49 years, 0 championships

[macdaddy]

1 hour ago, Sothron said:

But...it wasn't. We got rid of an aging Nique, avoided paying Manning when his knees kept blowing up on him and used the cap space from both of them to get Deke. It is one of the very few times in Hawks history that something actually worked out great for us for a change.

Oh i see.  I thought you liked the intent of the trade.  You were actually happy with the result.   But in hindsight wouldn't it have been better for nique to walk in the summer and see what he could have done with the team in the playoffs?   

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

But in hindsight wouldn't it have been better for nique to walk in the summer and see what he could have done with the team in the playoffs?   

Hell yes...Amen...we had a ticket to face the Rockets in the finals with our only hurdle being the Knicks and a pippen led Bulls team.

[thecampster]

6 hours ago, Sothron said:

But...it wasn't. We got rid of an aging Nique, avoided paying Manning when his knees kept blowing up on him and used the cap space from both of them to get Deke. It is one of the very few times in Hawks history that something actually worked out great for us for a change.

You may find this crazy but I am actually going to disagree with you for once.  You get rid of an aging Korver, an aging Steve Smith, an aging Joe Johnson. All of these were great Hawks but none of these were the brand of the franchise. Wilkins was born a Hawk, he went to College in Athens. He began his career as a Hawk and should have retired having never played for anyone else. 

This is exactly what we are talking about as having no credibility with players in the league. When you trade away Joe Johnson to a good Nets rebuild, players respect and understand that. When you send Korver to Cleveland for a chance at a ring, other players think you are classy. When you do the face of your franchise for 10+ years dirty in his best chance to ever win a ring, players stand up and notice. It is one of the many reasons we couldn't sign a free agent worth dirt for years after.

In his "Aging" year.  Dominique put up 24.4 ppg, 6.8 rpg, 2.3 apg, 1.3 spg.  I dare say if the Hawks had a player putting up those numbers at the small forward position this year we would be in the finals. If the Hawks could sign a player with that stat line to a max contract in this off-season, it would take them 4 seconds to print the contract and find him a gold pen to sign with. For comparison, same position, Paul George's stat line this year was 23.7 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 3.3 apg, 1.6 spg.  And I am betting you would give Paul George the max to sign here and let Paul walk. That stat line by Nique was "bad" by his standards and yet, he was playing the best defense of his career (main reason for the Hawks record...Nique improved defensively). It was a travesty and is indefensible.

Dominique wasn't just any aging player. He was the most iconic member of your franchise ever. Even Pistol Pete spent the last 6 years of his career in other places. What the Hawks did at that time amounted to treason.

You know I love you man and agree with you 90% of the time. But you are wrong on this, there is no excuse for trading the most iconic player in the team's history in the middle of a possible championship run. 

[Sothron]

41 minutes ago, thecampster said:

You may find this crazy but I am actually going to disagree with you for once.  You get rid of an aging Korver, an aging Steve Smith, an aging Joe Johnson. All of these were great Hawks but none of these were the brand of the franchise. Wilkins was born a Hawk, he went to College in Athens. He began his career as a Hawk and should have retired having never played for anyone else. 

This is exactly what we are talking about as having no credibility with players in the league. When you trade away Joe Johnson to a good Nets rebuild, players respect and understand that. When you send Korver to Cleveland for a chance at a ring, other players think you are classy. When you do the face of your franchise for 10+ years dirty in his best chance to ever win a ring, players stand up and notice. It is one of the many reasons we couldn't sign a free agent worth dirt for years after.

In his "Aging" year.  Dominique put up 24.4 ppg, 6.8 rpg, 2.3 apg, 1.3 spg.  I dare say if the Hawks had a player putting up those numbers at the small forward position this year we would be in the finals. If the Hawks could sign a player with that stat line to a max contract in this off-season, it would take them 4 seconds to print the contract and find him a gold pen to sign with. For comparison, same position, Paul George's stat line this year was 23.7 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 3.3 apg, 1.6 spg.  And I am betting you would give Paul George the max to sign here and let Paul walk. That stat line by Nique was "bad" by his standards and yet, he was playing the best defense of his career (main reason for the Hawks record...Nique improved defensively). It was a travesty and is indefensible.

Dominique wasn't just any aging player. He was the most iconic member of your franchise ever. Even Pistol Pete spent the last 6 years of his career in other places. What the Hawks did at that time amounted to treason.

You know I love you man and agree with you 90% of the time. But you are wrong on this, there is no excuse for trading the most iconic player in the team's history in the middle of a possible championship run. 

I don't take it personally, trust me.

I understand where you are coming from. But Babcock in that season made the best basketball decision for the franchise. Here's Nique's stats after that season:

 

Boston: 17.8 ppg on .424 shooting. Ouch. He was so bad in Boston they let him out of his deal. He was in Greece, came back for a tanking San Antonio team. He put up 18 ppg on .417 shooting. He couldn't get a contract in the NBA so he went to Italy for a season. He finished up in Orlando of all places with 5 points per game on .379 shooting.

We would have been stuck with those horrible, horrible seasons. One of the main reasons so many fans old enough to remember Nique as a Hawk are still bitter is they don't remember those years. I do. Nique was DONE after that season. I am very glad we didn't have to watch Nique become this shell of himself in a Hawks jersey.

 

[rd79]

I wasn't following Basketball back then but looking at trade now:

• Trading for an expiring player without any chance to resign isn't very clever, especially if you...
• ...additionally send a 1st round pick to get him
• Since Nique's contract was ending there would have been cap space to sign Deke
• They destroyed a team on a run with a chance to win it all?

Summary: Hawks lost their franchise player, a 1st round pick, reputation, possible championship and they got: NOTHING. Manning walked and cap space would have been there anyway.

So this may have been one of the worst trades humans generally ever made...

[thecampster]

4 hours ago, Sothron said:

I don't take it personally, trust me.

I understand where you are coming from. But Babcock in that season made the best basketball decision for the franchise. Here's Nique's stats after that season:

 

Boston: 17.8 ppg on .424 shooting. Ouch. He was so bad in Boston they let him out of his deal. He was in Greece, came back for a tanking San Antonio team. He put up 18 ppg on .417 shooting. He couldn't get a contract in the NBA so he went to Italy for a season. He finished up in Orlando of all places with 5 points per game on .379 shooting.

We would have been stuck with those horrible, horrible seasons. One of the main reasons so many fans old enough to remember Nique as a Hawk are still bitter is they don't remember those years. I do. Nique was DONE after that season. I am very glad we didn't have to watch Nique become this shell of himself in a Hawks jersey.

 

One small aftermath of the trade.... http://articles.latimes.com/1994-11-08/sports/sp-59982_1_grant-long

Those around at the time probably remember that Willis' holdout was as much about extending his contract as it was about him being bitter over the Nique trade.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

On 5/10/2017 at 6:10 PM, Sothron said:

You can't blame the guy for doing something and then blame him for things that he had no control over if they  happened or not. Trading Nique was the smartest decision to make at the time Babcock made the decision.

Soth . . . the Hawks were 36 - 16 at the time of the Hawks trade . . . in 1st place . . . and with no Michael Jordan in the Eastern Conference.

You definitely blame the guy ( Babcock ) for trading the face of the franchise, and still your best player at the time . . for another player who is a free agent, who also gave you an ORAL AGREEMENT that he'd re-sign in the summer for big money.   You just can't do that.  You just can't.

If anything, you take the risk of Nique hitting the open market and letting the chips fall where they may.  If cap space was the issue, you can simply let him walk away.  If the market determined that Nique was worth much less than what he was asking, maybe you could re-sign Nique for less years and less money.  

But Babcock obviously thought he was the smartest one making the trade, and saw Manning as the replacement to Nique long term.  And he thought it was no way that Manning would turn down the exact 7 mill a year deal that Nique was seeking. ( 5 yr - 35 mill )

He was wrong.   DEAD WRONG!

The fact that bitch Manning signed with Phoenix for just 1 million to chase a championship, spoke volumes about what he really thought about the Hawks.   Once he saw that the Hawks talent wasn't all that ( even with him on the team ), and that he had a chance to go to Phoenix with much better talent around him, he left us hanging like an ugly girl at the high school prom.

Poetic justice would've been Jerry Colangelo lowballing the hell out of Manning after he tore his ACL, but unlike Manning, they stayed true to their word, and immediately signed him to a long term deal. ( 6 yrs - 40 million ).  Here's a good write-up about Manning going to Phoenix, from their perspective.

http://www.brightsideofthesun.com/2015/8/20/9174073/throwback-thursday-danny-manning-phoenix-suns-ticket-championship

 

I love the movie New Jack City, because it has so many quotable lines in it.   So as Nino Brown would say.  Babcock "f--ked up.  He f--ked up BIG TIME."   Being able to sign Dikembe 2 years later wasn't because of not signing Dominique.  It was because the Nuggets didn't want to give Mutombo a long term big money deal.  Not re-signing Mutombo is the Denver fan equivalent to not re-signing Nique.   And the Hawks still had to trade Plastic Man and Grant Long, just to sign Mutombo.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/nuggets/2015/09/11/bickerstaff-only-regret-as-nuggets-gm-was-not-re-signing-mutombo/13292/

 

And it was because the salary cap had risen, from 16 million in the summer of 1994, to 24 million in the summer of 1996.  

http://basketball.realgm.com/nba/info/salary_cap

 

Amd let's keep it real.  The Mookie - Smitty - Dikembe Hawks were no more successful than the JJ - Josh - Horford Hawks.  They both hit a 2nd round wall, because they weren't good enough to beat the top teams in the conference.  

The ONLY time we had a legit shot to get to the NBA Finals, was in 1988 vs Boston ( should have won Game 6 to end that series in Atlanta ), and in 1994, with Nique as the aging star of the team.   At the very least, the franchise OWED it to Nique to give him a chance to make a run in the playoffs, with no Jordan in the East.  But then again, if Nique balled out in the playoffs, the Hawks would have to pay Nique, something they obviously didn't want to do.

F--k all of them for potentially taking our only shot at a championship away from us.

F--k them ALL!!

[Thomas]

Yeah, wonder how all of Nique's teammates felt about losing a good shot at taking out a MJ-less Bulls team or anyone else and represent the East for the first time in Atlanta Hawk's history and battle it out in the finals. An incredible shot blown. In addition to that it was just another example of Babcock having such little respect for first round draft choices by including one in the trade.  

[Dejay]

And let's not forget boys and girls, not only was MJ out of the picture but Bird and Isiah Thomas were also gone; two chief reasons why we didn't already have championship parades down Peachtree Street at least 3+ years before Jordan ever won a ring. The Eastern Conference was literally there for the taking, with only Reggie Miller's Pacers and Ewing's Knicks being in the way; and the effin Hawks blew it. 

Why are we even debating this over 20 years later is a mystery to me, along with the secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Nique trade is a precautionary tale to every team in the running at the trade deadline; never, Ever, EVER trade your franchise player in the midst of a potential championship run. That goes double if the guy you're bringing back has no earthly intentions of re-signing with you as Manning publicly did after getting off the tarmac good on air. Imagine the Lakers sending off Kobe years ago when they were a contender for some young guy they 'hoped' would re-up with them, only for him to say that he really didn't see himself being there when he became a free agent. We all would be laughing our asses off and LA would be looking for a new GM seconds after July 1st.

I love my Hawks and all but they got EVERYTHING they deserved with making such a bad deal. Again, you make the call when you're 26-25 and looking to tear it down and rebuild. But when you're 36-15, tops in your conference, and three of your top threats for the last decade are total non-factors, you strike while the iron is hot and go for the gold...

[Thomas]

 

3 hours ago, Dejay said:

And let's not forget boys and girls, not only was MJ out of the picture but Bird and Isiah Thomas were also gone; two chief reasons why we didn't already have championship parades down Peachtree Street at least 3+ years before Jordan ever won a ring. The Eastern Conference was literally there for the taking, with only Reggie Miller's Pacers and Ewing's Knicks being in the way; and the effin Hawks blew it. 

Why are we even debating this over 20 years later is a mystery to me, along with the secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Nique trade is a precautionary tale to every team in the running at the trade deadline; never, Ever, EVER trade your franchise player in the midst of a potential championship run. That goes double if the guy you're bringing back has no earthly intentions of re-signing with you as Manning publicly did after getting off the tarmac good on air. Imagine the Lakers sending off Kobe years ago when they were a contender for some young guy they 'hoped' would re-up with them, only for him to say that he really didn't see himself being there when he became a free agent. We all would be laughing our asses off and LA would be looking for a new GM seconds after July 1st.

I love my Hawks and all but they got EVERYTHING they deserved with making such a bad deal. Again, you make the call when you're 26-25 and looking to tear it down and rebuild. But when you're 36-15, tops in your conference, and three of your top threats for the last decade are total non-factors, you strike while the iron is hot and go for the gold...

Extremely well said and extremely angrily delivered. Fits the case perfectly. Nique was the reason anyone around the league watched the Hawks back then.

[Dejay]

4 hours ago, Thomas said:

 

Extremely well said and extremely angrily delivered. Fits the case perfectly. Nique was the reason anyone around the league watched the Hawks back then.

You're not lying about that. It wasn't as if Tree Rollins or Randy Wittman was turning heads around the league. They literally sat on their hands and cried salary cap for years when Nique was here (translation: we're good with winning 50 a year and not taking a risk of rocking the boat) while gladly handing Koncak an insane extension. Only one time did they ever seriously try to put some real talent around him. Then when things finally came together with not one but TWO of its' playoff rivals nuked into the stone age by injury and retirement of their stars (Boston and Detroit) and a third limited (Chicago), you reward your meal ticket by sending him to the Clippers?

 

[Thomas]

9 hours ago, Dejay said:

you reward your meal ticket by sending him to the Clippers?

Even back then the Clippers were the lost land of injuries. Going to a franchise with that history had to be pretty depressing for Nique. Feel like we missed out on several years that still counted with him and us and most folks would have wanted him retiring here. Would have been a much better story.

[Guest]

9 hours ago, Dejay said:

you reward your meal ticket by sending him

And you better believe players looked at this the next time free agency came up for them. They prolly said to themselves..."why do I want to give my heart n soul to the Hawks so they can trade me to the crappiest place on earth." "They did it with their superstar."

[Guest]

I will always contend that the Dominique trade cursed this franchise.

The 1st game after the trade was my first NBA game live - so excited to see the Human Highlight Film - sigh - it wasn't to be.

I keep wondering why I didn't pick another team to root for after that foolish trade.

I guess I'm a #Hawk4Life.

[Thomas]

Pretty old article but lets us know it wasn't just the fans that were aghast but seemingly even sportswriters (certainly this one) were pretty surprised or in this case disappointed by the trade, this example is really just a rehash of a bad memory by Kris. The "what if" theme. Our Hawks have had a few of those eh. 

http://www.peachtreehoops.com/2013/8/21/4642276/sb-nation-theme-day-atlanta-hawks-dominique-wilkins-trade

[noble]

On 5/13/2017 at 9:48 AM, JayBirdHawk said:

I will always contend that the Dominique trade cursed this franchise.

The 1st game after the trade was my first NBA game live - so excited to see the Human Highlight Film - sigh - it wasn't to be.

I keep wondering why I didn't pick another team to root for after that foolish trade.

I guess I'm a #Hawk4Life.

Prior to Nique I was a Dr. J fan. My dad loved watching him and since I lived in NJ I was a fan myself. I quickly became a Nique fan after and loved watching the Hawks on TBS every chance I got. Sometimes I still wonder why I have never switched teams, but I just stayed true to my team regardless of who was on it. I still get angry at the Hawks for the trade when I think about it and just like to think Nique retired rather than actually played for other teams.

However, that trade pretty much sent this team to hell, even today. We all celebrate playoff appearances, but let's be honest with ourselves, have we really thought we had a chance at a championship? No, probably not. Even the 60 win team, you felt like they were built for the regular season and as usual the Hawks would fall short in the playoffs, and of course we all know what happened. Nique was the only thing that we can all agree gave this team hope of a championship. We haven't had a player like him since. We are on the treadmill for middle to late round picks, make the playoffs, rinse, repeat.

[Guest]

I can't be the only one who saw this and wondered why tha f we got a 49ers thread on the main board.

Anybody?  No?

Aiight, well fyall then.  Carry on ...