Sekou: Kwame & Randolph Morris on Hawks' radar.

[Packfill]

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Kwame would be a good player to bring off the bench because he plays great post defense but you cannot expect him to score or put him on the floor with players who cannot create their own shot. Randolph Morris wouldn't be bad either because he is still young and can become decent.

Does Kwame play "great" post defense?

[frosgrim]

The idea of Kwame isn't all that bad if he only costs around 2-3 mil per year. Size is always good to have.

Some other issues from the blog that I found more intriguing:

Item 1

"So I poked around a bit more and found that not only has Stefanski been intrigued by Smith’s talent since he was a high schooler coming out in the 2004 draft, he also has a longstanding relationship with one of Smith’s agents, Brian Dyke, who is also Kenyon Martin’s agent. Stefanski worked in a similar capacity in New Jersey when Martin was there and was in almost the exact same situation as Smith (if you remember, the Nets dared Martin to find a team willing to pay him more than they wanted to and he did just that and left in a sign-and-trade deal with Denver)."

Looks like Philly is going to make a hard sell to Josh. Josh's agent is the same guy that worked out the Kenyon Martin deal with the Nuggets. This informaiton is NOT good for Hawks fans. If Josh wants to leave, his agent can find a way for that to happen.

Item 2:

SENDING MESSAGES: Another thing that has been lost in our ongoing dissecting of this Josh Smith/Josh Childress situation is the message the organization sends to the rest of their players with their actions this summer.

A scout friend mentioned this to me in a conversation last night and it’s a valid point that I didn’t really consider until then, but the guys watching this stuff as closely as anyone are Marvin Williams, Joe Johnson, Al Horford, Mike Bibby and any other Hawks player that will be in this same situation in the near future.

“They’re watching this to see how the Hawks handle Josh and Josh because it will be a sign as to how they’ll deal with other guys,” my scout friend said. “Smith and Childress are the two guys the Hawks started this whole [rebuilding] process with, and if they don’t do right by them … man, why would they do right by anyone else? People have long memories. They remember what happened with Al [Harrington] and how he waited all summer for something to happen and then got played. Players don’t forget that stuff. Agents don’t forget that stuff. And I guarantee you other teams remember that stuff because there is a lot of talent on that [Hawks] team. If they can’t keep things together, people will come around trying to pick them apart.”

As Sekou says, this is very important with the way the rest of the team reacts. Letting Smith go to save $s certainly will put a bad taste in the mouth of JJ and Bibby, and possibly Horford. There is a reason why no one likes playing for cheap organizations. The biggest one is that once you go there, you assume you will be gone once you get expensive. Hurts the fanbase as well.

[Diesel]

Looks like the ASG wants to increase Fanbase by adding relatives of GA Natives. Maybe that means we're going after Damien Wilkins and Lou Williams too?

[Diesel]

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Id love for us to get Kwame to come in and get some boards and fouls and rough other teams up. Id also like to see us offer Keven Pittsnoggle to at least our summer league team and maybe some spot shooting minutes during the season. Hes 7' tall and can shoot the 3. Wouldnt help us much defensively but could be a spark plug off the bench as he averaged 15 ppg in the DLeague last year so hed be cheap

I loved Pittsnoggle in WV. I think he was a part of our SL team last year too. He'd be a nice pickup.

[Chris18]

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Kwame would be a good player to bring off the bench because he plays great post defense but you cannot expect him to score or put him on the floor with players who cannot create their own shot. Randolph Morris wouldn't be bad either because he is still young and can become decent.

Does Kwame play "great" post defense?

Yes but he sucks at everything else.

[AnakinJoe]

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Truth be told, both of those guys (Morris & Brown) are probably on the opposite end of Al Horford, in terms of hard work and smart play. We need more like Horford to "change the culture" which Sund claims is his mission.

Another way to look at this: What if Horford's work ethic rubbed off on Brown or Morris, a la Garnett (Perkins, Powe, Baby)?

Kind of hard to compare KG's credibility as an NBA superstar (and future HOFer) to Horford's limited resume, which pretty much includes very little as an NAB player. So while it is a nice thought that Horford could rub off on Brown or Morris, I'd rather not put my 2nd year player in a position where he is mentoring other guys (with more NBA experience). I think that is a fundamentally flawed idea, asking Horford to be a KG type leader in his second year.

[AnakinJoe]

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I think Sund meant the culture of losing. The Hawks locker room seems mild in comparison to other locker rooms around the league. The guys seem to get along and they played hard when it counted. They won every game they played at home during the Playoffs. That's all you can ask of an 8 seed that squeaked into the Playoffs. The most controversial things that happened during that series was Hortford talking smack to Pierce(justified) and Smoove saying that the Hawks were going to shock the world. Oh, and Woody wearing his Championship ring. But I'd say the culture right now is just fine. This team doesn't back down from anybody. The best thing that Sund could do is keep this team together and add either Brown or Morris. Maybe Morris playing with Smoove might wake him up and make him play up to his potential.

I think work ethic and losing is related. I just think that if we're about to invest major bucks in Smith, we don't need to tempt him to "back-slide" by bringing in guys from his days when athleticism was sufficient. I'd rather have our limited coaching staff spend all of their energy on Solomon than have it split between Solo and Morris. We have Solo to serve as our ongoing big man project, what we need now is a big man who already knows how to rotate on defense, defend a high pick and roll, set a vicious screen and crash the boards with reckless abandon. Please, NO MORE PROJECTS.

[Diesel]

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Truth be told, both of those guys (Morris & Brown) are probably on the opposite end of Al Horford, in terms of hard work and smart play. We need more like Horford to "change the culture" which Sund claims is his mission.

Another way to look at this: What if Horford's work ethic rubbed off on Brown or Morris, a la Garnett (Perkins, Powe, Baby)?

Kind of hard to compare KG's credibility as an NBA superstar (and future HOFer) to Horford's limited resume, which pretty much includes very little as an NAB player. So while it is a nice thought that Horford could rub off on Brown or Morris, I'd rather not put my 2nd year player in a position where he is mentoring other guys (with more NBA experience). I think that is a fundamentally flawed idea, asking Horford to be a KG type leader in his second year.

I think you can say that something Horf does is contagious. We were out of the series until Horf starting talking smack in game 2. I think the winner in him is good for our team.

[Kimsey]

I don't know about you all but I actually prefer Morris out of the two.

He showed some post moves against us in NY but just wasn't dropping for him. They are both dumb as bricks but Morris has better hands, with that alone I take him.

He has only played with a very dysfunctional org. his career and hopefully some home cooking can do him some good.

[Packfill]

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Kwame would be a good player to bring off the bench because he plays great post defense but you cannot expect him to score or put him on the floor with players who cannot create their own shot. Randolph Morris wouldn't be bad either because he is still young and can become decent.

Does Kwame play "great" post defense?

Yes but he sucks at everything else.

You are the first person I have heard call Kwame a "great" defender. Maybe I am missing something but I haven't seen it in the few opportunities I have had to see him play.

[Johnnybravo4]

All I know is that the Lakers could have used Kwame Brown during the finals. I'd rather have him guarding Garnett than Pau any day. Anytiime you can bring a cheap 8/5 player off the bench for cheap then you gotta go for it. Besides, he's only 26, he's played for a team full of chuckers in Washington and in the triangle in L.A. a system in which big men are afterthoughts so he really hasn't been in a system that works for him. I think that under the right system, he could have a sort of Tyson Chandler type of career renaissance.

[DrReality]

Truth be told, both of those guys (Morris & Brown) are probably on the opposite end of Al Horford, in terms of hard work and smart play. We need more like Horford to "change the culture" which Sund claims is his mission.

I agree with that and don'[t think that either of them is much to get excited about. The fact that some shows how desperate we are for a big. But I'd be surprised if we have a choice and that it comes down to a choice below them.

[DrReality]

further thought . . . . . I would think Morris has more upside given he's been in the league a shorter length of time and did not get to play a whole lot with NY.

[AHF]

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further thought . . . . . I would think Morris has more upside given he's been in the league a shorter length of time and did not get to play a whole lot with NY.

I think Morris could be a contributor but I don't think he has a lot of upside. The reason he didn't play in NY is because he is similar to a poor man's Curry - decent scorer, not that tough, modest rebounder.

[Chris18]

Mabey getting back to Atlanta will light a fire under one or both of these guys.

[DrReality]

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further thought . . . . . I would think Morris has more upside given he's been in the league a shorter length of time and did not get to play a whole lot with NY.

I think Morris could be a contributor but I don't think he has a lot of upside. The reason he didn't play in NY is because he is similar to a poor man's Curry - decent scorer, not that tough, modest rebounder.

My point is that he has some upside, but I don't see where there is any of it left for Brown. he's been traded a few times with teams thinking that and it has just not panned out. Don't see Morris as a starter, more like a Mohamed kind of player. Maybe he'd push Za.