TheNorthCydeRises

Everybody will be coming after Millsap. And Carroll will get a significant deal from someone as well. Just wait until next summer, when we'll have to make a financial decision on Horford.

Koonin is just absolutely tremendous. And I love his marketing focus. Targeting the 2.1 million Millennials in Metro Atlanta is absolutely the right thing to do. They're the ones that are coming into their own in their careers and may not mind one bit spending some of their disposable income on Hawks games. Koonin is the face of the franchise this team has always needed, in order to help sell the team to the city. Next to Bud, I'm hoping Koonin will be one of the ones seen as being indispensable by the new owners.

Here's a question. Would the Hawks be enjoying the success they've been having right now, if Mike Budenholzer wasn't the coach, but still had the exact same players on the team? Or how about this question: If you had to choose which guy to lose, who would it be? Danny Ferry or Mike Budenholzer? Thank GOD for Ferry's previous connection to the Spurs. It enabled him to have the inside track to hire the best coach in franchise history. Without that connection, a guy like Quin Snyder is our coach. Does Danny Ferry deserve to get credit for what is happening? Yes ... because he hired Bud. Is Danny Ferry the most important element to the success of this team? No. That almost solely goes to Bud and his uncanny ability to develop players and put people in the right situations to be successful. What Bud has done with the confidence of Jeff Teague is nothing short of amazing. The same guy that 1/2 of the fan base doubted, is arguably the MVP of the team right now. The bottom line is this. If people want to forgive the exiled GM and give him another chance to do his job, that's great. But if push came to shove, and we had to choose between Bud or Ferry ... you choose Bud 10 times out of 10. Bud is the indispensable one in this franchise, not the GM. If Bud had total control, I trust him 100%.

I don't want to lose to Golden State under ANY circumstances. I was in the building last year when Iguodala made that 3 to beat us. The streak is tremendous. But beating Golden State would represent one of the last obstacles we need to hirdle, in order to erase any doubt about how good this team is. I could actually see the Hawks losing to New Orleans on the road, or even to Washington that Wednesday before the Golden State game. By the way, that's an extremely tough stretch of games coming up vs Portland next Friday vs Philly on Saturday .. 3rd game in 4 nights @ New Orleans .. 2/2 vs Washington .. 2/4 vs Golden State .. 2/6 @ Memphis .. 2/8 And I think it will be that game in Memphis that may be the most likely loss in that stretch. The Memphis game would be the 7th game in 10 nights. Howeva .... If the Hawks DO run the table and win those 6 games ( plus Brooklyn this Wednesday ), you're looking at a 23 game win streak .. and a very favorable schedule coming up, despite most of those games being on the road. Nique's statue game vs Cleveland could potentially be the chance to extend the win streak to 32 games. How insane would that be to go into that game with a 31 game win streak? Then we'd have to go to Philly to tie the record ... and home vs Sacramento to break the 33 game win streak record. LOL @ even talking about a remote possibility to break the all time win streak, when we didn't even have a winning streak of more than 7 games in the past 15 seasons.

Thank you for putting your foot down on this. This is the best regular season stretch of basketball in our franchise's history. People should be overjoyed with the way this team is playing. I was a positive fan for a long time ... then I turned more critical and dark. Now I'm just loving how this team plays, especially on defense. From my perspective, I could care less what Durant or anybody else says about this team. The record speaks for itself. And this team finally has the full attention of Atlanta. Forget a bandwagon. We may need a few Amtrack trains for all of our new fans, before this is all over.

??? If Teague has been inconsistent, what was Al Horford back in November? Teague has arguably been the MVP of the Hawks this year.

When looking at NBA Finals matchups, the best NTR rated team only won 5 of the last 11 championships. But the better defensive rated team of the 2 have won 8 of the last 11 titles. And it would've been 9 out of 11, had Popovich not taken his best defensive player out of the game, enabling Miami to get that rebound and for Ray Allen making that 3.

The only metric you need to trust in ... is the NTR ( Northcyde Team Rankings ) ORtg + DRtg* / 2 = NTR * Defensive rating is adjusted, since the strength of most good to great teams is predicated on how well they play defense. So I'll add a multiplier to the overall defensive rating, depending where they are ranked. Defensive multipliers: Top 5: ( DRtg x .700 ) .. elite defense 6 - 10: ( DRtg x .850 ) .. good defense 11 - 20: ( DRtg x 1.00 ) .. avg defense 20 - 25: ( DRtg x 1.15 ) .. bad defense Bottom 5: ( DRtg x 1.30 ) .. horrible defense Top 10 teams ( lower the number the better ) Golden St ( 2.35 ) Atlanta ( 4.55 ) Portland ( 6.2 ) San Antonio ( 7.75 ) Houston ( 7.9 ) LA Clippers ( 8.5 ) Dallas ( 10.0 ) Memphis ( 10.5 ) Washington ( 10.9 ) Toronto ( 11.0 ) Note: Most NBA Finals teams have an NTR rating of 8 and below. Most NBA Champions are at 6 or below. At 2.35, Golden State is the strongest NTR team since the 1995 - 96 Chicago Bulls ... who posted a perfect 0.85 rating ( seeing that they were #1 in offense and defensive rating that season.

Levien will make Gearon look like a saint.

Not defensive at all. I'm just saying that you could do this same thing with Teague during that time, and get a wide range of opinions .. mostly negative.

When this team started playing defense, they took off into the stratosphere. With most people talking about the offense, it's been the defense that has fueled this blazing hot run. Never in my wildest dreams did I believe that they could play defense like this.

Hilarious. Now let's do this same exercise for all of those people blasting Jeff Teague during that same time period.

It's not about talking trash. It's about exuding confidence in yourself as a player and in your team as a whole. This is what Isaiah is talking about. Read the article carefully. http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-heat-spurs-bolch-20140603-story.html It's nothing over the top. It's simply having a stated goal of a championship and not being afraid to say it. Of course we're talking about a player in Duncan who had already won 4 titles before getting #5 last season. So it's easier for him to have that confidence. That mental transformation for the Hawks doesn't have to take place right now. But it will have to take place soon. If it doesn't, the team may not be mentally tough enough for battle in the playoffs. Ask the Clippers and Chris Paul what it feels like for everyone to say you have a top level team, but not have the mental swagger of a championship level team.

This is what I'm talking about AHF. Fans are just a little too emotional and not thinking rationally. We all know what the history of the NBA is. The team that normally wins a NBA title either has a superstar on it, or has a player capable of playing like a superstar at any given moment. Isaiah isn't criticizing Teague. He's simply wanting Teague to be that superstar for us. And sometimes, for people to recognize you, you have to do superstar things. Jeff Teague has a lot of Kevin Johnson in him. And when KJ finally reached his peak as a PG, that dude was a flat out MONSTER to contain. Teague is showing signs that he can become that type of player. But he has to have that KILLER in him most nights, to get to KJ's level. Isaiah wants to see some "championship swagger" out of the Hawks. He wants them to verbally talk like a championship contender. That's not the personality of this team, so they won't say it. And honestly man, a fan base that has no idea what it is like to have serious championship aspirations on a yearly basis, can't discount the comments of a 2X NBA Champion - Hall of Fame player ... when it comes to what it takes to win a title.

As an adverting/marketing guy myself, I love this insight from Koonin. He completely understands Atlanta. I've criticized Hawks marketing for years, and for Koonin to come in and change a multitude of things overnight, is flat out great for the fans of this franchise. It also shows how completely out of touch Levenson was about the market, despite him also caring about the fans. His research probably showed him that the average season tIcket holder was probably an "Alpharetta Unicorn", and that he needed to cater more of those types of fans .. but admits that factors outside of basketball may keep them from Philips. Koonin, on the other hand, correctly identifies the demographic segments that could and should be grown the most ( Blacks and Millennials ), due to some of them viewing Hawks games as social events, as well as sporting events. ( That's why the Tinder Night was a success ). 17,000+ for a weekday game featuring a non-superstar team .. when it was 15 degrees outside. That's damn impressive.

Some of yall are too emotional. Isaiah is simply saying that Teague needs to not hesitate to take over a game if need be. It's the same thing most of the Teague haters have always said about Teague, before he consistently started playing All-Star level basketball. Teague is very good right now. I have no problem with his play. But if we get in a playoff game, and Horford and Millsap have a lackluster game ( like they did last night ), Teague is the one person on the team that could possibly carry the Hawks offensively for a 4 - 5 minute stretch. It's the same thing Isaiah used to as a player. He dialed back his game a lot during the Bad Boy years. But when he he needed to"turn up", Isaiah had the ability to do it. Killer = dog. The fan base has always cried about Teague's passiveness. But when someone nationally says that he needs that "killer" in him, yall get mad?

Some of you may need to know that Dortch is one of Dominique's closest friends, and was the one who has been trying to get a statue for Nique for a few years now. But the exiled GM told Dortch that "we dont do statues". He's also close with Gearon and Seydel. Yall must have missed this back in September. http://saportareport.com/blog/2014/09/more-calls-for-hawks-gm-danny-ferry-to-step-down-as-focus-turns-to-star-dominique-wilkins/ When you see the quote by Dortch, and combine it with what Seydel said about wanting to still be involved with the Hawks ... those guys know something all of us don't. I'm predicting that Gearon and Seydel will be bought out at around 200 million, only to buy right back in, when the new ownership group puts about 15% - 20% up for sale.

Mid-January through early February will be an important time to really sell this team to Atlanta and the Metro area. They will play 9 of 10 games at home, and have big matchups vs Oklahoma City, Brooklyn, Portland, Washington, and Golden St. I think if the Hawks go through this stretch with a 7 - 3 or 8 - 2 record ... and beat OKC, Portland, and Golden St, you'll really see the area really get behind this team. Keep it going Hawks. Make them respect you.

Definitely an underrated and memorable sports anchor. A lot of people didn't like Stuart's style. Thought it was "too ethnic" at times. I'm glad ESPN gave him the latitude to do what he wanted to do. RIP

Happy New Year to all. And may the Hawks keep ripping opponents to shreads.

And here I am, thinking I'm the only Hawks fan in Clarksville. Welcome to the forum.

No one is making you bad talk the guy. You're doing this on your own. Willingly, I may add. In the Orlando series in 2011 . . . JJ was - Absolutely stellar in Game 1 - Didn't help Jamal nearly enough in Game 2 - Scored 17 1st half points to give the Hawks a 9 point lead at halftime . . in Game 3 . . ( I was at that game. And I had Jamal's bank shot game sealing 3 pointer on video at one time ) - Scored the final 10 points for the Hawks in Game 4, to hold off the Magic, and take a 3 - 1 lead in the series - Stunk it up big time, along with the rest of the team . .outside of Josh Smith . . in Game 5. - became a volume shooter, along with Jamal, but they did just enough scoring to get us the win in Game 6. In that series, the Hawks DID NOT WIN, unless JJ scored 20 points or more. In the 2 games he didn't reach that mark, the Hawks lost. The same would ring true in the following series. When JJ reached 20 or more, the Hawks won. When he didn't, they lost. If we all can admit that JJ wasn't a superstar, can we also admit that he didn't have enough help when we needed it the most, to elevate the Hawks further in the playoffs? Don't blame Diesel and I for looking at the good things that group did. Blame yourselves for wanting to downplay what little they did do, so that you can prop up King Exile. If and when these current group of Hawks reaches the same level or above what the JJ led Hawks did, I'll gladly give them their props, along with your King. Until then, Bud gets all of the praise, as well as the players who are balling right now.

Awwwww. Too bad that will never happen. I take that back. If this franchise starts winning championships or start being a perennial participant in multiple EC Finals, it might happen. Until then, JJ will belong in the same category as guys like Lou Hudson and Steve Smith, as one of the great guards this franchise has ever had. 5 playoff appearances 5 All-Star selections ... as a member of the Hawks Only 2 other players since the Hawks have been in Atlanta, can say this. Lou Hudson & Dominique Wilkins

After getting off to an insane 46 - 13 start, Indiana closed the season going 10 - 13. They were playing the WORST out of all the East .. check that .. out of ALL of the playoff teams going into the postseason. In essence, that #1 seed we were playing, was acting more like an 8 seed in the playoffs.

Playoff appearances in the Joe Johnson era 2008: lost to Boston 2009: beat Miami, lost to Cleveland 2010: beat Milwaukee, lost to Orlando 2011: beat Orlando, lost to Chicago 2012: lost to Boston Playoff appearances during the exiled GM era 2013: lost to Indiana 2014: lost to Indiana Let's just try to be accurate when talking about this. We need this group to get to the 2nd round, before any declaration can be made about them being better than what we used to have here.