emeans

I think the rookies (Chill, Smooth, Ivey and Smith) should get many more minutes every game than they are getting. I am a proponent of experience in gametime situations to grow players. Practice is fine but until you get comfortable in game time situations you can't grow as fast as a player. We aren't winning this year...play these young men and let them get some valueable experience. What are we going to do when we trade Walker? We need to start preparing for this move and start slowly transitioning Walker's minutes down as the season progresses.

Harrington's decision making is sometimes not the best in terms of forcing shots, but I think a lot of that comes with him being one of the two 1st options on this team in terms of scoring. He will get better with his decision making with maturity, he is still very young and this is his first fulltime starting role with any team. Harrington flatout has skillz. He can be unstoppable at times and he is very crafty and explosive with the ball close to the basket. Again he is a definate keeper and someone we need to have in the fold during these rebuilding years!!!

Al Harrington is a definate keeper on this team. He will be the cornerstone of this franchise. I like his game a lot. Walker will be traded and we will hopefully draft Chris Paul and either sign a big man in the offseason or draft one.

I really hope we draft Chris Paul with our 1st pick. He will be an impact PG in the NBA. Then we need to draft or sign a legitimate big man after we trade Walker. This will be a 3 year project to become a legitimate contender. This year, next year and the year after. We will be very good in the 2006 - 2007 season.

No way...Lebron is the best young player in the league right now. Wade is close but he isn't Lebron James.

Washington is not letting Kwame go anywhere. Another mute, dead, unreal proposal. Kwame is staying in Washington.

No you are missing the point. I know he is doing a lot for this team. I am not an anti-walker fan. However, realistically this organization is going to have to make a crucial decision (THIS YEAR) on whether to keep Walker in the rebuilding process or part with him. Unfortunately it is part of the business. And the question all Hawks owners, management, fans and others are going to have to ask. Is he doing enough to stay on this team with the cap hit he will put on this team in the future? Is he valuable to this team? Of course. Is he valuable enough to keep? That's the question that will have to be answered. Walker is the only Hawk that is going to be talked about before and around the trading deadline. Lets be real about this guys!!

Three back to back 3 on 1 fast breaks...result...no points. Not finishing up on transition breaks is senseless. No excuses for this. Either you get a foul or you get two points. Four possessions in a row where we shoot 3 point attempts and we are up 16 points...result...no Hawk points...7 opponent transition points. Why did we all of a sudden start shooting 3 pointers when we built a solid lead??? Continue to do the same things you did to build the lead like solid passing and rotations on the inside. They totally went away from this and the lead disappeared. Coaching??? While I love how Walker can get hot and carry the team on his shoulder especially when we need a score, he also can also be detrimentally cold and cost the team 10 to 15 point swings. Not to mention he can't shoot a free throw. So his value is starting to be questioned in my mind again. Is he doing enough to stay with this team? This team is extraordinarily frustrating to watch sometimes because of the HUGE LONG Mental lapses it goes through. I am not sure who to blame but this team has to find out HOW TO FOCUS when you have a 10 point lead. They lose focus in seconds. Continue to press as if you are 15 down and don't get careless with the ball. Woodson has to figure these problems out!!!

I agree Collier is useless. He shouldn't have gotten more than a 1 year contract. He should be starting in the CBA not the NBA.

Exactly....I must admit I was very impressed with Chillz (FOR THE 1ST TIME) last night as an Atlanta Hawk. I think people are getting the wrong impression of Chillz criticisms. Everyone wants this pick to be a good pick. Atlanta has a long storied history of making bad picks and most fans are apprehensive about any pick Atlanta makes based on history and Dengs success brings back bad memories....the "Here we go again" syndrome. Hopefully that jinx is broken. I saw some serious potential last night and I can only hope this is a prelude to something even better. How about Ivey....Wow this kid may also be a diamond in the rough. The Jury is still out!!

Yeah, he just didn't last until the 6 pick. Lets hope and pray that Childress can be what he was drafted to be...a solid Shooting Guard that can play the 1 or the 3 effectively.

I agree Dallas is very deep and their 2nd team would probably handle our 1st team. You saw that last night the Miami game. Jason Terry and Jerry Stackhouse are coming off the bench, plus they have a ton of BIG bodies. Devin Harris impressed me a lot last night. I think this is who BK really wanted with his 1st pick. This kid is good. Very quick and makes smart decisions with the basketball. I guess that is why he is starting over Jason Terry. Dallas, Utah, Pheonix and Minnesota maybe the teams to beat in the West

Quote: Deng shot is NOT great and his atheletic ability is lacking And Childress's shot IS great? What games have you been looking at? Childress's outside shot is terrible with a capital T and the bad part about it is that he is playing SHOOTING guard. No one is comparing Deng to Lebron James. I have no idea where that came into this discussion. We had the 6 pick in the draft and we decided to go with Chillz over Deng when Deng has always been rated higher than Chillz and now he is showing why. That is the debate. Quote: He's good and getting into position to get a putback and he's good at being there on a run out for the layup That is an very important part of the game. Offensive rebounding and positioning is very important. Just like Special Teams in Football. That is just important as any other skill on the court. Too bad we don't have anyone consistently getting into position and getting putbacks and layups. Guess what if we had Deng we would have some one that could do that well.

Personally I don't care if they are putbacks, layups, off the foot, around the back, off the shoe lace or whatever they come from. The bottom line is as a ROOKIE (I remind you) Deng is putting up excellent numbers in the NBA and has done so since being drafted. You can not sit there and tell me Childress was a better pick than Deng. No way in hell!! Childress looks like a kid among men on the court. First of all he need buck up at least 20 to 30 more lbs. He needs to figure out how to get his shot off. The only credit I can give him is that he plays decent defense and a lot of that is because he is so lanky and long for a SG. But he plays at a college SF skill level and pace on offense. I even noticed last night that the veterans don't even want to pass the ball to him. They have even lost confidence in him. He was wide open several times and they refused to pass him the ball. They are not confident he can hit a shot.

Quote: What makes trading at the deadline better than trading now? Well for one you need to make sure Walker is or isn't the right fit for your rebuilding team. It will take at least half the season to definatively determine that. You have to see if he fits chemistry wise with a rebuilding team. Again this is the only person on this squad that will possibly be traded this year. When I don't know if ever. All other talk about trades is a waste of time because it ain't happening. Anyway what makes you think Baron Davis would even want to come to worst team in the league? There will not be any trades like that!!

Diesel there will be no trades right now, especially not this one. We are going to stay the way we are until close to the trading deadline and probably deal Walker. That is probably the only trade that will take place during this season.

No rationalizing to it, Deng was a much better player in Summer League and he is a much better player now than Childress. I think Childress mechanics will always hurt him in a faster NBA game. His shot is so arkward that it takes time and a certain body angle to effectively shoot it. Marion of Pheonix is the only other NBA player with an arkward shot that has perfected it to become very effective. I hope Chillz can do that, but right now he can't even get his shot off cleanly playing SG. Keep in mind most of his scoring is coming during garbage time (in other words the game is way out of reach). When the intensity is up and the game is close is the time I want to see him put up some numbers. Man I hope he proves me wrong, but Deng is looking might good right now.

You are right, the discussion was about trying to move up and if we didn't move up and had to stay at 6 then what? Most of our responses were Deng, Iggy, the High school guard and the Wisconsin kid. I don't remember anyone on this board saying "We should draft Childress at 6". Josh Smith was a big surprise for me at 17. I was elated to get him at 17. He will only get better as his confidence grows, which comes with playing time. Listen, I really, really hope Childress proves everyone on this board wrong. I mean that sincerely, but thus far he has not impressed me as the 6 pick in the draft. I am an Atlanta Hawks fan regardless and I do think BK has done some nice things overall. I just hope we will not regret not getting a higher rated Deng at the 6 pick. Regardless the show goes on!!

Mock Drafts?? I wasn't talking about mock draft sites. Read my post I said on THIS FORUM. Most people ON THIS FORUM didn't have Childress as their pick. There is a thread where everyone voted for their pick and very few had Childress as their pick, if any. The majority of the people on this board had Iggy, Deng or the kid from Wisconsin as their pick. I know the mock drafts had Childress in the Hawks slot, but Deng was ranked higher and that is why I thought we would have picked Deng. Secondly, Of course Deng will get even better. There is always room for improvement, he is still a rookie. So this argument that Deng will not get better and Childress will some how miraculously pass him and be a better player at some point is crazy talk, as if Deng can't get better...only Childress can get better. Deng is better now and will get even better in the future.

We will have the Number 1 Pick in next years draft and we may press the all-time worse record in the NBA. By the way what is that record? Is it 10 games?

Exactly Trace....Childress was not being talked about before this draft at 6. Go back and look at some of the old pre - draft threads.

Well for one I am on the East Coast and I saw a single game from Stanford last year. Speaking for myself I knew very little about Josh Childress and I think most people on the East Coast will have the same analysis. We just didn't see him play day in and day out like we saw Deng. I saw Deng almost every week, so I can only vouch for his game. I don't like Childress's mechanics. His shot mechanics are terrible. They may have worked for a Forward in college, but I don't think he can create his shots as a SG in the NBA. Two totally different levels!! 29 - 1 doesn't translate to success in the NBA. Whereas Deng as already proven he can play effectively in the NBA right now!!

First of all I didn't know anything about Childress until AFTER we picked him. I have never gone on record of saying WE SHOULD PICK CHILDRESS. I have always been a Josh Smith supporter in the draft. As a matter of fact I don't think most people on this forum had a clue of who we were going to pick at 6. Childress was not talked about a lot at all on this forum. Iggy and Deng was most peoples pick for 6 on this forum. Deng has always been rated higher than Childress on all draft boards so why not take him. I was personally shocked we didn't take him. Again you picked the best available talent when you are rebuilding!!

Exactly...Smith was an excellent pick at 17 anyway you look at it. I think Smith is better than Childress right now. Childress should not have been picked over Deng. Deng is a better NBA player now and will only improve. Deng showed this in Summer League. And again I get tired of hearing well we needed a SG. NO we needed the best available talent out there regardless of position. We had holes at every position and we are rebuilding, so it doesn't matter. Get the best at any position. Now if we were an established winning team then you could pull that argument, but with the Hawks that argument is mute!!

I am one that thought we should have drafted Deng over Childress too. People say....well we needed a SG. Actually we needed everything. We are rebuilding stage remember. An Childress is not a true SG. He is playing the SG position with SF quickness. He is find it very hard to get his shots off in the NBA at SG. Deng should have been our pick, especially if and when we get rid of Walker. Deng is playing like he has been in the NBA for years!!!