In all seriousness, if we can wait til summer...

[hotboyj]

WE WILL BE A PLAYOFF TEAM NEXT YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This summer's free agent crop is full of talent we actually have a chance getting. There isn't a team that this years free agent class can help more

The pg's:

Speedy Claxton

Marcus Banks

Jason Terry

Darell Armstrong

Nick Van Exel

Chucky Atkins

Sam Cassell

Bobby Jackson

The sg's/sf's:

Keith Van Horn

Bonzi Wells

Demarr Johnson

Voshon Lenard

Tim Thomas

David Wesley

Fred Jones

Flip Murray

Jiri Welsch

Richie Frahm

Rasual Butler

Trevor Ariza

Jim Jackson

Matt Harpring

Lee Nailon

Jamal Mashburn

Big Men:

DJ Mbenga

Nene

Francisco Elson

Drew Gooden

Lorenzen Wright

Olowokandi

Ben Wallace

Jared Jeffries

Chris Wilcox

Tony Battie

Kelvin Cato

Pryzbilla

N. Mohammed

R. Evans

V. Radmonovic

Aaron Williams

L.Woods

Then we still have Chillz and Lue as trade bait.

Along with the option of keeping our top 3 pick or trading it.

Then we hopefully can do a sign-and-trade with AL.

Even if Al walks, we still should be a playoff team.

Sure things are looking bad right now, but this should be our last year in the basement.

My Best-case scenario:

Keep our top 3 pick.

Trade Chillz/AL/Pachulia to Chicago for this year's NY 1st rder.

Trade Lue for a big man with a cheap contract(any big man)

Sign

Speedy Claxton

Matt Harpring

Jared Jeffries

Drew Gooden

Olowokandi

Cato

Draft in 1st Rd:

Lamarcus Aldrige

Rondo(with NY pick)

Dee Brown(in 2nd rd)

team of

Rondo/Claxton/Salim/Brown

JJ/Harpring/Salim/Ivey

Smoove/Marvin/Donta

Gooden/Jeffries/Batista/some 6-10 nobody

Aldrige/Olowokandi/Cato

Bring in Keven Willis on coaching staff for veteran leadership.

[mudderfudder77]

Dream much?

So you think the Hawks, best case scenario, will be able to sign:

Speedy Claxton

Matt Harpring

Jared Jeffries

Drew Gooden

Olowokandi

Cato

And you want to trade Pachulia - one of your few consistent players - for a draft pick along with Chillz to a team that already has no need for Chillz and limited interest in Harrington?

If I'm not mistaken Chicago has more cap space next year that Atlanta, and I'd be surprised if the Bulls didn't make a run at Harpring themselves.

[ATL22]

We're supposed to become a playoff team with a rookie PG, rookie C, a SF that is inconsistent and not a big outside threat, and Gooden at PF? I'm not seeing that.

That free agent class doesn't have me that excited. No true PG's in there so we can only get one by trade or draft. Other than Ben Wallace and Nene, the rest of the big men may or may not be able to come in here and fill our huge defensive hole in the middle. Might be nice to get Nazr back. But the rest of those guys are marginal starters or backups from what I can tell and Atlanta is going to be a real tough sell to any more free agents until we start getting some W's on the board. Hopefully we can add some key pieces by trade and in next year's draft but I don't look for big things. We're just going to have to give it time until our guys develop.

[Packfill]

The only two names on that free agent list that are even remotely interesting are Speedy Claxton and Ben Wallace.

The signings/trades/draft picks you propose leave the team with only one legitimate scoring threat and three starters age 21 or younger. Not exactly a receipe for success.

[Yeti]

We'll get a PG in the next draft and then when the Bigs come out in 2007 Phoenix will get our pick. (You know it's bad when you start looking to the draft in November.)

[VDiLetto]

here's the big question...why would any free agent want to come here?