Packfill

Let's be honest, Zaza is not a very good player. If he was any good the team would not be in dire need of a back-up big man. Zaza is a decent rebounder and hustle guy but he lacks athletic ability and skill, making him an inefficient offensive player and average defender only on his best days.

I agree. My only concern is that it will be hard to have such incrediblly good fortune as far as having no injuries for a second season in a row. It is pretty amazing how injury free the team was this past season when you think about it.

Couldn't a Chills trade to the Wiz be akin to the Nets salary dump of Yi? Hawks clearing some money off the books with the potential JJ deal looming.

You aren't seriously comparing an over the hill Moses, Theus and Dominique to LeBron, Wade and Bosh are you? As wing players, LeBron and Wade are better than Dominique ever was.

That "source" in each instance is his agent who wants as robust a market for his clients services as possible - both to illicit offers from other teams and to force the Hawks to pony up a max deal.

In terms of the "help" that Al is refering to I think it is pretty obvious that what the team needs is a burly bench player that can handle some of the guys that Smoove and Horford can't handle because they are both undersized for their position. The team needs someone like Kendrick Perkins to bring off the bench to handle the Dwight Howard's of the world. That or they need to trade one of Smith or Horford if they want to be something other than a playoff also ran. They could also use someone who can score in the post. Maybe Teague can become the type of penetrating point guard the team has needed for 6 years now - the type that can get into the paint and dish to take advantage of the Hawks mobile undersized big men.

If they are lucky they will miss the playoffs. an even worse fate will be being just good enough to get a bottom seed and punted in the first round.

I would like to see Zoubek brought in as a replacement for Morris. I think he could be better than Zaza in a few years, provided he can stay healthy.

Actually, AHF was limiting his list to just players picked in the top 5 picks in the second round over a ten year period, so a total of 50 players. So we are talking about a 30% success rate, which is actually much higher than I expected. If this moves does allow the team to resign JJ than great, if they don't than it is emblamatic of an ownership group that is undercapitalized. They aren't the first such ownership group, but it does raise questions about where the team is headed.

Kobe is very good, certaintly better than Dominique ever was, but not quite Jordan/Bird/Magic territory.

C. Crawford is redundant to Crawford for now and is a bit undersized to be a starting 2. If tthis means the front office is basically throwing in the towel on resigning JJ then maybe this is an F, as it is a sign the team is heading in the wrong direction. Hopefully the Atlanta Spirit sell the team.

At the end of the day, the Hawks effectively traded Boris Diaw, Rajon Rondo and Robin Lopez for JJ. Given the teams limited playoff success, not exactly a home run, but not a bad deal either.

In short, no. JJ is far and away the best player on the team and to lose him will cause the team to go backwards in at least the short term. Worst case scenario is to become a consistently mediocre team as it substantially limits (although there are obvious exceptions) the franchises ability to upgrade since it won't have a high enough draft pick.

I agree. Loosing JJ will be a significant downgrade and Salmons is nowhere near the same caliber of player. I am not sure he is even better than Crawford.

Both those guys could easily be out of the league in three years. If I had to choose one I would go Whiteside. That said, I rather go after a project big man in the second round, even someone like Zoubek or Jordan, and get a viable wing in the first round assuming JJ is leaving.

I think the thing with a player of JJ's caliber, to win a title he needs to be at best 1(b) in terms of best players on the team. Chicago, in Rose, has a guy who could be 1(a) (or even 1, making JJ the 2nd best player on the team). Chicago also has some decent defensive oriented bigs. Chicago still needs someone who can consistently score in the low post, but so does Atlanta. Chicago is also a bigger market with owners that may be more committed to spending money to win a championship.

I wouldn't want Arenas under any circumstance. He is completely unreliable at this point.

I feel the same way. Cousins scares me a bit though. Would be better if the team had a real veteran leader to whip him into shape - I am thinking someone like a KG to make sure he gives maximum effort.

I would trade either one of them for Brook Lopez. Oden and Bynum certaintly have the talent to be top tier centers but both have medical issues which have held them back to date.

The good news is that if Sund doesn't get the job done this off-season he will be fired and we will be talking about GM candidates this time next year.

I find it hard to imagine there is a 6'11" dude the team could sign for the MLE that would be half as good as Smoove. So in reality, I don't see how that free agent ends up starting.

Compare the roster of the team each year to the following season. Just looking at the roster from one season to the next, given how devoid of talent and inexperienced it was to begin with almost guaranteed an upward trajectory. We are talking about a team that was historically bad, dangerously young, with minimal payroll. So again, that the team improved as it aged and increased payroll, is not so much of a surprise. Just look at this year compared to last. Last year the team was younger, lost over 50 player games to injury just from the teams top 6 players and won 47 or so games. This year, the teams front line is a little older, they bring in a new sixth man at increased cost, sign two veteran big men and only lost around 10 player games to injury from the teams top 6 players. They won 53 games. The only player who you would expect to see a decline in performance from due to age was Bibby, but the team was theoretically attempting to mitigate that by bringing in Crawford and using a first round draft pick on the position. Just given those facts, wouldn't you expect an uptick in wins?

Finally!!! I have waited for this day for so long. Sund has a lot of work to do this off-season. I hope he is up to the task.

I think you could make the argument that Marvin's failure to develop into a top tier player, given his lofty draft status, has effectively capped the teams performance somewhere below title contender. Billy Knight had 5 lottery picks to work with, 4 of them in the top half of the lottery, and came away with one bona fide starter (Horford), one borderline starter (Marvin), one decent backup (Childress) and a couple end of the bench types (Law and Shelden). That is not exactly a receipe for success in the NBA.

I can't complain about the JJ trade, but looking back on it 5 years later, the trade was Boris Diaw and two picks, which I believe became Rajon Rondo and Robin Lopez, for JJ and a big contract. If Billy Knight does not have that trade in his back pocket, does he still take Marvin over Paul or Deron? Does he take Shelden over Roy? At the end of the day, I think Joe Johnson has been everything this franchise could have hoped for. He never was going to be Kobe Bryant. I think this team would take a significant step backwards without JJ and outside of positioning to get a high lottery pick, I don't see what the plan is to become something more than the team is now. Maybe a good coach could find a way to take this group to the next level, but it will take some luck and a real point guard to do so.