How the Atlanta Hawks Regime Fell Apart (ESPN) Great Read!

[Guest]

I always thought Blaze was the 'cut' man.

I commented last season how he had trimmed down. I guess Bud thought it wasn't enough.

When your fat, your fat...lol...he can trim a inch here and an inch there but his methods were old and weren't cuttin it. On the bright side, now he has more time for the treadmill.

[Guest]

I must say this - how in the hell did we manage to get to the playoffs year after year with such dysfunction is beyond me.

 

This is for the players that balled though it all....

[Guest]

When your fat, your fat...lol...he can trim a inch here and an inch there but his methods were old and weren't cuttin it. On the bright side, now he has more time for the treadmill.

I was trying to be diplomatic by not saying the 'F' word.

[Guest]

What upgrade? Wally Blase is one of the most highly respected trainers in the NBA. Sounds like Ferry wanted to stick it to Gearon and wanted to fire the trainers just to prove a point.

Most highly respected trainers according to Fatty McButterpants daily? Wally could barely put a bandaid on a boo boo. Smh...This is the pros, you need to be up to date. I respect old school as much as anyone but we needed to move forward and getting Golden State's trainers was the right move.

[Guest]

Interesting that Bud wasn't interested in Deng but Ferry was.

[Guest]

Most highly respected trainers according to Fatty McButterpants daily? Wally could barely put a bandaid on a boo boo. Smh...This is the pros, you need to be up to date. I respect old school as much as anyone but we needed to move forward and getting Golden State's trainers was the right move.

 

Now I wanna hear more headlines from 'Fatty McButterpants Daily'.  Sounds like a fantastic publication.

[Guest]

Now I wanna hear more headlines from 'Fatty McButterpants Daily'. Sounds like a fantastic publication.

LOL...it's not bad. This month's cover features Kevin James and Oprah.

In all seriousness I'm in no way a fat hater, please don't label me.

[Guest]

LOL...it's not bad. This month's cover features Kevin James and Oprah.

In all seriousness I'm in no way a fat hater, please don't label me.

 

Too late.  You are now 'that guy'.

[Guest]

Too late. You are now 'that guy'.

D!ck!!! Lol

[AHF]

The one thing I see really absent from the article is Gearon's deliberate leaking of material to the media to blow this out into the biggest scandal possible.  The article mentions the worst excepts from the BOD meeting being leaked to the AJC but fails to mention that it was Gearon who did it or that he followed it up with a series of leaks to the media designed to inflame and prolong the bad press for the Hawks.  I think the article made it pretty clear that Gearon was motivated by self-interest and personal dislike of Ferry and Levenson but the fact that he was eager to throw the team under the bus to make it happen was only partially presented.

[Sothron]

Then why did Bud fire Blase as soon as he took over?

 

To stick it to Gearon. I'm not going to dig them up but there have been articles about how regarded Wally Blase is around the league. Frankly speaking my old contacts within the team and the arena told me nothing but good things about him when I asked.

[Guest]

To stick it to Gearon. I'm not going to dig them up but there have been articles about how regarded Wally Blase is around the league. Frankly speaking my old contacts within the team and the arena told me nothing but good things about him when I asked.

 

But none of that tells us if he was/wasn't good at his job.  I've known plenty of dudes who were great people-persons (if that's a word), but awful at their actual job.

 

In some cases, "highly regarded" simply means that he was a good dude.  That's fine but not necessarily indicative of how good a job he does.

[JETSET]

To stick it to Gearon. I'm not going to dig them up but there have been articles about how regarded Wally Blase is around the league. Frankly speaking my old contacts within the team and the arena told me nothing but good things about him when I asked.

So you expect me to believe that Budenholzer and Ferry both wanted to sabotage the health of their team solely to stick it to Gearon?  Fat chance.

 

It's clear that Gearon was the actual saboteur while Ferry was busy turning a worthless franchise in to a contender that ran smoothly from top to bottom.  Ferry brought us Bud, Koonin and analytics along with many other things while Gearon has brought nothing but negativity.

Edited October 6, 2015 by JETSET

[Guest]

I'm just mad soth has me arguing on Ferry's side for once.  I'm shaking my fist so hard at you right now.

[Guest]

To stick it to Gearon. I'm not going to dig them up but there have been articles about how regarded Wally Blase is around the league. Frankly speaking my old contacts within the team and the arena told me nothing but good things about him when I asked.

I don't buy that. I think it was about advances in technology etc and Blaze might have been behind the times probably because Gearon was so keen to keep costs down.

[Sothron]

But none of that tells us if he was/wasn't good at his job.  I've known plenty of dudes who were great people-persons (if that's a word), but awful at their actual job.

 

In some cases, "highly regarded" simply means that he was a good dude.  That's fine but not necessarily indicative of how good a job he does.

 

This was not in regards to him as a person but him as a trainer. I specifically asked people what about the structure in our basketball operations are strong and literally the first or second thing mentioned every time was Wally Blase and the training staff.

 

I don't know if Wally Blase was unwilling to do this latest trend in biometrics or not but I've never heard of anyone saying that our former trainers were not good at what they did.

[Guest]

D!ck!!! Lol

 

If you laugh at this, it's proof that you're a fat hater.

 

[JETSET]

My gut tells me that Arnovitz is too respected as a journalist to out another journalist/writer for the leak...or that Kevin couldn't get any strong confirmation that Gearon leaked it so he wouldn't publish something without confirmation no matter how freaking obvious it was.

But yeah, Gearon just blew away even my expectations with how shitty of a person he is. The whole:

 

Quote

 

was a MAJOR surprise to me. That makes Gearon's move a bigger cash-grab than I initially thought. The Sterling stuff came out within the next two weeks (I see the TMZ video was dated April 25th, 2014 although the url appears to indicated it was the 26th). Gearon sold, realized he made a bad deal, then weaseled around to get out of the sale in the most repulsive way possible.

What a prick.

Just want to make sure every one reads.

Edited October 6, 2015 by JETSET

[Guest]

This was not in regards to him as a person but him as a trainer. I specifically asked people what about the structure in our basketball operations are strong and literally the first or second thing mentioned every time was Wally Blase and the training staff.

 

I don't know if Wally Blase was unwilling to do this latest trend in biometrics or not but I've never heard of anyone saying that our former trainers were not good at what they did.

 

I could see it being about a personal beef if it was just Ferry wanting him gone.  He just seems like that kinda guy.  But with Budz doubling down on it, that's what gives me pause.  That would just be too petty a reach to fire the trainers as some petty revenge move.

 

Being he was here for so long, I'm more apt to buy the notion that he wasn't willing or able to update his methods to what they wanted.

[lethalweapon3]

The one thing I see really absent from the article is Gearon's deliberate leaking of material to the media to blow this out into the biggest scandal possible.  The article mentions the worst excepts from the BOD meeting being leaked to the AJC but fails to mention that it was Gearon who did it or that he followed it up with a series of leaks to the media designed to inflame and prolong the bad press for the Hawks.  I think the article made it pretty clear that Gearon was motivated by self-interest and personal dislike of Ferry and Levenson but the fact that he was eager to throw the team under the bus to make it happen was only partially presented.

 

Not to let Junior off the hook here, but I wonder whether it was one of the Atlanta Faction (Ruthie, perhaps? Or Beau? Foreman?) that was doing the media leaking back then, either upon Junior's request or, just based on allegiance, on Junior's behalf. My quick-read of the article suggests it was one of those folks who has been talking to the ESPN writers.

 

~lw3