TheNorthCydeRises

As for the topic, I'll admit that the Hawks seem to have every scenario that they need break their way, happening the way it needs to be happening. What we need now, is some sort of rift or controversy between Griffin and Paul . . . and Kobe and Dwight. Once that happens, we could definitely see one or both of those guys not coming back to their old team. Things will get very interesting then.

It could definitely be done. It was always going to be a big money team who made a play for JJ, if the Hawks wanted to deal him. I thought it would come going into Years 5 and 6 of his deal, not going into Year 3. Now I'll give you the speed in which it got done, was incredible. The JJ deal was a rumor on late Saturday night and a reality by early Monday morning. The Marvin deal came like a bolt of lightning. Absolutely no one saw that coming. But even that deal, it was Utah that saw value in Marvin. They desperately needed a wing who could shoot the 3. Marvin shot 39% from 3 in 2011 - 12 and 50% from 3 in the playoffs vs the Celtics. Utah took a gamble by trading a player they were unhappy with, and it failed. Ferry doesn't get major props for dealing those them to two teams who saw value in them. He gets major props for how quick he did it. Let's hope he works that quick once this offseason begins, and locks in the guys that he's targeting.

- Ferry didn't work a "financial miracle". He simply traded away our 6 time All-Star to a team that believed that he still had a lot of value and could help them do big things in the future. - Coach Bud is definitely an accomplished assistant coach. - This ownership group will get credit for spending money, when they go well into the Luxury Tax. What they're doing now, is easy. - True. - False. We've had a top 10 caliber team in ATL for about 3 - 4 years now, and it didn't translate into more National TV appearances. We will only get more exposure on National TV when we land a superstar(s) or get to the NBA Finals. Even this run by the Pacers isn't going to translate into a lot more National TV for them, because the Pacers have a small fan base. They'll have to win the title in order for their exposure on TV to really increase. - Players like to "play" in Atlanta. They like to "live" in Atlanta. They don't necessarily clamor to play AND live in Atlanta. Let's just let all of this play out. Don't get your hopes up about what "could be", then come crashing down because it didn't happen.

Horford will never be a full time PF, but hopefully he can play the position 70% - 75% of his minutes. Like the rest of you, I call BS on this article. Makes no sense to make West a free agent target . . . unless some of the names that are being thrown around like Howard, Paul, and Jefferson are going to be locked up by their current teams. I think the only reason why West was mentioned, was because we're probably losing Josh.

Drew will absolutely love Larry Sanders. He's the anti-Josh. Good luck to Drew in Brew-town.

Anytime you can see something done right in front of you, instead of behind the scenes later on, I think that it gives the process more integrity. As for the process that I suggested, I think it would pretty much keep fans of those lottery teams engaged for the full 30 minute broadcast, instead of simply waiting 25 minutes to finally see the Lottery results ( which were already done earlier ). We'll just have to agree to disagree I guess. The Lottery will continue to be done like it is, so I'll never see how my suggestion will play out.

No . . . what needs to happen is for the Hawks to decide early. Ferry needs to express to Howard's and Paul's agents that they really need to make some sort of decision by July 1st, so that the Hawks can either sign both of them, or forget about them and move on. Last year, Brooklyn did the right thing in not waiting on Dwight to make some sort of decision. A decision that he ended up not making anyway, because Orlando acted in their best interest, and not necessarily in the best interest of Dwight. This is on Ferry. Get them signed right at the start of free agency, or move onto Plan B.

If memory serves me correct, it was Doug who got all of the player awards off of that team. But he turned out to be the worst pro player out of everybody on that Florida St. team. That team not only had Edwards and Cassell, they also had Charlie Ward running the point, and Bob Sura coming off the bench as the 6th man.

JT was a much better player in Atlanta, than people give him credit for. Everybody knew he was more of a combo guard who was forced to play the point. But he did have a year in which he averaged 7.4 assists. And the dude could score the basketball. Babcock's failure to put any kind of bench around Terry and Reef, was the true downfall of those Hawks teams in the early 2000s.

He was 8 - 24 FG that game for 20 points. Sheed was gunning away like he was Kobe. Took 6 threes too ( 1 - 6 ). He did get 5 blocks though, and he did play hard. I always said that the player that Josh wanted to be like, was Rasheed Wallace, and not Shawn Kemp.

LOL @ people turning on Teague. Dang. Before that missed layup in the Skills competition, he could hardly do any wrong. This is easy for me 1) Danny Manning . . . never liked him, even when he was at Kansas. Despised what he did to this franchise, by leaving us hanging ( although that did enable us to sign Dikembe ) 2) Jamal Crawford . . . the REAL ISO player on the Hawks. He was his own And-1 mixtape, with all of that dribbling and crazy shots ( that sometimes went in ). No player in Hawks history got more of a pass than Jamal. 3) Vladimir Radmanovic . . . a guy who Drew let take minutes from Marvin for a short stretch, even when Marvin was shooting the ball efficiently. Vlad was the so-called better 3 point shooter, although he couldn't hit a dang thing.

You need to explain how it would be easier to fake then, when everybody in the room, watching TV, and online, would have access to each team's number combinations before each pick. Heck, even if you wanted to do something like print each team's combinations of numbers out to the reps before each pick, you could do it. That way, they'd have 2 forms of validation . . . the paper in front of them with the number combinations, and the TVs in front of them showing the number combinations. I think you're believing that I'm doing everything on computer. No. I'm still using the ping pong balls. I'm still having Stu draw the numbers out. I'm just giving the process a way that it could be presented live, and still be engaging to fans. And one of the ways to do that, is to give everybody the ability to view the number combinations for each team, as the numbers are chosen for each pick. Each team would always keep their original number combinations through picks 1 and 2, if they haven't already been selected in those positions. But as a team is selected, their number combinations are split up and added to the remaining teams ( preferably by percentage, so that the teams with the worst record can gain a little more of the advantage to get the remaining picks ). If we did the lottery like I suggested, we could've actually seen how close we were to getting the #1 or #2 pick back in 2007. Stu is drawing for the 1st pick, and he's drawn 1 - 7 - 8. And only 4 teams left have that particular number combination, going into Stu's final number pick. PORTLAND . . needs a 3 to win MEMPHIS . . . needs a 5, 6, 12 or 14 to win BOSTON . . . needs a 4, 9 or 11 to win ATLANTA . . . needs a 2, 10 or 13 Of course, we know that Portland ( with their 5.3% of a chance to win that year ) won the lottery and got that #1 pick. So if the number that was chosen was a 3, Hawks fans would know they were merely 1 number away from possibly getting that pick. I don't know about you, but that would be far more interesting and entertaining to know in real time, than just seeing the current selection process, and knowing that we got the #3 pick. Instead of believing that we were lucky to just get the #3 pick, we would've seen that we were VERY CLOSE to getting that #1 pick. With this current process, the only people who would know, are the representatives in that room who see Stu pick out those numbers.

LOL . . . no it wouldn't. Do you actually think they need all of those charts up, to show which number combinations each team has? Do you think they need an accounting firm to verify a FOUR NUMBER COMBINATION pulled from a lottery machine? Seriously? They could EASILY put all of the number combinations for each team online. They can still pull each number from the archaic lottery machine. They could show all of those number combinations on cheap flat screen TVs hooked up to a computer. And they could make the process much more dramatic for not only the top selection, but also the #2 and #3 positions. Instead of all of that "fluff" that they present to us for 25 minutes, before actually revealing the results, they could actually show the drawings live on TV for each of the 3 lottery spots, and add a little bit more spice to the process. I guess with my advertising and marketing background, I see things differently. Script for Draft Lottery show - (( 30 minutes )) Segment 1 - (( 4 minutes )) - Announcer Intros - Give a quick rundown of the teams in the Lottery - ESPN will explain the drawing process, how the number combinations determine the winner, and how the combinations will be reshuffled after each pick - Tell fans to go to ESPN.com and NBA.com to see the number combinations that their team has ( by clicking on their team name ), before each selection. (( Commercials - 2:00)) Segment 2 - (( 8 minutes )) - Do about a 2 minute highlight package on the top 5 or 6 players that people believe will be chosen in the top 3 - Introduce the representatives from each team - Start the lottery drawing for the #1 pick Example: Stu Jackson will quickly explain how he will pick out 4 ping pong balls with numbers on them, and how after the 4th number is drawn, the 4-ball number combination shown will match a combination that one team has. This will be the team that gets the draft position. ESPN will then show a graphic on the side of the screen, listing all of the teams in the lottery. As each number is drawn, the teams that doesn't have the number combination currently shown, will disappear from the list. For people following online, they will see this same thing on their computer screens. STU: "I will now begin choosing the number combination for the team who will have the 1st selection in the NBA Draft" - The 1st ball . . . is 14 . . . ( ESPN graphic shows 3 teams disappearing from the list, with 11 left ) - The 2nd ball . . . is 5 . . . ( ESPN graphic shows 4 teams disappearing from the list, with 7 left ) - The 3rd ball . . . is 2 . . . ( ESPN graphic shows 3 teams disappearing from the list, with 4 teams left ) STU: So right now the number combination is 2 - 5 - 14. I'll draw one more number to complete the combination. - ESPN then decides to do a few quick interviews with the 4 remaining teams that are in the running for that #1 selection (( Commercials - 2:00 )) Segment 3 (( 7 minutes )) - Announcers do a quick recap of the teams still in the running, and flashes the graphic of the 3 numbers already drawn. They do a 4-split screen shot of the teams remaining as Stu draws the final number from the lottery machine STU: "The 4th and final number is . . . 8. So the winning number combination is 2 - 5 - 8 - 14." - ESPN graphic immediately shows the team who has that number combination, and it is revealed to the room. - Fans at home and online also see it immediately on ESPN, ESPN.com and NBA.com - ESPN does a 60 - 90 second interview with the rep of the winning team, while they get to show their #1 pick and jersey. STU: "At this time, the number combinations from the winning team will be divided up by "slot percentage" to the remaining teams in the lottery. Once this is completed, the reps will be shown their new number combinations for their team, and we will begin the drawing for the #2nd pick in the draft." - Number combinations are redistributed, and a new combination chart is shown online and by ESPN. Fans once again can click on a link in which their number combinations are shown. ( We live in a technological age folks. This can be done in seconds. ) STU: "I will now begin choosing the number combination for the team who will have the 2nd pick in the NBA Draft. - Repeat drawing process shown for 1st selection. - Stu draws the 4 numbers from the lottery machine. - Winner is announced - Quick interview of the winner of the 2nd pick - Number combinations are re-distributed once again (( Commercials - 2:00 )) Segment 4 - (( 5 minutes )) - Announcers do a recap of who got the first 2 selections. - In ESPN style, they may also make fun of a team who may have had the most chances, but missed out on the 1st 2 picks - Stu Jackson goes through the selection process for the 3rd pick in the draft - Winner is announced. - Rep from winning team is interviewed End of program Of course, you guys will either disagree that his can be done, or if this will make the Draft Lottery a little more interesting. But it definitely can be done. You don't need an accounting firm to verify a 4 number combination that everyone can see. A few college interns with computer programming and graphic skills could make this process better. Let the TV execs add whatever bells and whistles they want to the show. But it can be done.

That's cool. But just understand that if you, and others like you are boycotting the ownership because the Thrashers were sold off, you're also not supporting the Hawks. So if the ownership group has control of the Hawks for another 10 years, that's 10 more years that you as a die hard Hawks fan refuses to support the team by going to a game. And that simply means that there's one more open seat for a bandwagon fan to actively root AGAINST the Hawks. It is your business to do what you want to do with your time and money. But the facts still ring true. As long as fan apathy exist in that metro area against the Hawks or the ASG ( or for whatever reason ), we will ALWAYS be looked upon as bad fans. Period.

As long as our building will have 30% - 40% of the crowd rooting AGAINST us in big games, we will always have the perception of having a bad fan base. I know the hometown fans hate being called "bad fans", especially if you're a fan who actively supports the team by going to games. But when Kyle Korver can get booed LOUDLY at the FT line at the end of a game, in his own home arena in a big game, that says something about our fan base. It means that our fans ( as a whole ) aren't loyal or hardcore enough to not buy up tickets to prevent bandwagonners from getting their hands on those tickets. Heck, some of us even SELL our tickets to those bandwagon fans. The fact is that even 1/2 of Hawksquawk probably didn't even attend a game this year. So if we don't make a commitment to attend a game, how can we expect NBA fans as a whole to respect us as fans, or our franchise? If it makes some of you feel better, Miami has worse fans than Atlanta. But the fact they have 2.5 superstars playing on their team, make them have a national fan base, even if their local fan base sucks.

I think Ivan is off the table for the Hawks, and Dejuan Blair is now in play as a backup PF.

Damn. I've been working so hard today, dealing with bull crap at work, that I haven't followed anything today. Didn't even know the result of the b-ball game until about 30 minutes ago. So the Hawks hired Mike B. If the goal was to hire the best assistant coach available, then this was a good hire. Hopefully Bud will coach up guys like Horford and possibly Teague, and get them to play at a higher level. Having current and former players heap praise on him, while also having him come from under Popovich, are the positives of this. He's obviously going to be a guy who knows what he's doing. The question is going to be if he can get his players to buy into whatever he's teaching them. I just hope he doesn't talk out of both sides of his mouth, like Drew had a tendency to do.

Sign Al Jefferson Re-sign Teague Re-sign Ivan Go after Tony Allen Go after Corey Brewer Go after Samuel Dalembert Draft Shane Larkin Draft Tim Hardaway Jr I want that Horford - Jefferson frontline in ATL. PG - Teague . . Larkin . . ( Lou ) G - Allen . . Lou . . Jenkins F - Brewer . . Hardaway Jr . . ( Allen ) PF - Horford . . Ivan . . Scott C - Jefferson . . Dalembert

No, I get what you did. It's just that people may choose to pick that option because both commissioners are disliked. You'd get a better feel of how people thought, if they had to choose between Goddell and Stern. That's like picking between Rosie O'Donnell and Whoppi Goldberg, as to which one you'd marry, if you were forced to marry one of them.

My choices: - Free agency after the draft ( NBA ): The NBA Draft takes place about a week after the NBA Finals are over, thus, there is very little down time between the end of the season and the Draft. In the NFL, however, the Draft takes place almost a full 3 months after the Super Bowl. So I understand why the NFL has their free agency period before the draft. The NBA's system is fine. - Non-guaranteed contracts ( NFL ): With the amount of busts and guys who play may dramatically fall off from year to year, the NFL's system of non-guaranteed contracts would be the way to go for most NBA teams. But I don't know if it would help change things a lot, from a balance of power standpoint. Take Dwight Howard for example. The current system benefits us right now, because we have the cap space to offer him a significant deal ( although still not more than the Lakers ). But under the NFL system of non-guaranteed contracts, the Lakers could use their wealth to give Dwight a lot more money upfront, than we could. I could see the Hawks offering Dwight a 4 year - 65 million deal . . with a 20 million signing bonus . . with 40 million guaranteed. That would essentially be a 4 year - 85 million deal for Dwight. On the other hand, I could see the Lakers offering Dwight a 5 year - 70 million deal from the Lakers . . with a 40 million signing bonus . . and 50 million guaranteed. This would be a 5 year - 105 million deal for Dwight. Even if the Hawks guaranteed all of the money, the power play the Lakers could do would really make Dwight think twice about coming to ATL. - Draft Lottery ( NBA ): I actually like the fact that the worst team in the league isn't guaranteed the #1 pick. But they can make the Draft Lottery process better. I'd prefer a Draft Tournament involving the remaining 14 teams. The winner of the tourney gets the #1 pick, the runner-up gets the #2 pick, and you slot the rest by record. But if they wanted to keep the current lottery process, they could tweak it more to make it more transparent, or even jazz it up a little. - David Stern ( NBA ): As much as I don't care for the dude, most of the things he's done for the league have been good. Players and owners may dislike his condescending tone and actions on things, but I don't think many players flat out hate the dude. Can't say the same about Goddell. Players have a hatred for that dude, and fans don't really care for him either. The things he's doing and implementing isn't in the best interest of fans or the players. He's operating in the best interest of owners by lining their pockets with even more money. The fact that this dude wants to add 2 more games to the regular season, or add 2 more teams to the playoffs, instead of simply reducing the pre-season, shows just how much he cares about the players. He's all for "safety", but not if it means that owners and the league lose a week's worth of revenue.

Please take off the Commissioner Gordon option. Make people choose between Satan ( Goddell ) and the Devil ( Stern ).

Mace . . . the process that the NBA is doing, is 20 years old. They don't need all of those charts showing the different combinations that the teams have. And it doesn't have to be a boring process. They could do this all on computer, and post it online, so fans could know exactly what combination of numbers they'd need for their team to win. And if they do what I suggested in my previous post, they could still do all of this in real time. As each number appears, ESPN could show a graphic on the screen showing which teams still have that possible combination of numbers. As we got to the 3rd and then the 4th number, fans would be hanging on the edge of their seat . . . waiting on that 4th number. Hell, I could see ESPN executives even telling Stu to STOP before they picked that 4th number . . . run a few commercials . . do an interview or two with the teams still in the running . . and then select the 4th and final number for that #1 spot. After missing out on the first 2 selections, could you imagine how Hawk fans would've felt, if after 3 numbers drawn, we were still in the running for that #3 pick? Maybe we would've also seen how close we were to getting one of the top 2 slots, but didn't have our number drawn. So what if we were in the running once again to get that final pick in the top 3. That would be much more drama, than listening to 10 minutes of meaningless interviews, then finally seeing where we were slotted. The NBA and all of the "old heads" running the show, can come up with something newer and a lot more interesting than what they do now. We have the technology to do all of this. This is not 1993 with all of us on running Windows 3.0 and Windows NT. And if ESPN can make the NFL Draft a watchable event, even after the 1st round, I'm sure they can come up with things to spice up the NBA Draft Lottery, if given the right information.

To expand on this, the NBA is just lazy, in my opinion. One of the supposed issues with their current selection process, is the fact that even when you pick the #1 - #2 and #3 spots, there could be times in which the same team's lottery numbers could be selected, when choosing those #2 and #3 spots. I know there have been instances in which multiple drawings had to be done ( more than 5 ), in order to complete the selection process. In reality though, there is no reason for this. If a team is selected, just divide its lottery combinations with the other teams. Example: Currently, the team with the 4th most chances possess 119 combinations ( out of 1000 ). So let's say in the drawing for the #1 spot, they're selected to get the 1st pick in the draft. All they would have to do, is just divide their lottery combination chances with the other teams. You can do it one for one, or divide it by continue to weigh the combinations according to record. If you did it one for one, each of the remaining 13 teams would get 9 additional combinations added to their chances. So the worst team would now have 259 chances, instead of 250 . . . while the team with the least amount of chances would now have 14 combinations, instead of 5. #1: 250 + 9 + 1 = 260 #2: 199 + 9 + 1 = 209 #3: 156 + 9 = 165 #4: SELECTED AS 1st PICK . . . ( 119 combinations available ) #5: 88 + 9 = 97 #6: 63 + 9 = 72 #7: 43 + 9 = 52 #8: 28 + 9 = 37 #9: 17 + 9 = 26 #10: 11 + 9 = 20 #11: 8 + 9 = 17 #12: 7 + 9 = 16 #13: 6 + 9 = 15 #14: 5 + 9 = 14 You would have 2 more combination available ( 9 x 13 = 117 ), so go back to the top of the list, and give those 2 combos to the teams with the top 2 chances. If there were 6 combinations available, you'd give the remaining 6 to the top 6 teams, etc. When the next team is selected for the #2 pick in the draft, divide up the total combinations left between the two selected teams, and give them to the remaining teams in the same fashion. OR If you wanted to still weigh it by percentage, the worst team would get 25% of the 119 combinations that the #4 team left available. So now you're talking about the worst team getting 30 additional combinations, instead of 9, bringing their total to 280. The worst team, however, with a 0.5% percentage of combinations, would only get 1 additional combination, instead of 9. #1: 250 + 30 = 280 + 2 = 282 #2: 199 + 24 = 223 + 1 = 224 #3: 156 + 19 = 175 + 1 = 176 #4: SELECTED AS 1st PICK . . . ( 119 combinations available ) #5: 88 + 10 = 98 + 1 = 99 #6: 63 + 7 = 70 + 1 = 71 #7: 43 + 5 = 48 + 1 = 49 #8: 28 + 3 = 31 + 1 = 32 #9: 17 + 2 = 19 + 1 = 20 #10: 11 + 1 = 12 + 1 = 13 #11: 8 + 1 = 9 + 1 = 10 #12: 7 + 1 = 8 + 1 = 9 #13: 6 + 1 = 7 + 1 = 8 #14: 5 + 1 = 6+ 1 = 7 In this scenario, you still have about 14 combinations left over ( because the percentage of the #4 team wasn't factored in the split amongst the other teams ). Two ways around this. You can simply evenly divide up the remaining combinations with the rest of the teams, adding 2 to the #1 slotted team, and 1 to the rest of the teams. OR You could've moved each team behind the #4 team, up one slot, and give them the percentage combinations slotted for that position. So now, the #5 team gets the #4 teams percentages. The #10 team gets #9's percentages. And so on and so forth. The one remaining combination ( of the #14 slotted team ) would go to the team with the most combinations. The NBA acts like they don't have the technology to do this. But maybe they want everything to be in secret, just to keep some idea that it IS rigged going in the minds of fans heads.

The main problem with the lottery, is that the selection process isn't done on live TV. Why in the hell would you need an accounting firm to confirm the results, when all you're "supposedly" doing, is picking out ping pong balls to determine who is selecting in the 1 - 2 - and 3 positions? And yes, I know with the way that they do the lottery, there is a possibility that a team's group of numbers could be selected multiple times. And for the results to be truly legit, you'd have to select the #1 position first . . then #2 . . . then #3. That'll take some of the drama out of the selection show, although not much. While all of the teams would want that #1 spot, I'm sure teams who have a limited number of ping pong balls, would be elated if they were selected to get that 2nd or 3rd spot. The actual broadcast of the lottery might be more entertaining if they did it like that, and showed all of the results live. So why all of the secrecy around the lottery process? Just do the dang thing live on TV.

Diesel, there are better backup centers in the league than Zaza. Do we want to put ourselves in at least the Eastern Conference Finals, or do we want to keep fan favorites around?Retaining Zaza simply continues the trend of not going all out to build a champion.