we better not trade anybody

[gsuteke]

no trades unless it's a role player like Delk.

as for Al those proponents of moving him i will make a few points.

first of all I understand the logjam at forward argument. however, both josh and marvin are 19 years old. they are atleast 2 years away from supplanting Al at his position. alot can happen in 2 years. why free up the spot?

how in the hell would we get equal value in return for Al? he's the best player we have, much better than Joe IMO. even a top ten pick wouldn't hold Al's value IMO.

if we start moving players around we are no longer building, we are experimenting.

this team looks like it is going somewhere. a few more 2 to 3 game winning streaks and we may get that call on the Childress foul at the end of the game.

[CrawDaddy]

I disagree that Al is our best player. He is great on the offensive end--no doubt. But he may be our biggest liability on the defensive end. There is no other player on our team that stands around and watches layups more than Al. If he would exude the same energy on D that he does on O, he would be so much better.

Great offense + Terrible defense = Average

[Lascar78]

you're missing a major point in the whole argument: Al is about to be a free agent. If he signs a huge deal in the offseason, will you be willing to match? I won't. So we need to know if Al plans on staying for relatively cheap. He has hinted that he's only staying if he can be convinced that we'll be winning soon. How do you do that with no trades?

Soooo, if it becomes likely that we will lose Al, a trade is the only way to not lose Al without getting anything back. Even getting a lesser player like Watson back who can fill a need would be waaay better than losing him for nothing.

That's why the Artest trades are interesting. If you can trade a guy you're going to lose anyway for a (arguably) top 15 player, is that worth it?

Anyhow, I think most people would agree with you if Al was signed here for 4 years. But he's not.

[Vafan]

Pluse we get Artest for around 7 million for the next two years. That is a steal and something that needs to be factor into the equation. Harrington will probably be at 9 million at the min.

[swolehawk2]

R. Miller was quoted today I think questioning Artest's commitment to winning ..that guy is a little touched and you want to bring him to Atl....I am just gald you make no decisions for this team or any team.

I would trade AL for you, before I would trade for Artest to come lead this team.

[exodus]

They may have to trade Al. A front line of Al and Zaza is simply too weak defensively for the Hawks to ever be contenders. Zaza will be here because he is under contract for 4 years at a good price. That means one way or another Al will be gone.

If they lose Al they will feel it the most in the 4th quarters of winnable games. The young guys will be forced to step up and make big shots and they don't seem to be ready for that. Maybe they will get a player back who will help.

The team D will certainly be better though.

[gsuteke]

i don't watch enough basketball to argue with you guys on the defensive liability AL brings. he's the only guy I see on the team that can create his own shot right now.

and that's a problem.

[Diesel]

I think we keep this thing together at least til the offseason...

Like i said before, Al is definitely loving his role right now. Like him or not, he's the leader of the Hawks. I think before March we will have several big winning streaks. I see a 10 game streak after we play Philly at home. I think all these things will start to pull this team together. We won't win 40, but we will be competitive....

As far as Money is concerned, it's not my money, so I don't care. However, there just aren't many teams with money big enough to come after Al. There will be N.O. but that's it. I think either way it works out, if Al wants to move or if he wants to stay, we can accomodate him. I just don't think he will be one to run off and leave us empty handed. He has a very good working relationship with BK... The conditions dictate that he would probably do a SNT somewhere if he must be traded.

I say keep these guys together because their chemistry is starting to come together.

[uga2006]

Al is our biggest liability. He takes to many jumpers and is weak on D. Without Josh Smith everyone would drive on the Hawks. Al isn't tough enough to be a 4 and dosnt shoot well enough to be a 3 he is simply a great 6th man reason why he never started in Indy.

[macdaddy]

Last year I was disappointed in Al but this year I think he's shown he deserves to be the leader of this team. As Steve Kerr said he's too fast for most 4s and too big for most 3s to guard. Al/Smoove/ZaZa can be a bruising front court if they are given time to work together.

No one has talked about it but the all 6'8" lineup has been looking good these last few games. Granted we have Lue at point but the rest of the lineup has been Chill/Marvin/Smoove/Al/JJ interchangably for long streches. Its causing problems for other teams. We're getting into the lane and getting a lot of rebounds. On D its hard for the opposition to get open looks.

[mrhonline]

Quote:

---

Al is our biggest liability. He takes to many jumpers and is weak on D. Without Josh Smith everyone would drive on the Hawks. Al isn't tough enough to be a 4 and dosnt shoot well enough to be a 3 he is simply a great 6th man reason why he never started in Indy.

---

He's a GREAT 6th man - one of the best in the game.

But it's all moot, because the chances of Al staying in Atlanta are slim. (Unless, of course, the Hawks eggregiously overpay him, which would be a huge mistake).

The Hawks need to be shopping for the best value they can get in return, hopefully a PG or PF. I wonder if the Hawks could get involved as the 3rd team in the Artest trade...

...The Hawks send Al to the Pacers, where he's welcomed by Jermaine & Co.

...The Pacers send Artest to the Western Conference, where he thrives, for a month.

...Some WC team sends a PF or PG to the Hawks. (Perhaps Andre Miller to Atlanta???).

[Iman]

Sounds like most of us agree, Al is a good player but we're not sure if he gives us a strong enough frontline due to his defense and we dont feel he'll be worth we'll have to pay, especially since we have his replacements in training.

Here's how I see it likely going down. I dont see us getting a good enough offer to let Al go, including no great SnT's. The new owners and BK plan to resign him, to some degree just to show fans/players that the Hawks are serious now. We still make moves/draft to pick up other key pieces then we trade Al in a few years. This allows our young players to grow with less pressure although less PT. In a few years, we'll better know what we need to make us contenders. This delayed move can also be used to free up money later so we can resign our young core.

Al will get a little too much money from us given we really dont need him but it's not like it's been easy for us to sign free agents lately anyways and we do have plenty of capspace still. Who knows, if we draft a good point and decide Chillz has to play the 2, then we may even do the same thing with JJ instead.