LOL, STFU, GTFO! Shuddupwretch...

[Diesel]

The 90s team was definitely better. That team was based on defense and it is easier to be consistent on D than on offense since jump shooting will always be up and down.

A prime Deke would make this team look a lot different.

The main thing I was getting at was that that team was better because they had very good players at the optimal positions (PG, C).

Let's be honest: Craw, Powell, Zaza and Teague are a whole lot better than Ivano, Recasner, Whatley, Pig Miller, and the rest of the ham and eggers that showed up in the 90s. The team was also better coached.

It makes me think, what would this team be if Young Lenny Wilkens were the coach?

[Joker]

The core of the 90s team is better. We don't have a Crawford off the bench, but we had Craig Mack. lol However, if you're going by position then this is not even a contest in my mind.

PG - Mookie over Bibby on both ends of the floor by a landslide. Maybe Bibbs of 8 years ago was a little better offensively, but defensively...pfft. Bibby also doesn't penetrate. Mookie drew attention and found open guys.

SG - Smitty and JJ is a wash.

SF - Marvin and Corbin is pretty much a wash. Both good defenders, but we didn't pay Corbin 10 million a year lol...so Ty wins that by virtue of his pricetag. Seriously though, Corbin wasn't a scorer at that point in his career, but he gave you all he could. Marvin could do more, but he is not a scorer. SF is a wash.

PF - You have to go with Smoove. But both Laett and Hendu showed promise. And I con't care what anyone has to say...people forget that year Laettner got an All-Star nod. He was beast. I'd take that Laettner over Smoove!

Center? - LOL, Deke was TRUE man. God...we'd MURDER and PILLAGE for Deke right now. There are precious few teams in the past 20 years that can say they even had a true center. He was a nose bustin', shot swallowing, monster and he was an absolute black hole for rebounds. LOL, man Deke would go out there and score 30 points (some kind of damn way), grab 27 rebounds, and block 15 shots!!! Probably my favorite center of all time. And that's regardless of the fact that he was a Hawk - I just love big guys that play like that.

Defensively? Man, the 90's team would SMOTHER these cats. We'd hold them under 70ppg. Bibby couldn't dribble it anywhere near Mookie.

Coaching? We're not even going to discuss it.

Bench? If you take away Crawford, it's a wash. The rest of those guys are dime-a-dozen. I've got no choice but to give you Craw, but by the same token you have to concede the defense of the 90's team, the fact that they had guys at their proper position, and that they had a TRUE center, and that they had Lenny Wilkens. Outside of Crawford, what is much better about our current club?

PG- Mookie>>> but Mookie was in his prime and Bibby on the decline. Bibby offense is close to Mookie's though.

SG- Joe, not that close, you guys just remember the positives and not the down side of Smitty. I like Smitty but Joe the best player we had since Nique.

SF- Marvin>>Corbin in terms of talent, Corbin>>Marvin in terms of playing his role for the team. Corbin played like a role player, Marvin shows talent but looks lost.

PF- Smoove and it's not close.

C- Horford>>Deke in terms of talent but Deke is a center who is a dominate defensive anchor and Horford is a really talented PF. Out of position and doesn't match the position. Deke was a much better player for what we needed him for than Al. But Al is much better, just like look at his Eff, USG%, and PER.

Overall, this is a much more talented team, probably more talented than any Atlanta team ever but the fit is pretty bad. That Hawks team was not talented but they fit and played great defense with high bball IQ. We have some smart players now (Joe, Al, Bibby) and some dumb ones (Smoove, Jamal, Teague, Jordan) and some in-betweens (Zaza, Marvin) with the non-existent (Collins, Thomas, Wilkins). That team knew how to play Basketball, this team doesn't.

The bench isn't a wash. That team had no bench and this one has the best bench player in the league. This team's bench>>>> that one.

Edited December 16, 2010 by nbasuperstar40

[Wretch]

I did say if you take away Craw then it's a wash. Crawford is the only super-sub between either of those teams.

ZaZa? Mo? Powell? Collins?

Cak? Ivano? Recasner? Ehlo?

I mean...lol, what are we really comparing here? By the way, i have to add...don't hate on ER and Ehlo. They were solid bench players. I distinctly remember ER in the playoffs vs. Detroit one year that saved the damn day. And Craig Ehlo was completely solid as a backup SG off the bench. Crawford makes our bench stronger, but the rest of them cats...dime a dozen. The bench is a wash if you take away Crawford, but you can't so I concede that bench to this one.

Deke vs. Horford? Shoot me, strangle me, heckle me, burn me...I don't care. MAN...

I would take Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo over an ASSLOAD of HoF centers.

I would take him over Ewing, Hakeem, Shaq, Dwight Howard...and I am not even kidding. I would take Deke in a nanosecond. Wouldn't even think twice about it. People forget that Deke shut the paint DOWN. Closed. Go home. No soup for you. Shoot a jumper. Don't even look in there. "Not in the house of Mutombo." lol He shut that sh!t DOWN. Mookie and Smitty would harass the pants off of the perimeter and at the end of the clock would just side-step those cats and not even look at Deke. Dikembe over Al Horford is not even a thought in my mind. I'd take Deke all day long. ALL. DAMN. DAY. ANY DAY.

...lol, but anyway.

Don't have much to say about JJ vs. Smitty. JJ is stronger and better at the penetration. Steve Smith's jumper was automatic. They were both VERY good. Slight edge to JJ I guess because of Smitty's knee issues and he wasn't as strong, but they pretty much bring the same impact. If you put Smitty on this team instead of JJ, you have the same team. Except Horf, Smoove, and Marv have more room to operate in the paint.

D...I'm not familiar with Lenny's Coaching style before he got here. He always had a tight rotation though, right? If that's the case...I'd say the young guys would suffer, but you'd be looking at a team that would seriously lock down today's NBA.

...and he would have put a gun to BK's head and said, "NO" when he traded for Bibby. lol Not Lenny's kind of PG at all. As a matter of fact, we would have drafted Deron Williams I'm sure of it.

[Joker]

Smitty and Joe are not the same. Joe is much better. It's like not like Kobe to Joe but it's like Joe to Stephen Jackson. Steve defense wasn't that good. It was okay. Mookie and Deke was were our defensive machines. Even in his mid 30's, Joe will still be a starter. No way can you even think Smitty better when he was on the bench when he was 30 years old.

LOL, your delusional if you would take Deke over D12, seriously? That's Diesel territory of poor logic. If your talking about Centers, I would take Deke over Horford but as a player or PF? No f**king way!

Damn you can't even compare the stats. It's that wide of a gap. Deke win shares aren't close to Al's. Horford is so much better without even without using stats. Wow, if your talking about for the center position, I would take Deke since Al not a center. If you say for Center: Deke or Karl Malone? I would take Deke but as a player. No way!

Deke was a defensive anchor, one of the best in NBA history. But he's no Dwight Howard. He's no Bill Russell. He's not even Ben Wallace in the years he peaked. He is who he is. Great defensively, limited offensively. A very good players who I would say is a borderline All Star type. In the same category with Smoove but with more defensive impact and less offensive impact.

Lenny X's and O's were good and his defensive philosophy was great but the team was a bunch of vets so they did what they were suppose to do as vets. In the playoffs, the lack of offense is what did us in. We had to put a lot on Smitty and he just wasn't that good. Our issue now is this team plays disorganized but that team just wasn't good enough. I still remember the series v. Grant Hill and the Pistons. Ugh. I think Lenny was good here but he wasn't great. This team is so much more talented than that team and that team was really boring.

Edited December 16, 2010 by nbasuperstar40

[AHF]

I love Deke. I'd still take Hakeem and Shaq over him. I don't think it was a coincidence that they were the best players on NBA Champions. I'm not sure Deke would ever fit that criteria. (Iverson was the MVP over him when they got destroyed in the finals Deke's one time getting past the second round during his prime).

[Wretch]

Can't remember how many times I heard that "The Hawks are...boring." I agreed. The problem wasn't that they were limited offensively, they had the same problem that we do. That is, neither team has a true #1 option. Joe Johnson is a good player. He's one of the best players in the league and he's an All-Star. He is by no means a scrub and I'm one of the few people that had nothing to say about his contract. So that should tell you something right there. Joe is very good. Players like Kobe and Dominique though will go down as an all time great. In the same vein, Smitty was very good. (I did not say Smitty was better.) They both bring the same thing to either team - that is, I don't see either guy being able to take either team any further.

By no means do I believe that Dikembe is the player that those hall of famers are. Not on offense. Though Deke had decent enough game for around 15ppg (with the occasional 20-30 point outburst) they were all much better offensively. Conversely, Dikembe was in a different league than those guys on the other end. At 40 something, he was still manhandling the paint... The guy was nothing short of a phenom on the glass and defensively and he was a true center. I'm not comparing him at PF to Al, I'm comparing starting lineups with Al at Center, and I'd take him any day of the week. If we're talking draft picks, I'd take him in a nanosecond. Not delusional at all.

Dikembe was not as good as Ben Wallace? Oh wow... Well, time to jump of this merry go round. lol

[Diesel]

While I wouldn't say that Deke was better than Shaq and Hakeem, I would say that he was better than Al and Ben Wallace. That's just ridiculous. For somebody to say that Ben Wallace was better than Deke tells me that they never watched Deke play. Deke would command the defense. Offensive teams would not be able to do much of anything against him. We never had to worry about the layup or the drive. We would funnel ball handlers in to deke and soon after see the wagging finger. Between having Deke securing the interior and Mookie on the perimeter, we would stop teams cold.

[Wretch]

Couple more stones to throw...

In regards to all time greats...If you have Magic, MJ, and a SF like Nique...then you have enough offense to conquer a small country. Let alone addIng something like Malone or Barkley. I'd take Deke for what he brought on th other end. In the same way , Rodman was no Barkley or Garnett...but on the other end. I haven't seen a center like Deke. He was not an offensive dynamo, but he was GREAT at the other end. That 90's team had a GREAT player and it's not even debatable if were building an all time hawks team who we take at center.

As for them being boring...it wasn't a matter of talent. The 90's team didn't have a HIGH FLYER. There were no highlights besides Deke embarassing cats. They played below the rim and people called them boring. But they had no Problems scoring.

Edited December 16, 2010 by Wretch

[Wretch]

And what was point of this thread again? Oh yeah, I remember. YA'LL GO CHECK THAT BOSTON/NY BOX SCORE...

Lol. Did the Knicks just rip some respect from the best team in the East? Keep an eye on these teams that have been rebuilding around us. It'll tell you something about us.

...and maybe, just maybe, people will stop calling me delusional. Lol. Naaaaaaaah.

[exodus]

And what was point of this thread again? Oh yeah, I remember. YA'LL GO CHECK THAT BOSTON/NY BOX SCORE...

Lol. Did the Knicks just rip some respect from the best team in the East? Keep an eye on these teams that have been rebuilding around us. It'll tell you something about us.

...and maybe, just maybe, people will stop calling me delusional. Lol. Naaaaaaaah.

I want the record to reflect that I never called you delusional. Of course that doesn't mean you aren't lol.

[frosgrim]

I don't know about saying Smith is >> better than Laettner. The first few years of CL he was a beast. Better shot than Smith, better interior game, and much better rebounder. Actually, Smith isn't even in the same league as CL on the boards. Smith is a significantly better shot blocker than CL, without question. However, CL's overall game was better than Smith's (better fundamentals, better BBIQ, better positional defense). The problem with CL is that he started whinning to the refs on every possession, it was nuts. I don't know what got into him, but it ruined his career. Problem is, Smith is going down that same road.

[Sothron]

This is why as much as I love the Hawks and the NBA it just doesn't compare IMO to other big three team sports (football, hockey, baseball) because of the impact superstars have on deciding championships. You simply have no chance whatsoever of winning a title in the NBA if you don't have at least one superstar and one to two All Star quality players around that superstar.

As Wretch said we've only had one legit superstar in Atlanta Hawks history (in his prime, no offense Moses) and he just didn't have enough talent around him to beat the other superstars with all stars around him. Fast forward twenty years...and we don't even have a superstar. We have the pieces to go around a superstar but it means nothing without a superstar player.

This is why I would sell the house to get Melo here. Convince him to sign that extension and whoever we have left around him between Smoove, Joe, Horford will be enough to conceivably play for a title.

[Wretch]

I don't know about saying Smith is >> better than Laettner. The first few years of CL he was a beast. Better shot than Smith, better interior game, and much better rebounder. Actually, Smith isn't even in the same league as CL on the boards. Smith is a significantly better shot blocker than CL, without question. However, CL's overall game was better than Smith's (better fundamentals, better BBIQ, better positional defense). The problem with CL is that he started whinning to the refs on every possession, it was nuts. I don't know what got into him, but it ruined his career. Problem is, Smith is going down that same road.

People forget how good Laett was before he got all soft. Good lord, he was just....straight up beast mode. I'd take Smoove because of his defense and athleticism and in the long run I believe he'll sustain a better career. However, like I said in a previous post, the Laettner that played with fire, before he lost his balls somewhere...I'd take him. If he had kept that fire, we would have gone further than we did. Remember that battle he had with Indiana...what what that damn center's name...Smits? Yeah! Rik Smits! Playoffs, 1996...Laett was out of position battling him and played like a champ.

Soth...our front office is scared to do something like that. It's sad, but Pete Babcock would have the stones to do it. lol He wasn't nothing for the draft, but he was always wheeling and dealing, trying to keep us competitive. Actually, if he had a put together a decent scouting staff (which, if I'm not mistaken he was highly criticized for) and had put some faith into the draft, Pete would have been a VERY good GM.

One of these days somebody is going to realize that Atlanta is like hot grease waiting on a superstar. Imagine Phillips with a face like LeBron or Kobe, and a team as good and COMPLETE as the Lakers or Celtics. They'd rake in the cash...and there would be a never ending stream of players begging us to sign them. Culture around here stinks though...so no chance of that until somebody wakes up.

Edited December 16, 2010 by Wretch

[Joker]

Can't remember how many times I heard that "The Hawks are...boring." I agreed. The problem wasn't that they were limited offensively, they had the same problem that we do. That is, neither team has a true #1 option. Joe Johnson is a good player. He's one of the best players in the league and he's an All-Star. He is by no means a scrub and I'm one of the few people that had nothing to say about his contract. So that should tell you something right there. Joe is very good. Players like Kobe and Dominique though will go down as an all time great. In the same vein, Smitty was very good. (I did not say Smitty was better.) They both bring the same thing to either team - that is, I don't see either guy being able to take either team any further.

By no means do I believe that Dikembe is the player that those hall of famers are. Not on offense. Though Deke had decent enough game for around 15ppg (with the occasional 20-30 point outburst) they were all much better offensively. Conversely, Dikembe was in a different league than those guys on the other end. At 40 something, he was still manhandling the paint... The guy was nothing short of a phenom on the glass and defensively and he was a true center. I'm not comparing him at PF to Al, I'm comparing starting lineups with Al at Center, and I'd take him any day of the week. If we're talking draft picks, I'd take him in a nanosecond. Not delusional at all.

Dikembe was not as good as Ben Wallace? Oh wow... Well, time to jump of this merry go round. lol

Smitty was good and peaked at very good. Joe is an All Star level player. The gap between Joe and Smith is pretty vast.

Ugh, Dominique is not on the same category as Kobe. Kobe is a top 10 player all time easily. Nique is a top 50 player but he's comparable to Melo. An offensive superstar who defense wasn't that good. Joe is the most boring star in the last 15 years. Probably the reason why some don't rate him. But I think he should be know as a Hawks great. One the best all around players in the NBA, not a superstar but as close as you can get to one.

It bothers me that some of you rate Deke higher than Horford. As for Big Ben, Deke is better. I was wrong on that one, I'll admit. I just remember who dominate Wallace was in those great Piston years but Deke was that or better for most of his career. I don't know why I mentioned Wallace to begin with but any-who. As for Horford, he just better than Deke. His defense is great for a PF and his offense is very good. He's an all star level talent like Joe.

We both agreed that Deke>>Al at center. No brainier as I hate when Al has to play center to begin with. I was referring to some of the post below who said Deke better than Al in general.

[HawkItus]

I wonder if the NBA is able to get a hard-cap how we would stand with this team. I'm assuming some contracts and teams will be grandfathered in, but I'm not certain. Stern was saying yesterday he wants to eliminate the tax threshold as a means for a team to field a better team than another team. Say he does this. Take a team like Boston, Dallas or LA. It would severely affect the way those teams have been constructed. I honestly think we move to the forefront of teams if we had a hard cap.

[Joker]

I don't know about saying Smith is >> better than Laettner. The first few years of CL he was a beast. Better shot than Smith, better interior game, and much better rebounder. Actually, Smith isn't even in the same league as CL on the boards. Smith is a significantly better shot blocker than CL, without question. However, CL's overall game was better than Smith's (better fundamentals, better BBIQ, better positional defense). The problem with CL is that he started whinning to the refs on every possession, it was nuts. I don't know what got into him, but it ruined his career. Problem is, Smith is going down that same road.

I don't know about the interior game part. He had a much advanced post move set but wasn't getting his shot off quite often. He was like a lesser version of Kevin Love. I would take Smith six days a week and twice on Sundays. Smith was so much more talented and athletic than him that the gap would be insurmountable. The shot part is questionable as well. He was better shooting but defenses adjusted his shot often, that's rarely the case with Josh Smith. Smith is much much better. Since when is Smitty=Joe or CL in the same league as Smoove. This is getting ridiculous. CL best rebounding year isn't even as good as Smith last year. What's next, Tom Gugliotta should be in the HOF, his numbers are better than CL and Smitty who are great quote HS'ers.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/guglito01.html

[Diesel]

People forget how good Laett was before he got all soft. Good lord, he was just....straight up beast mode. I'd take Smoove because of his defense and athleticism and in the long run I believe he'll sustain a better career. However, like I said in a previous post, the Laettner that played with fire, before he lost his balls somewhere...I'd take him. If he had kept that fire, we would have gone further than we did. Remember that battle he had with Indiana...what what that damn center's name...Smits? Yeah! Rik Smits! Playoffs, 1996...Laett was out of position battling him and played like a champ.

Soth...our front office is scared to do something like that. It's sad, but Pete Babcock would have the stones to do it. lol He wasn't nothing for the draft, but he was always wheeling and dealing, trying to keep us competitive. Actually, if he had a put together a decent scouting staff (which, if I'm not mistaken he was highly criticized for) and had put some faith into the draft, Pete would have been a VERY good GM.

One of these days somebody is going to realize that Atlanta is like hot grease waiting on a superstar. Imagine Phillips with a face like LeBron or Kobe, and a team as good and COMPLETE as the Lakers or Celtics. They'd rake in the cash...and there would be a never ending stream of players begging us to sign them. Culture around here stinks though...so no chance of that until somebody wakes up.

OK, wait a minute.... Revisionist history...

Let's kick some truth for a second.

Before we got Laettner, he was considered a bust of Marvin Williams Magnitude. We actually traded Spud and our C at the time for Laettner and Rooks because Minny couldn't deal anymore.

Now, when Laettner got here, he did play well... Hell, I agree his series versus Smits was his Kodak moment. However, when we let him go, he went back tobeing Laettner the bust.

[AHF]

OK, wait a minute.... Revisionist history...

Let's kick some truth for a second.

Before we got Laettner, he was considered a bust of Marvin Williams Magnitude. We actually traded Spud and our C at the time for Laettner and Rooks because Minny couldn't deal anymore.

Now, when Laettner got here, he did play well... Hell, I agree his series versus Smits was his Kodak moment. However, when we let him go, he went back tobeing Laettner the bust.

Agreed. Laettner never came close to Josh Smith's PER numbers this season and last season at any time in his career.

Even with Josh coming straight from HS three years behind Laettner on the development curve, his career PER is higher than 11 of Laettner's 13 seasons.

Beasting? Even on the boards, for his career Josh has nabbed 13.4% of total available rebounds while Laettner averaged 13.3% for his career.

Laettner averaged 6.7 rpg with a career high of 8.8 rpg while Josh has a career average of 8.2 rpg with an average of 9.0 rpg this season and 8.8 last year.

There is some serious revision going on here.

[Wretch]

Laett wasn't a bust at Minny. He got traded mostly because of his attitude. For like a season and a half, he was reborn here and got an All-Star nod. I would take Josh Smith because of his defense and because he will have a better career in the long run. However, he was a PF and not a tweener. With a solid game inside and out. The All-Star Laettner, I would take over Josh Smith.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

LOL . . what a great opening post.

But I have to ask Wretch this question, because I don't remember . . . were you for or aganst Shaq coming to ATL?

If you were for it, then this thread is right on point. If you were against it, the thread is moot.

Shaq was the most realistic acquistion the Hawks could've gotten over the summer. And with the way Smith is shooting the ball from the outside, and showing the ability to play the 3, a guy like Shaq would've even been more valuable.

The Hawks needed to bring in guys who could completly take playing time away from the reserves of last year. Zaza has been bad, Teague hasn't elevated his game to the next level, and Mo Evans has been downright pathetic.

So if Wretch was all for Shaq coming to ATL, this is a "thread of the year" nominee.