Biggest Disappointment in Hawks Franchise History?

[Diesel]

I think I know the answer to this but I will still put out some options:

1.  Rumeal Robinson.

2.  Demarr Johnson.

3.  Rasheed Wallace - with us for one day. 

4.  Roy Marble - The Next Jordan. 

5.  Danny Manning. 

6.  Dwight Howard.  

7.  Josh Childress. 

8.  Dion  "King of the Summer Leagues" Glover. 

9.  Big Dog.... 

10.  Big Dog, Ratliff, and Kukoc = The guarantee. 

11.  Coach Bud as GM.

12.   1 night with Tom Izzo as coach!

13.  Doc Rivers... Pass the damn ball to Dominique!!!

14.  Matthew Delvadova - "Sweep the Leg"

15. NY Police "Dirty Cops" that injured Thabo Sefalosha. 

16.  Danny Ferry's racist comments. 

17.  Antoine Walker. 

18.   Marvin Williams being drafted 2nd overall. 

19.   Shelden.  - The Landlord. 

20.  Keeping Al Henderson.

 

I think that's a good start.  What do you think Squawk??

 

[AUhawksfan]

The playoff guarantee was a big one. I knew they set themselves up for failure and you think they would’ve learned from Ray Buchanan. 
 

Josh Smith was a disappointment for me as well, and seeing his decline and career end the way it did. I remember plenty of amazing plays but I remember the groans from myself and the Hawks crowd even more when he would pull up for an ill advised shot. So much talent untapped. 

[Guest]

Given what we know now, it's got to be Marvin over Chris Paul. At the time, however, I bought into the "Chris Paul is too small" and "Marvin's stroke is picture perfect smooth!"

[Diesel]

4 minutes ago, LongTimeFan said:

Given what we know now, it's got to be Marvin over Chris Paul. At the time, however, I bought into the "Chris Paul is too small" and "Marvin's stroke is picture perfect smooth!"

I would agree with you....  Marvin over CP3 was very disappointing.   I would have even taken Deron Williams.  However, for me... it's easily......  Danny Manning.   We traded an Icon who adored this city for a guy who didn't even want to stay for a cup of Coffee. 

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Diesel said:

I would agree with you....  Marvin over CP3 was very disappointing.   I would have even taken Deron Williams.  However, for me... it's easily......  Danny Manning.   We traded an Icon who adored this city for a guy who didn't even want to stay for a cup of Coffee. 

That was going to be my second choice. But 15 years of Chris Paul vs just a few more years of prime Nique tipped the scales for me. 

Both were almost equally painful, however, for different reasons, as you stated.

[NBASupes]

Dermarr had a car accident but if that didn't happen, he would likely be a star

 

Acie Law

Omari Spellman

Alan Henderson

These three either played much better at the previous level or flashed like Spellman and Henderson and massively underachieved. Henderson flashed an whole season. 

I try not to put guys who had injuries like Speedy Claxton.

 

The playoff guarantee Hawks are also at the top of the list. It didn't make sense to me at the time. 

Edited September 3, 2021 by NBASupes

[macdaddy]

4 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

Dermarr had a car accident but if that didn't happen, he would likely be a star

 

Acie Law

Omari Spellman

Alan Henderson

These three either played much better at the previous level or flashed like Spellman and Henderson and massively underachieved. Henderson flashed an whole season. 

I try not to put guys who had injuries like Speedy Claxton.

 

The playoff guarantee Hawks are also at the top of the list. It didn't make sense to me at the time. 

Yeah and Glover i think blew out his knee in college right?

[Spud2nique]

11 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

Dermarr had a car accident but if that didn't happen, he would likely be a star

 

Stop it.

1 hour ago, Diesel said:

5.  Danny Manning. 

Just made me saddest.

[AHF]

34 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

Dermarr had a car accident but if that didn't happen, he would likely be a star

 

Maybe but he didn't impress during his first two healthy seasons so I feel like that was far from guaranteed.  (His second season he averaged 8.4 points on sub-40% fg% and more turnovers than assists and that was a step up from his rookie year).  

2 hours ago, Diesel said:

1.  Rumeal Robinson.

3.  Rasheed Wallace - with us for one day. 

4.  Roy Marble - The Next Jordan. 

7.  Josh Childress. 

13.  Doc Rivers... Pass the damn ball to Dominique!!!

17.  Antoine Walker. 

 

I'll say that none of these are even a disappointment for me.  Robinson and Wallace were parts of trades that ended up working out wonderfully for Atlanta.  Childress gave you what were pretty normal contributions from a mid to late lottery pick (better than several of the guys picked ahead of him did on their rookie contracts) so while he wasn't my top choice and clearly isn't close to the right pick with 20/20 hindsight, I can't call him out as a big deal when our draft history is littered with flops.  Doc is a huge success story for me - doesn't mean he didn't make mistakes on the floor but he way outperformed his draft position and was a large and important part of some of the best Atlanta teams in our history.  Walker doesn't qualify because expectations were low.  We got him as a transitional piece while we were tanking and he put up almost 20 and 10.  Roy Marble is just a matter of low expectations on my part.  Can't be disappointed when you expect him to suck and he sucks.

2 hours ago, Diesel said:

I think I know the answer to this but I will still put out some options:

5.  Danny Manning. 

6.  Dwight Howard.  

10.  Big Dog, Ratliff, and Kukoc [SAR/JT] = The guarantee. 

11.  Coach Bud as GM.

14.  Matthew Delvadova - "Sweep the Leg"

15. NY Police "Dirty Cops" that injured Thabo Sefalosha. 

16.  Danny Ferry's racist comments. 

18.   Marvin Williams being drafted 2nd overall. 

19.   Shelden.  - The Landlord. 

 

These are all great choices based either on the bad faith actions that hurt the team and/or based on the high expectations that fell woefully short in reality.  I have to add one big one to the list:

The Atlanta Spirit (Specifically the Attempted Coups) - This ownership group was an absolute cluster-****. 

Belkin Coup Attempt - Steve Belkin tried to block the acquisition of Joe Johnson and sued to prevent the team from being able to spend money in FA.  Worse, he tried a hostile takeover of the ownership group which he inevitably lost since he was one of 9 owners and only controlled 1/3 share of the Hawks.  (His theory was that since he was appointed governor that he had ultimate authority despite not having the votes to actually authorize decisions.)  This dragged out affecting multiple seasons and making the team a laughing stock as well as competitively tying our hands.  When Belkin inevitably lost (with a ruling of "duh - you own 1/3 of the team and only have 1 vote out of 3 and can't override the other 2 votes"), it resulted in Belkin being bought out. 

Gearon Coup Attempt - After Belkin was gone, Michael Gearon Jr. served as the governor and decision-maker for basketball decisions and the other owners eventually tired of his interference and decided to hire an independent GM and to push Gearon out of an authority position.  Levenson hired Ferry and Ferry led the team to its most successful season to date, capturing the #1 overall seed, posting records for consecutive wins, etc. and turning the corner into a legit contender (or perhaps a legit contender if our wings don't get cleaned out by racist police and Dirtydova).  In response, Gearon attempted a hostile takeover of the team. 

When he was pushed out as governor by the other owners in favor of Levenson who removed him from a decision-making basketball role and brought in Ferry, Gearon secretly taped team meetings until he found something to publicly release to try to ruin Levenson and Ferry and force the owners to give him back control of the team.  (Gearon didn't object to what was said and leaked it so it could be presented in the most outrageous light possible especially considering that Ferry was reading someone else's comments off of a sheet and was recommending that the team invest big dollars in Luol Deng when he did it.  Ferry was recommending the Hawks offer the exact contract that Deng ultimately signed.)  Gearon inevitably failed to regain the control he wanted which resulted in the sale of the team but only after Gearon's handpicked BudCox GM era took the team from the heights that Ferry reached to garbage status by the time BudCox were done.

As an aside, the ASG also trashed and threw away the Thrashers.  Belking and Gearon were happy to trash and undermine the actual team in a power struggle to elevate themselves from mere minority owners to the controlling decision-makers despite their minority status.  The team and its reputation actively suffered in both cases by design of these selfish people.  I am pretty sure this is unprecedented in American sports and it happened twice with these guys.

[Dnice]

Several disappointing players listed, but if they didn't work out in Atlanta,  I'd rather them still hang around in the NBA instead of not playing, or overseas by 25 -27.

[HawkItus]

Cliff Levingston taking that last shot....

[JayBirdHawk]

Trading Dominique the morning I drove 4 hours to see my first NBA and Hawk game.

[Spud2nique]

7 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Trading Dominique the morning I drove 4 hours to see my first NBA and Hawk game.

Ok this remains the saddest story. I think I was watching Nique in his last game when Kemp, Payton and the boys came into town and not knowing that was the last of it. I remember him hitting a 3 from the left wing and we were up like 20 or more. 
 

I listened to CNN headline news sports every 30 min. The last one was at 5:50pst and the trade deadline ended 10 min later and they didn’t report it. At 6:20, I believe Van Earl Wright reported the news..football, baseball, hockey and at the very end.

Hawks trade Dominique Wilkins to the Clippers in exchange for Danny Manning. Internally I was on fire my eyes even teared up.  

11 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

my first NBA and Hawk game.

 

[Dnice]

Jay, I''m sure that had to take a generation to get over...Amazing anyone hung in there afterwards.

Edited September 3, 2021 by Dnice

[JayBirdHawk]

5 minutes ago, Dnice said:

Jay, I''m sure that had to take a generation to get over...Amazing anyone hung in there afterwards.

I keep saying I don't know why I'm still a Hawks fan, ....but here I am.

[dalamchops]

wasn't nique traded in the midst of one of the franchise's best season too?

[Gray Mule]

Right now, Trae is the heart of the Hawks team.

Nique was once the heart.  They cut the heart out of the team when they traded him away. 

Just imagine this:  Hawks missed out when they didn't draft CP3.  To rectify that error, we're trading T. Young, even, for CP3.

Yep.  That would probably get the same reaction as the Nique trade did.

[Diesel]

14 minutes ago, dalamchops said:

wasn't nique traded in the midst of one of the franchise's best season too?

Yes.

Jordan was off playing baseball and we had beaten the league best streaking team (Houston).  Heart Breaking. 

 

[sturt]

Whoa.

Between this and the "create the worst all-time Hawks team" thread, seems we've probably illuminated the masochists among us. Yes? No?

[Spud2nique]

54 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

I keep saying I don't know why I'm still a Hawks fan, ....but here I am.

And a good time to be one. You’ve earned it, we’ve all earned it for all the crap in the past. Here’s hoping for at least a decade of being in the running for a title and at some point nailing one or a couple or more.