this week.

"They weren't saying it right so we wanted to let them know how to say it," McFadden said.

Many, many more examples are out there. It is a real factor, IMO.

[OldTimeHawk]

KG's motivation came from the " star factor" , combined with the fact they were playing at home. Heck , they got more respect at Atlanta than the Hawks, but the fact they were playing in Boston was the deciding factor in KG going off- that same performance against Miami gets his @ss fouled out long before the finish -in Boston or Miami.

[ag82]

I'm sure you can also look up hundreds or thousands of instances of someone calling another player/coach out and having them not respond with a great game, including KG.I know Noah has called him dirty, I'm looking for some info on how he responded after that.I really think KG just happened to have a good game against us in game 6. He made some shots.

[OldTimeHawk]

yeah he played great defense too - the bear hug is very effective .