The Cold Hard Facts

[Diesel]

Diesel, I still can't believe you don't understand this. It isn't even the "possible 4". Keeping Joe would have meant losing others and here is the important part "AND NOT BEING ABLE TO REPLACE THEM WITH EQUAL PIECES". D, let's pretend for a minute the Hawks kept Joe. Fast forward to 2013. You have $38 million on the roster. Jenkins, Teague, Horford, Smith. You can afford one free agent. You've lost Marvin, Smith, Paculia, Johnson. You have $20 million to spend and then you get nothing but vet minimums. Let's pretend you somehow miraculously got Bynum to sign for the max (because letting Smith walk, Howard wasn't coming). You'd have Teague, Joe, someone, Horford, Bynum. That is a good start. But Teague is up the next season and will command 5-9 million. You'll have a rookie mandatory you must shell out and you have to fill 8 slots with about 14 million. No one who wants a multi-year deal is coming. Trading Joe wasn't about getting 4 scrubs, it was choosing to keep the young, in their prime players. If you don't trade Joe, you can't do the Marvin deal because Harris added salary. You can't do the Korver deal, you don't have Morrow or Lou Williams. Its basic math Diesel. Nobody hates Joe and the ASG aren't cheap. They were living with a reality of a bad contract. You will see with NJ this year how much JJ's contract will affect them. They have no real bench. Every time one of their starters is injured, they will struggle. If Deron goes down for any length of time they will down right suck. The problem with building the team like NJ has is that each individually talented offensive player needs shots to continue to be that player. There aren't enough on a team when you build for 5 offensive talents. Each of their 5 will be on the floor for 35 minutes a night. 30 of those minutes they will be with each other. In those 30 minutes, they will see 60 possessions - an average of 12-13 points each. Joe won't average close to his 20 ppg, nor will Lopez. There aren't enough shots to go around. They will all become mortal. When the bench comes in, the team will struggle mightily. By the way, this is part of the reason Marvin's numbers were low here. He had to share the ball with Horford, Joe, Crawford, Smith. I fully expect Marvin to mystically be a 15/7 guy in Utah.

Teague, Joe, Horf, and Bynum... You don't think that team can win? Camp. Look at what you're saying we are. You're saying we are a training camp for teams with plans and money. This is what you don't get. It takes an investment to win. Sometimes, you have to be willing to go over the cap to win. So we drop Joe. OK. What do we replace him with... Nobody knows... You obviously don't care.. because all you want to be is under the cap. You probably won't get this because you have been preconditioned to believe that younger is better even though younger hasn't won a championship.... Ever. That's your homework find that younger team under the cap that has won a championship. My point is that when you have your hands as close as we did.. you exhaust everything before you give up... and if you give up, make sure you get something for your time. What did we get Camp? NOTHING? No.. let's change that... we got treated like a 2 dollar whore by the Brooklyn Nets. We said, give us a pick. They said F off. We said.. OK.. give us Marshon.. they said F off. We said, OK.. well, here's Joe. We were desperate to trade Joe... Why? Did we have some sort of plan? Is it just about financial freedom? Poor Camp. You'd think you were an owner putting on the owners glasses... and not a fan who is hungry for a championship run. The owners should be the only ones who care about money this much. So let me tell you how it will play out. We will find ourselves right back where we were... captight with a team that can't win. We will have some marginal star like Smoove or Harden... making the max... and we will all wonder how that guy got so much money for what he puts out. We will all still complain because we're not good enough and by that time, we will be calling Ferry an idiot for not making the right moves and blowing draft picks. It's at that point that you will think... boy I wish we had some capspace.. because somehow, capspace is supposed to solve problems. Problem is nobody ever tells you that capspace solves problems for the right teams... and we are not the right team... THIS IS ATLANTA.. the only way we get good players is by trade. Therefore, when you lose value in a dumb trade... You're failing.

[sillent]

This is the type of stuff im talking about. Iggy doesnt do anything for us. Why waste cap space? Bynum knees are bad. Plus we can get him in FA if Ferry wants to. Ferry is working magic and i have the patience to see it through.

Iggy is a beast but I'd rather team Rudy Gay with Josh Smith.

[Guest Walter]

The problem here. NO MEANs? Really? YOu think that... with all the tradable pieces we had?? Marvin got us Devin Harris. What would Smoove or Horf have gotten us? Imagine Harris and Gasol coming in? After watching Gasol play yesterday.. I'm still pissed that we obviously turned down a trade for him. Horf, Gasol, and Joe would have been a very good big three.

I can imagine Harris and Gasol coming in but remember, it would require us sending out MW with JS to match the salaries due to Gasol making $1000 trillion per (even according to your own trade scenarios). THUS, we could not get Harris. Even if we could, early playoff exit, PERIOD and a rapidly aging, LT capped team. JJ and Gasol alone would cost us over $40 million. OUCH! We'd have to fill out our starting lineup with vet mins. I don't want Tracy McGrady starting for us!!! W

[macdaddy]

I think Joe and Deron make up the best Backcourt in the NBA. I think that Lopez and Crash are not slouches. I think that Last year was the combination of injuries, tank, and Deron wanting to leave. I think that going from NJ to Brooklyn will give them new fans and new excitement.

I also think that yes sir indeed that Horf, Gasol, and Joe would have definitely taken us farther than the 2nd round.

Do I think it was a mistake to get rid of 1 guy for the possibility of getting 4? Show me the 4!!!

What you fail to understand MD is chemistry. Get your Chem book out.. turn it to section 2.3.. where it talks about synergy. Better yet, start at section 1.4 where it talks about Kinetic vs. Potential energy. You see, what we had was Kinetic energy. It was energy that does something. It was Energy that was measurable. What we have now is potential energy. IF nobody pushes that rock, it will go nowhere. That energy does nothing. Having capspace is potential energy.. however, it is dependent on somebody else.

First, i'd say that you are one of the few who think that our team had good energy, synergy, or chemistry. When I watch Josh willing to throw the season away on a long jumper vs. pass it to our wide open starting PG I question our championship chemistry.

With the salaries we had committed last year to Joe, Marv, Josh, and Al (not to speak of what the salaries would be next year) we were relying on guys like Green, McGrady, and Pargo to be in our 8 man rotation. They got exposed when it mattered. If Joe could make up for this extreme lack of depth it would be ok but he couldn't

I believe, like i think you do to, that without our injury issues we would have beaten Boston. But we didn't and remember Ray Allen was hobbled and Pierce was hurt. This wasn't another second round defeat it was the first round.

Joe, Pau, Horford is a good team but its old, slowing and expensive and not a single one of them is a good as Allen, Pierce, and Garnett. And Teague is no Rondo. And Drew is no Doc. The point is Joe, Pau, Horford is a desperation move to put together 3 stars none of which are bonafide stars.