TheNorthCydeRises

That may be true. But you people that constantly criticize the coach and the GM have to let this year play out. People act like that if we were to bring in Phil Jackson right and Jerry West right now, that the Hawks would win 55 games this season. LOL @ that. We're a young team, and we make the mistakes that young teams make all the time in this league. The key for us, is to have some stability with players and coaches, and show that we're progressing in the right direction, which is exactly what I think we're doing right now. The past 2 seasons, the Hawks have stared out 2 - 12 in October/November. The best record we've had in the past 5 years, was an 8 - 9 record in 2002 ( the JT, Big Dog, Reef, and Ratliff squad that started the season 3 - 1 and disappointly won 35 games that year ) Let's see where this team ranks with the teams we've had the past 5 years. Do we start out slow, or do we at least play close to .500 ball? With 13 games in Oct/Nov, I say that we are at worst a 5 - 8 team . . at best an 7 - 6 team Let's see where this team falls before everyone decides to throw the hammer down on Woody and BK.

But most PF's in this league are tough. Josh, while athletic, doesn't strike me as being a "tough guy". That's why he doesn't mix it up in the paint like everyone wants him to. He's a lot closer to a Shawn Marion type, than a Kenyon Martin type of PF. But Shawn is on hustle mode all the time. Smoove is on hustle mode maybe 18% of the time. That's the big difference. When Smoove realizes that he can use his athletic ability to get cheap hoops and really affect the game, he'll become a better player. Until then, we'll just have to live with the on-again, off-again version of Smoove.

Quote: The deal with Batman is he is a slow, stiff, hacking, lousy basketball player. He doesn't belong in the league and is only valuable if you want to take out another player on the opposing team. Even our coach and GM realize he is a stiff and thats why he is in street clothes. I hope that answers your question. LOL . . . excellent answer. I guess we put Freije in street clothes, and dress Batman? No chance at that, unless Freije is hurt.

Quote: Since Chillz has one of the highest percentage jumpers in the NBA, I think they are gonna let the mechanics go. His problem is going to be getting that shot off without getting it blocked. He will never be a big time scorer with that shot, but he can still be incredibly effective shooting when he's open. Northcyde, Ivey and Donta were rookies, not returning players, in Woody's first season. Just an fyi. LOL . . that makes it even worse then. Woody had only Diaw and Jason returning. And yet, people act like he inherited this up and coming team? LOL.

LOL . . . I recognize it all the time. It was obvious to people that watched how everything went down in Phoenix, that Boris benefitted tremendously from the absence of Amare and then Kurt Thomas in the lineup. D'Antoni moves him to a "point center" role in Phoenix's "small ball" system, and the kid flourishes. Because of that, Squawkers act like Woodson used the kid wrong . . LOL. No coach in their right mind would put Diaw as their center, unless something catastrophic happened. But look what is happening to Boris now? Kurt is healthy. Amare is trying to get back in the rotation. And who's the odd man out? Boris. The Suns are in a situation where they need Kurt's rebounding and defense in the lineup, so they have to give him minutes. So now they're having to split time between Amare and Diaw, both who can't defend the post right now. Boris have seen his shot attempts go down from 10.5 to 6.3. And because he's not getting nearly the touches he got last year, his overall impact on a game has dimished significantly. Touches are down, minutes are down . . but because he's playing more small and power forward, instead of point center, his turnovers are very high at 3 per game because he's trying to beat fowards off the dribble who can keep up with him . . . instead of centers who can't. And when they do put him at center, teams immeadiately attack him down on the block, and he racks up the fouls. Phoenix caught people off guard with the way they used Boris. But with a year of looking how they use him, teams are making the necessary adjustments to neutralize him in that Phoenix attack. NOW we'll see just how good of a player Boris really is. But of course, Woody used Diaw wrong. LOL @ that crap. Diaw was a scared rabbit here, and everybody knows it. They just like to complain about everything that we should've done, instead of looking at reality.

This is a very deep team with few "scrub" players. The players we have coming off the bench are at the very least "adequate". And like you said KB, Billy Knight has to get the credit for that. But some of these fans only want it one way. They want the Hawks to win, but they want to call BK an idiot for assembling this team. Well, from my point of view, if people think that BK is an idiot, then they can't expect the team to win. So if they can't expect the team to win, why even get their hopes up? And why act like we DO have talented players on this team, if BK is an idiot, and they don't expect the team to win? Either we have talent on this team, or we dont. If we do have talent, then BK gets the credit for that. But I guess if we lose to Orlando tomorrow, then BK and Woodson will go back to being "idiots". On the other hand, they'll get no credit for the victory, if we win.

Easy to say DJ, but we all know the circumstances are around that record. And it all doesn't have to do with the head coach. Number of returning Hawks players Woodson had to work with when he took over in 2004: 4 Can you name those 4 players? I can. Jason Collier - R.I.P., Boris Diaw, Royal Ivey, and Donta Smith Wow . . . what a collection of players to build your team, let alone your bench around. What Woody inherited, was the equivalent of a college team losing 7 of it's 8 top scorers ( because that's exactly what happened ), and hoping that the incoming freshmen and JUCO recruits you bring in, would help you stay afloat next season. Although this team was a horrific one, I'm pretty sure Woody doesn't go 13 - 69 if he still had JT, Bobby Sura and Stephen Jackson in his backcourt, to go alone with Smoove and Childress either starting or off the bench. That team would still be horrible, but at least they wouldn't be horribly inept. The 28 wins that they posted in 2003 with Stotts, may have been another 28 win season or maybe a little more, under Woody. Woody basically took over a team that had Antoine Walker as its star player . . . a disaster for any coach. Harrington was the complimentary player. But we had a horrible backcourt and couldn't play a lick of defense. You put any coach in that situation, and they wouldn't win. LOL . . Our 3rd leading scorer in 04 - 05 was Ty Lue. The 4th leading scorer was Tony Delk. That's all you need to know about the talent that was on that team 2 seasons ago. Fans have to realize that we're just now starting to build up our talent. That's why I'm more than willing to give Woody at the very least, until the All-Star break, to see if he's the right coach for the Hawks. He at least deserves that much. If the Hawks are a few games under .500, or if they're in the hunt for that #8 spot, Woody definitely deserves to finish the season. If the Hawks are well out of the race by the All-Star break, then it may be time to think about a coaching change. But he's a .500 coach right now for this season.

Quote: Even before seeing this kid ever play I had a gut feeling that he will end up being a monster of a center. I know tonight was only one game, but he has the size and athletic ability to be a great player. When you consider that good SF/PF's come almost a dime a dozen you have to wonder if the Hawks should have traded down to get Bynum. LOL . . . the one-game typical overreaction from the posters on these boards. Bynum has a monster game against a team that has consistently proven that they can't defend even bad post players, and people want to anoint him as being a great player. Bynum isn't even as good as ZaZa yet. Hopefully, the kid will continue to improve as the season and years go along. LOL . . but Bynum may not even be the starter for the Lakers, once Kwame and Mihm come back into the mix. LOL . . and what does that say about Saer Sene? Bynum got him in early foul trouble, and Sene was gone very quickly. Then, Bynym got to go up against the likes of Danny Fortson, who is a full 4 - 5 inches shorter than him. Trade down to get Bynum, but pass up Marvin and/or Paul? Good Lord man.

To Woody's demise, he isn't the greatest X's and O's guy, but there are few coaches in this league who are. Jerry Sloan is the best, hands down. Avery Johnson is quickly becoming a good one. But other than that, there are few coaches in this league that are excellent "play callers" or can make great defensive adjustments. Even guys like Phil Jackson and Pat Riley are more "managers" than they are coaches. They know how to manage egos and superstar talent. A lot of coaches can't do that, and that's why they fail. Woody isn't the best coach, but he's far from the worst. Put Pat Riley to coach last year's team, and I bet even he couldn't get us to playoff level because we had too many holes in the lineup . . and we couldn't play defense. This year, some of those holes have been filled, and we have some guys on this team who can defend a little better. That will make us a better team UNDER Woodson. Will it make us a playoff team? Who knows?

Quote: I challenged the entire board and no one has pointed out one actual basketball thing that Woodson is competent at. So shut up if you can't say anything other than "give them time" and other nonsense. How long have you been a Hawks fan? Can you name anyone on our roster from 10 years ago? Have you ever seen us win? I have and I know that we can't ever be what we want with Woodson. It's that simple. Why don't you read the posts before you spray garbage on it. We've been losing for 7 years! I know that's not long too you. You're probably 13 or something. If you were older or smarter you would understand the real Hawks fan. We're sick of this. Just because you're sick of a situation, doesn't mean that you continuously blow up a team or constantly change coaches. I've been a fan of this team ever since Nique put on a Hawks jersey. And every Hawk team that won 50+ games, were full of VETERAN PLAYERS who know how to play the game. Look what happened to the Hawks when guys like Moses, Doc, and Tree got too old to contribute? The Hawks, even though they had a superstar in Nique, and a nice PF in Willis, turned into an inconsistent team that couldn't win over 42 games during a 4 year period. The Hawks team that won in the mid-90s, was a veteran squad that had very good veteran role players. If you don't think that youth is the main problem with this team, then just ask the Miami Heat. D-Wade is a superstar, but the Heat don't win a title if they didn't have all of those veteran players on the team. And look at the direction that Chicago is going now. They have nice young talent, but they're making the transition toward bringing in quality veterans to the squad. And as much as people want to laud and praise the "Baby Bulls", even that organization had to wait a full 7 years after Mike, Scottie, and Dennis left, to field a quality team. Realistically, we're only in Year 3 of our total rebuilding. But let's go back to Woody. What he does well: - He's a good manager of personnel and has shown the ability to put people in favorable situations. Don't forget that it was Woody that defined the roles of players after that horrible start last year, that stabilized the team. Even though Lue was the best PG on the team last year, he gave Ivey the start, strictly to give us a better defensive start to the 1st and 3rd quarters. That move also let Lue be more of what he truly is . . . a scoring PG that you can bring off the bench. Instead of worrying about running the team and getting others involved, he could look for his offense, and worry about running the team on a secondary basis. That move alone stabilized this team somewhat in the middle part of last season. And no player on this team has benefitted more from the game situations that Woody has put him in, than Josh Childress, who, after a slow start, played FABULOUS BASKETBALL from December on . . . and is still playing well today. - He's a "player friendly" coach. Sometimes, that's a bad thing. But with a young team like this one, it's a good thing. You don't want to go around and destroy the confidence of some of these young guys when they're playing bad. Woody has shown a patience with guys like Childress, Smoove and Marvin, that most fans don't realize, or refuse to realize. And when you talk about confidence, what do you think relegating Smoove to the bench right now, would do to his psyche? Especially since everybody thinks he can be the real rising star on this team? You keep Smoove in the starting lineup, at least until Marvin comes back, and you find ways to maximize his potential. And that's exactly what Woody will do. - He's an "even keel" coach that doesn't spaz out over everything. You see coaches in this league like that. They're going crazy after every bad call or constantly arguing with the officials. Some of you fans think that a coach that isn't higly emotional, is a coach that isn't into the game. Just because a coach doesn't yell in your face, doesn't mean that he's not addressing issues with you during the game or trying to get you to see something. Bottom line is that most of you completely overreact and blame Woody and BK relentlessly when this team comes up short . . . . and give them NO CREDIT WHATSOEVER when this team plays well. So who gets the credit for last night's win vs the Knicks? You can't have it both ways people.

Quote: If our Head Coach gets all the blame when the Hawks loose their first game, he becomes our Court Jester. Gotta have it both ways. He gets all the credit for the victory #1, therefore, for the night, our Genius. No one could get the ball to fall in the first game and Hawks went quickly into never-never land. After their patented "Sleepwalk" to open that game, they did as well as A.I. and his gang. They just couldn't recover from that awful start of the game. Sacond game. Horrors! J.J. has 2 fouls early and all is lost. No! Wait a minute. The Hawks didn't just die and go away. In comes Childress and the team goes right on playing as if nothing had happened. In fact, things went so well that J.J. stayed on the bench to start the second quarter. Wow!! The Hawks CAN survive for a short time without our Captain and our best player. Our Genius Head Coach tonight rotated his entire bench in and out of the game, some playing scant minutes and some, Josh C. and T. Lue, going for extended minutes. T.V. announcers said, "The team we saw tonight is the team we saw in pre-season. That was not the team we saw in the first game." Maybe they needed that first one to get things going. We'll see. A rested J.J. did it all in the late going. Makes me wonder if resting him more in the early going, as was necessary in this game, wouldn't be a wise investment for late in the game. It worked this time, at least. Happiness is having a Hawks victory to post about. Here's hoping that this is the first of many more to come!! GO HAWKS !!!!!! (( clapping )) LOL . . I pretty much said in another thread, what you typed here. But the "squawkers" know more than our coach and our GM, so they'll never give them the credit when we win or play well. The Hawks could've lost this game twice. Once, in the time that you stated when JJ was on the bench with his 2nd foul. Second, when the Knicks made the 4th quarter comeback and cut the lead to 3. We didn't panic and the coach didn't panic. We hit some shots and got a few stops on defense, and quickly pushed that lead back to 9 points. But the people that constantly say that Woody is an "idiot" will never give him credit for that.

This isn't addressed to you, DrReality, but it is a general response toward everyone who constantly criticizes Woody. I love it how people give Woody almost NO CREDIT for certain players improving or putting them in favorable situations, but place all the blame on him when we lose or when somebody messes up. A lot of us act like we could step on the court right now, and coach the Hawks. Even though I've played the game in high school and some in college, I don't have the credibility or the RIGHT to call a longtime coach like Woody "an idiot". We as fans act like we have all the answers, but none of us sees what goes on in practice. So when people talk about Salim playing more, or brining a guy like Smoove off the bench, there's no way you can make that determination off of 2 regular season games. We as fans know what the strengths and weaknesses of each player are. So don't you think that the coaches know what we know as well? I forgot. They're all "idiots". I guarantee that none of us on this board couldn't even begin to run an NBA-like practice, let alone, manage a dang game.

I GUARANTEE this thread wouldn't have been started, if we'd won last night. So for that fact alone, this IS an overreaction to last night's game. Because if it wasn't, you wouldn't open the first sentence by saying . . "this is not merely an overreaction to last night's game . . ." LOL . . of course it is. 70% of the posters on this site overreact to everything . . positive or negative.

We're Phoenix East . . . without Nash and Marion. Anybody that watches this team should already know that we're going to live and die by the jumper. Good post DJlaysitup

Yeah . . . FIRE WOODY!! We came out flat agaisnt Philly and couldn't make open shots. FIRE HIM!! LOL @ the logic in that. And lol @ complaining about our offense. 16th in points . . . 17th in FG% . . . top 10 in 3FG%. If we make the shots we usually make last night, we beat Philly in a close game. We just didn't make open shots, so we lost.

We played 8 minutes of horrible basketball last night. That isn't uncommon for an NBA team to have an off night, especially on the road. The Heat played like crap on Tuesday night. So did Phoenix . . after seeing a 19 point lead early in that game agaisnt the Lakers completely evaporate. Gilbert Arenas shoots 2 - 12 in last night's loss to the Cavs. The Hawks shot 33% last night. The Bulls looked like a Division II team against Orlando last night, after looking like NBA champions against the Heat. Ish Happens. I seriously doubt that the Hawks will shoot 33% tomorrow night, even if they lose. And Speedy won't go 0 - 5 from the field again. It's not like we haven't seen this before from the Hawks. Remember last year's opening night game @ Golden St? It was the same thing, except that we played great in the 1st half, and completely disappeared in the 3rd quarter. Up 65 - 55 with 8:33 to go in the 3rd quarter. By the time Ty Lue hits a jumper with 1:22 to go in the quarter, G-State had outscored us 27 - 4 in a 7 minute stretch and had an 82 - 69 lead. That's life in the NBA sometimes.

LOL @ graymule. It's like the fan base has been so used to wallowing in misery, that they can't help but to predict gloom and doom after one bad performance on opening night. But good Lord. Just think if we had won by 15 points. Posters on here would be predicting a 50-win season and a Southeast Division title this year.

Quote: I suspect right about now (even now), Woody is in Smoove's ears. Josh has to come forward and stand accountable. In this time he cannot alibi bad play, he Has to produce. This is the time for his development and maturity to increase and display. If Smoove was slated to start at the 4, he still should be. The rotation should not change with the exception of Chillz in for Marvin. Salim and Lue get more time in the 2. I suppose. This by design, Marvin will return and Smoove will be a better player, Chillz will be better players. Marvin then, will have to work harder to get his minutes. I agree totally, except the part about Childress possibly going into the starting lineup. Right now, I don't think Josh is ready to be a full time PF in this league. We may be better off starting Shelden, then moving Smoove to PF once Childress enters the game. Whether Chill starts or not will probably depend on how this team can function offensively. We know that JJ, Smoove, and Speedy will be a big part of the offense to start games. ZaZa will be a factor as well. But all of those guys will have to play extremely well to start games. I say keep Childress on the bench, but possibly play him when the game is on the line. Chill is the guy that usually keeps the Hawks offense afloat when the 2nd teamers enter the game. If we keep Shelden on the bench, we'd probably be a Lue-Salim led offense when the bench players were in. That's not necessarily a good thing. And so much for JJ having his minutes reduced. He'll probably have to play 38+ minutes a game, until the rest of the team and Smoove prove that they can handle the increased responsibilities.

LOL . . . I actually took the time to write that fool on NBAdraft.net an e-mail today. Of course, I'm a long-winded and thorough writer, so he had a lot to read. I say that we'll win 40 games, but I toned it down a little in my e-mail to him, and said that we'd win 36 games. This was his response: Greetings, First of all, I can tell you are a big time fan by the gargantuan size of the email. Anyone who takes the time to write that much must truly love the Hawks. Secondly, with all the players they have, Atlanta won 26 games last year. Then they lost one of their best players in Al Harrington and you expect them to do 9 games better? If you think Speedy Claxton will be such a difference maker, then why will the Hawks be his 5th team in 6 NBA seasons? Also, when Speedy played in 71 games last year, that was the most amount of games he has ever played in during one season (he has already missed preseason games with an injury). He is also a career 41% shooter and 19% shooter from threes. I just don't think he will make that big of a difference this year. Lorenzen Wright is at the end of his career and won't contribute much. As I alluded to in the article, a leap from Marvin Williams and Josh Smith would certainly help the team. If both have breakout years, then yes, they can definitely win 35 games. But at this point, you can't just assume they both will. The Hawks certainly have some talent, but their point guards are still weak and I just don't see how they can be much better than last year. Its just an opinion. Good luck to the Hawks, and thanks for the email, Josh

I'm outside of Nashville, and I see the Hawks commercials all the time too. But because I'm outside of Nashville, I'm officially in "Grizzlies Country", so I get all of the Memphis Grizzlies games on FSN South. So I had no other choice but to get League Pass. This year, it may be different, seeing that SportSouth ( formerly Turner South ), is showing 41 Hawks games this year. Hopefully, you used to get Turner South on your expanded cable package. But if you wait to see a SportSouth game, you'll miss the first 6 games of the season. Here's the TV schedule for this upcoming season. The way it looks, FSN will start off the coverage. Then, most of the Hawks games will be on SportSouth from about mid-November to about mid-March. FSN then picks up the coverage for the majority of the games to end the season. http://www.nba.com/hawks/news/Hawks_Releas..._101606.html#tv

Just by the way that article sounds, I think Ivey is gone. Maybe even Batista.

Poll was interesting. We're going to win 29 + games, according to the poll . . but still finish 5th in the division? So that means that Charlotte is going to win 30+ games? As far as the ownership goes, it is a major problem. But I don't think it has impeded the success of this team. This team was so young, that they weren't going to win anyway. Our problems in order: - defense - youth - coaching - PG play - ownership

He'll really have to develop a knack for defending aginst 4's . . especially down on the block . . to be successful defensively against them. But to defend the average 4 in the NBA, you need to be tough . . mentally and physically. I wouldn't necessarily describe Smoove as being a "tough guy". And defending against 4's has more to do with attitude, than actual size. Shawn Marion had to routinely defend 4's since Phoenix went with it's "smallball/speedball" concept. Shawn, while not an imposing physical speciman, doesn't mind at all mixing it up with guys bigger than him. That's why he's successfully been able to flourish playing the 4 for Phoenix. With Smoove, his mental game is the thing that will take him far in this league. He has all of the physical tools imaginable. It's his mental game that needs further development. Good thing he's only 20. He'll have plenty of time to become mentally tougher.

When you go through their entire preview of the East, they have Boston ( 42 - 40 ) and Indiana ( 41 - 41 ) gaining the #7 and #8 spot. Boston is now one of the wild card in the East. If Rondo keeps playing as well as he is now, they're going to be a factor all season. Hopefully, their issues as a shooting team will come back to bite them once again. But with Telfair and Rondo, they've definitely upgraded the guard positions. I think we're the other wild card. Even if we play poorly against the West, we could be a major hinderance to teams in the East, because we match up much better with them. If 41 wins is what it will take for the Hawks to get in, they'll need to win about 55% - 60% of their games vs the East.

That makes sense. If it comes down to Boze, Frieje, and Glyn on who makes the active 12 . . the nod will probably go to Bozeman, solely because he could be an extra defensive option against PGs and 2 guards. Starters: ZaZa Smoove Marvin JJ Speedy Reserves: Chill Shelden Lorenzen Salim Lue Ivey If the max roster is 15, that means there are 4 spots left . . ( I thought the max was 14 though ): - Bozeman, who is decent and may be better than Ivey ( may make the 12 man rotation ) - Solomon Jones ( whom we've not seen, but will probably get the benefit of the doubt . . . probable D-Leaguer) - Glyn, who may make the team simply because of his size ( Probable D-Leaguer ) - Freije, a nice shooter to bring off the bench. For you old school NBA fans, he's like a Matt Bullard. Remember him? ( Definite D-Leaguer ) - Batista, the banger of the bunch who always comes to play his "C-Game" . . lol. ( may make the 12 man rotation ) Freije may be the odd man out, in this group.