I miss Ferry

[ATLSmith]

I've exhumed the remains of this dead horse to beat it some more. My apologies to Squawk members, the horse, and its kin.

I just really miss Ferry. Just about every move he made was a good one. I know I'm living in the past but I would have loved to have seen what he would have done this past off season. He was the best GM this organization has had in a long time.

If there's any way the Hawks can bring him back in some capacity then they should.

[Gray Mule]

Racism.  It's alive and well.  Some things can be forgiven.  Deliberately injuring an opponent.  You must

prove it was deliberate and you can't so therefore it's forgiven.  But, say the wrong thing, use the

forbidden word or words and you are banned for life.

Do you really believe that, Gray Mule?  Since it happened to Ferry, what else can I believe?  Yet, players

are injured, out for weeks and the same players involved when the injuries have occurred, That's OK.

Was Ferry wrong?  Oh, yes.  No doubt about it.  Can he be forgiven?  Not by some.  Too bad.

[LamarHampton]

In a heartbeat, yes. Won't happen though. would be hilarious however.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Ferry is gone because he was a pompous a-hole.  If the dude was likable, he'd still be enployed.  The comment about Deng just solidified what his personna was.  Not racist.  Just an ass.

Edited November 23, 2015 by TheNorthCydeRises

[ATLSmith]

11 hours ago, LamarHampton said:

In a heartbeat, yes. Won't happen though. would be hilarious however.

Yea, I know it won't happen.  Still makes me angry.

[JETSET]

12 hours ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

Ferry is gone because he was a pompous a-hole.  If the dude was likable, he'd still be enployed.  The comment about Deng just solidified what his personna was.  Not racist.  Just an ass.

From off-season articles, it sounds like Ferry is gone because Bud made a power move for full control.  That move for full control will likely be our undoing if Bud continues to struggle in his role as GM. 

Where are all the folks who thought Bud was invincible and Ferry was dispensable?

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, JETSET said:

From off-season articles, it sounds like Ferry is gone because Bud made a power move for full control.  That move for full control will likely be our undoing if Bud continues to struggle in his role as GM. 

Where are all the folks who thought Bud was invincible and Ferry was dispensable?

Bud is not the GM.   He is coach and President of Basketball Operations.  I don't know how that ovrelaps but just saying.

 

General Manager	Wes Wilcox
Assistant General Manager	Michael Blackstone Rick Sund Juan Jackson

 

 

We have THREE Assistant General Managers???

[Lurker]

It sounded like to me in the offseason that Ferry is gone because Dominique Wilkins forced him out.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Lurker said:

It sounded like to me in the offseason that Ferry is gone because Dominique Wilkins forced him out.

Dominique???  That is laughable.  His role I think is even more diminished now.

[Guest]

Wait, was this team not put together by Ferry other than 1 or 2 pieces?

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, kg01 said:

Wait, was this team not put together by Ferry other than 1 or 2 pieces?

[Guest]

Just now, JayBirdHawk said:

It means all the lamentations of the women for Ferry's return need to stop.

 

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, kg01 said:

It means all the lamentations of the women for Ferry's return need to stop.

 

Agreed, the Hawks just need to Crush their enemies.

[JETSET]

41 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Bud is not the GM.   He is coach and President of Basketball Operations.  I don't know how that ovrelaps but just saying.

 

General Manager	Wes Wilcox
Assistant General Manager	Michael Blackstone Rick Sund Juan Jackson

 

 

We have THREE Assistant General Managers???

It seems obvious that Bud has autonomy under the new setup and there are no longer any checks and balances like there were with Ferry.  Why would Bud throw Ferry under the bus if he was still going to have to answer to a GM?  

Do you really think Wilcox has the power to overrule Bud?  I would guess that it's far more likely that Wilcox is a yes man to Bud.

[AHF]

2 hours ago, JETSET said:

It seems obvious that Bud has autonomy under the new setup and there are no longer any checks and balances like there were with Ferry.  Why would Bud throw Ferry under the bus if he was still going to have to answer to a GM?  

Do you really think Wilcox has the power to overrule Bud?  I would guess that it's far more likely that Wilcox is a yes man to Bud.

It isn't clear that Bud was making a power play there.  Remember, Ferry had been out for a year and  his return presented the risk that the focus would shift from all the positives of the Hawks to all the negatives of the Ferry/Levenson scandal.  Would Gearon have avoided leaking things constantly to the press to embarrass the team?  Does a pig fly?

That doesn't preclude Bud from making a power play to push Ferry aside and seize control of the team but it also leaves the door wide open that he just didn't want to deal with all the crap that would have come from Gearon's actions, community protests, and constant questions from the press about whether players would view the team as racist, etc.

Absent a tell-all from an insider, I don't think we can do anything but speculate on this. 

[JETSET]

Just now, AHF said:

It isn't clear that Bud was making a power play there.  Remember, Ferry had been out for a year and  his return presented the risk that the focus would shift from all the positives of the Hawks to all the negatives of the Ferry/Levenson scandal.  Would Gearon have avoided leaking things constantly to the press to embarrass the team?  Does a pig fly?

That doesn't preclude Bud from making a power play to push Ferry aside and seize control of the team but it also leaves the door wide open that he just didn't want to deal with all the crap that would have come from Gearon's actions, community protests, and constant questions from the press about whether players would view the team as racist, etc.

Absent a tell-all from an insider, I don't think we can do anything but speculate on this. 

In your opinion, is Wilcox Bud's equal when it comes to making personnel moves?  Do you believe that Wilcox is the GM in the same sense that Ferry was the GM?

[AHF]

11 minutes ago, JETSET said:

In your opinion, is Wilcox Bud's equal when it comes to making personnel moves?  Do you believe that Wilcox is the GM in the same sense that Ferry was the GM?

I have no doubt that Ferry had more control and power in the organization before he went on his year long learning tour than Wilcox does today.  I just don't know if the change is so much that Bud seized power from Ferry or that our new owners decided that Ferry would not return and from that point elected to give more authority to Bud in light of his performance.  In one case, Bud sees an opening to grab power and pushes Ferry aside to do it.  In the other, Ferry is already out of the building and getting hammered by Gearon and Co. and Bud just doesn't want the drama that comes with Ferry returning and Gearon and co shouting "over my dead body!"  At the end of the day, the call was made the new owners.  Ferry was kept out in limbo until the deal was struck and part of the deal was that Ferry would be severed before the sale was completed.  That led to the buyout and everything that came with it.

[Guest]

If things are being built via the 'Spursinsien' way then it's a collaborative effort.

Q:The organization just announced the changes to the basketball-operations department. Can you shed any light on how you structured it or why you structured it the way? What do you want to get out of it that you weren’t getting before?

A: We feel great about the group that we’ve added. It’s like we always said, everything is done in a collaborative way, a collaborative fashion. To bring in guys with different skills and different backgrounds and different perspectives, and all of them incredibly intelligent and all good people. They understand the kind of players we want to have and the kind of people we want to have in the organization and the culture we are building. I think it was a really, really good summer. Going forward, we are better staffed, better prepared, to operate in a more efficient, more eyes on people, more good people with good ideas. The more of that you have, the better chance you have of making good decisions on players, on all the different things that happen during the season or even during a day.

Q:Is that something where you sat down and said “I need someone to do this. I need someone to do that.”

A: A little bit. It starts with (general manager) Wes (Wilcox). Wes has been incredible. His abilities make it all work and make it happen. Together he and I have tried to figure out what we need as a staff, what roles need to be filled and what those people will do. Both of us together put a lot of time and thought into it, especially Wes, it’s something on the management side, the day-to-day operations side, of we need scouts in this area and we need scouts doing this and we need a manager of basketball operations. I think I have a big-picture idea and vision of the directions we want to go, and Wes is responsible for a lot of the day-to-day and carrying out our shared vision.

[JETSET]

25 minutes ago, hawksfanatic said:

That was Brian Windhorst's jaded view of things. But Kevin Arnovitz was very academic and well thought-out in insulting Windhorst without actually insulting him on a Lowe Post podcast.

It really doesn't make sense to believe that Bud attempted to make a power move, especially when Bud went on the record multiple times after February and during his COY ceremony that the team was built by Ferry. Windhorst just wants there to be turmoil to either get more clicks, he has some strange angle with Ferry (he was a Cavs beat writer when Ferry was GM), or Windhorst isn't very bright and/or great at relaying messages. I think it's a mixture of all those things.

Thanks for the link, I haven't heard this before.  Arnowitz's theory led me to re-reading some of the Windhorst story.  One thing I missed in the original story is Bud thinking the right move was for Ferry to resign when this first happened.  After my initial read, I thought the convo with Bud and Ferry happened late in the year after the Hawks found success.  I agree with everything in your 2nd paragraph now.  While I desperately hope to be wrong, I still think Ferry's firing will prove to be a huge mistake for the future of this team.

 

[bleachkit]

Look at some of Ferry's moves. They were actually quite brilliant. Do you really think Bud would have pulled off the Joe Johnson trade? Please, Bud is out of his league, and he does not deserve to be GM.  Bud exploited an over blown controversy (it was only a controversy because it was coming off the heals of the Donald Sterling fiasco) to take control from Ferry, when really he should have been going to bat for Ferry. There is only one pompous ass here, and it's not Ferry.