Zach Lowe: Everyone wants the same lopsided deal Atlanta got for Joe Johnson

[MaceCase]

You're putting these two teams at the same point in development life cycle...and it invalidates a great deal of what you're trying to say here. The Hawks throwing a massive contract (or even a reasonably sized contract like Millsap) at a player does not warrant the same expectations as a 21 win team throwing a massive contract at a player. Especially a player that has not elevated anyone to anything. Of course the move was made to improve the team. Everyone is looking to improve. Always. But when Team Y is basically THE worst team in the league, two years running, then they are not even IN the seeding...let alone planning to move up in it.

The move was to acquire talent and PERHAPS slide into the playoffs - which would have been awesome for a team that a season prior mustered up a whopping 7 wins. Not comparable and not an awesome move for a team like ours who has no hope of rising out of the middle of the pack and no YOUNG lottery assets to groom. If you can't see that, then there really is no point to this conversation.

Have they "screwed up?" Not at all.

Financially? They have no real salary beyond next season. They're fine. Player development in trouble? That's the most valid point you make. But it's not like you can't bench Jefferson and focus on development. They might have overpaid a little, but he doesn't have an albatross of a contract - they could move him if it was a real problem. Future picks in trouble? Nope. For one, this is a rebuilding team (despite what you think about the East) that probably expected to be rebuilding this season or sliding into the bottom of the playoffs. More importantly, they can afford to gamble on a low seeded playoff birth. Hell, the core of that team is a fat lottery crop that has like...a combined 4 1/2 years of experience (please don't reach beyond Jordan's acquisition and his intention to rebuild). If they put these guys on the block they could turn a Boston or LAC faster than we could...unless we're offering Horford/Millsap (which we are not).

No, you still don't get it and think that that lack of comprehension indicates that my argument is invalidated. Team X signed talented players to replace talented players that they lost in order to maintain standing whereas team Y signed talented players that they never had in order to improve standing. A man walking up a hill is on trajectory to meet a man that has been standing there the whole time even if they didn't set out together. If you aren't paying attention to the point I'm making or even to the original point that Northcyde made that I responded to before you decided to seat yourself in on a tangent in this discussion.......... the Bobcats are a parallel to the 2008 Atlanta Hawks.

Most signs are pointing to them comfortably rising into the middle of the pack scrum yet Wretch has this entirely different view that exponential growth is more in order. You speak of static thinking and talk of young assets and then contradict yourself on the Bobcats being able to improve......because they are stuck in time for some reason in 2012??? If you didn't notice, they where already able to triple from 7 wins two seasons ago to 21 wins last season. Natural player development of those "young assets" catalyzed by the addition of a big money free agent signing (running into more pitfalls in your argument i.e. "he's never elevated anyone" yet that somehow has no bearing on the contract he received in the first place or their ability to move it? Ok, but let's digress) only stands to reason another multiplication of wins is expected. This is the East after all, your static thinking believes that they are only in the discussion this year when 37 wins any year will likely get you into the playoffs.

Lastly, young player =/= great asset. A player picked in the lottery =/= great asset. A good young player = great asset. I already put forth to you to reach back into your memory banks and remember the Hawks crop of lotto talent that couldn't fetch them a fish fillet in a trade outside of being filler. Look back to the deadline and recognize that Evan Turner, the former #2, netted the Sixers a grand total of a 2nd rounder. Earlier in the year Derrick Williams, the former #2, fetched Minnesota Luc Richard Bababooey. Earlier than that Thomas Robinson, the former #5, has been traded twice before he's finished his 2nd year in the league for the grand total of 2 second round picks. The Bobcats crop of guys have been in the league just as long as these guys and most definitely haven't outperformed them so I would seriously begin to temper those expectations of pulling off a Boston or a Clippers......especially since that invalidates your argument given that the Bobcats have neither a Griffin or Pierce nor location or legacy of LA and Boston to entice said player in the first and force a GM to take pennies on the dollar for them.