TheNorthCydeRises

no no no no no no . . .. YEAHHHH

Seriously? WTF kind of bounce was that on Green's 3?

LOL . . . damn. That's why we can't pay you max money man. He's having a great game though. Just not a closer.

Oh wow . . . Pierce didn't want it with Josh guarding him. OK Horford or Kyle . . knock the shot down and send us home. Maybe a Teague floater as well.

( crying like Nancy Kerrigan ) WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!! WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!! Da (( bleep )) was that?? SMH So how does this movie end? Oh yeah . . . Paul Pierce jumper to beat us?

"The Unstoppable Play" - lob from Smith to Horford for the jam!! Gotta love it. Tie game . . . and we have the ball. LET'S GET THIS DONE !!

Keep attacking Josh. Don't settle. We're right there. One more stop.

Well like I said AHF, you're talking about a franchise that had a 5 year playoff drought, with virtually no hope for the future if they couldn't land Dwight. They were about to lose Deron. And they had no one coming to that franchise that would help them get to even playoff level. Their owner will simply deal with the money issues when they come up. Wish we had an owner that wasn't terrified of paying a few million in Luxury Tax every now and then, to try to build the best team possible.

Hawks can't get a stop when they need to. Korver is a complete liability right now. Glad Drew took him out.

SMH . . . and you know who is killing us right now. Jordan Crawford = 9 points Entire Hawks bench = 5 points

IN OTHER NEWS Deron Williams 33 points at halftime . . . 9 for 11 from 3 point range And he hits another one . . . 10 - 13 now. Come on Hawks, need a stop right here.

Ivan ( personal reasons ) Uh oh. He and Drew must've had some words again, and Ivan said f--- this.

Teague still looking great. Hell of an up and under move by KG on Al. He looked like Kevin McHale right there.

So what was the alternative AHF? Deron was talking about not coming back and going to Dallas. They had a bunch of scrubs on the team from their sell-off of Jason Kidd, Vince Carter, and Richard Jefferson. They traded off what would be their top lottery pick ( and Damian Lilliard ), for Gerald Wallace Their halfway decent center was coming up for a new contract. And they were about to move into a new city and a brand new arena. So what were they supposed to do? Hope Orlando would accept any sort of package so that Dwight could go to Brooklyn? Hope that the Lakers would say . .. "naaah, we don't want Dwight, you take him and give us Brook Lopez and Kris Humphries?" What were they supposed to do? Stay a horrible team, and hope that they can get a lottery pick to transform everything in the future? They have a rich owner, who wanted to make a splash right now. So he got a 6-time All-Star ( albeit an overpaid one ). He retained his All-Star caliber PG. And he signed what would be an All-Star center. But people clown the Nets because of what will happen 3 years from now? Please. That franchise was going nowhere, and needed to do something significant. They did just that, and made themselves relevant again. I don't see how anybody can fault what they did, when there wasn't a better alternative floating around.

Name the "A Level" players you want. Then name some "B Level" players. Then see who the Hawks can realistically get. You could very well see 4 - 5 of our free agents brought right back to ATL, on longer contracts, simply because Ferry didn't want to overpay one or two people.

Diesel, great points. And a lot of people around here are going to be highly disappointed come November, if our prized possession with our cap space is a re-signed Josh Smith. Dwight is not coming. Chris Paul is not coming. So who do people think we're going to spend money on? More important, who do people think we can spend "market value" on, without overpaying them? The fallacy of Simmons' article is that when all of those guys were given contracts, team(s) saw value in all of those players. Some of those guys turned out to be busts, but a lot of them saw their contracts become overvalued when better players were brought to the team in future years. This took playing time and minutes from that particular player, thus, making their contracts horrific. From eddielives: I am still nothing short of completely and utterly amazed that New Jersey took Joe off our hands. I mean it really baffles the mind that Danny Ferry was able to convince them to take him. Eddie, how about this for perspective: The Nets have currently played 61 games, which is the equivalent of 49 games in last year's 66 game season. Do you know what the Nets record was after 49 games? 15 - 34 . . . ( .306 winning percentage ) After 61 games this season, the Nets are 35 - 26 . . . ( .574 winning percentage ) They're currently on pace to win 47 games, which would equal their best regular season record in 9 years. And like it or not, Joe Johnson is a major reason why they're having success right now. They have an owner who is not scared at all of the Luxury Tax, so he's willing to roll with a 90 - 100 million dollar team and not even blink an eye, provided that the team has success in the playoffs. If they crash and burn in the 1st round of the playoffs, the season will be a disaster for them ( despite this being their 1st playoff appearance in 9 years ). If they get to the 2nd round, but don't get it done, the season will be disappointment. But if they get to the EC Finals, their season will have been a success. Instead of saving money, and rolling with Anthony Morrow, Yohan Petro, Jordan Farmar and Deshawn Stevenson, the Nets saw an opportunity to get a guy who can still play at a high level ( despite his superstar like contract ), and add other good players around him. Joe Johnson this year ( even in a down year ) > all of those guys Whether or not the Nets can get to the EC Finals remains to be seen. But at least they're going for it and not worrying about contracts. We as Hawk fans can NEVER say that the Hawks ever "went for it". Maybe when we added a good, but old Moses Malone after the 1988 playoff loss to the Celtics. But since then? Nope. That's why I can't dog Mark Cuban for adding overpaid mediocre players to add with Dirk, and see if they can get him his title ( they eventually did ). That's why I can't dog what the LA Lakers have consistently done over the years, basically saying to hell with a Luxury Tax. That's why I can't dog what Miami is currently doing, because it worked out for them. What happens if a team tries to "poision pill" or frontload Jeff Teague's contract? What happens if Korver gets a 2 yr - 16 million deal from some team desperate for outside shooting? What happens if Al Jefferson gets close to a MAX deal from a team, and we had our eyes on Jefferson? And 3 years from now, what do we do with Al Horford, when he himself may be talking about a MAX deal? What do we do? I'll tell you what we're going to do. If we want to stay competitive, we're going to PAY, just like every other team in the league does.

Next 4 games ( both are back to backs ) @ Boston vs Brooklyn @ Miami vs LA Lakers

No way Rubio is the 3rd best PG on that list. He can pass, but can't shoot to save his life. He isn't durable. And he gets torched on defense. There is no way in hell I'd trade Teague for Rubio. I'll go on record right now to say Ricky Rubio will NEVER be an All-Star, or even be in the mention for an All-Star berth ever in his career. 1) Curry 2) Lawson 3) Jennings 4) Holliday 5) Teague 6) Collison 7) Rubio 8) Price 9) Douglas 10 ) Maynor 11) Flynn

From Boston tonight ( Mar. 8th ) to Boston ( Mar. 29th ), the Hawks go on what is essentially a 13 game gauntlet that will go a long way in determining their playoff seeding. And in that stretch, there is maybe only one "easy" game . . but we lost to them last week ( Phoenix ). The Hawks currently have the 29th weakest schedule in the NBA, but that's about to ramp up in these next 13 games. - 4 sets of back to back games - 2 games vs Boston, Brooklyn, and Milwaukee ( 4 of those on the road ) - Have to travel to play red hot Miami ( won 16 in a row, and - Lakers are back on track ( won 11 of last 16 since Feb 1st ) - Pacers have won 12 of their last 16 - even games vs Dallas, Toronto, and Portland will end up being dog fights. - with no Gortat, Phoenix looks like the potential "breather" game. If we win 10+ of these games, I think we'll be in good position for that 3rd seed 5 - 9 wins probably keeps us where we are right now. 4 or less wins, and we may be in danger of falling down to even the 8th seed. It'll be interesting to see how this team responds in these games the next 3 weeks.

Remember, the benefits of HGH has to do with recovery and energy, and not necessarily to bulk up and get huge, like with steroids. Al came back from an injury that we all thought would put him down many months, only for him to come back in the playoffs and arguably be our best player in the games he played in. Josh is another guy who recovers very quickly from injury, although he hasn't had a major injury yet (( knock on wood )).

People make jokes, but Al Horford and Josh Smith could be lumped right in with guys like Lebron and Howard. Anyway, HGH testing would be the last thing that the NBPA would be worried about. Widespread marijuana testing however . . .

BREAKING NEWS ( draft night ): Al Horford has been traded to the Brooklyn Nets for Kris Humphries Ferry: "Guys, it's all about cap flexibility. We have to stay flexible so that when Lebron or Kobe decides they want to come to Atlanta, we'll have the money to sign them. I want to be at least 25 million under the cap every season, so this is a way to achieve this goal. As for Kris, he's a good rebounder and he's a cool guy." http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMA6gMEEjEc

Something to think about when talking about this team. The Hawks are 9 - 19 when they score less than 100 points. ( 1 - 12 in our last 13 games when scoring less than 100 ) They're 25 - 7 when they score 100 or more points. ( 13 - 3 in our last 16 games when scoring 100 or more ) So regardless of whom the team is, the Hawks have kind of proven that they can't win low scoring types of games. We have to run them into the ground and let our guards control the pace. In the first matchup vs Brooklyn, the Hawks guards controlled the pace, led by Teague with 28 points. Devin and Lou had a combined 29 points. Horford played . . Smith didn't. Hawks won the rebounding battle by +4 In the 2nd matchup vs Brooklyn, Teague and Harris did their thing, but Lou was totally ineffective. Smith played . . Horford didn't. Hawks lost the rebounding battle by -13 ( due to Reggie Evans grabbing 20 rebounds ). Brooklyn plays at the slowest pace in the league, and has the ISO and post players to win games playing that style. So of course, the Hawks would have to speed the game up . . significantly. Yes, the Hawks can beat Brooklyn. But only if the guards have complete control of the game and push the pace. If we get dragged into a halfcourt, grind it out battle, we'll lose.

Way to bounce back man. Masterful performance by Teague tonight on the offensive end of the court. He was in complete control all night and played with a high level of confidence. We'll need more of that Friday night in Beantown.

If we retire #8, we better retire #55 and #2 as well.