The Plan is _____________ ?

[Guest]

A way of unifying your comments would be to say that Ferry has built teams with the goal of competing without a cornerstone player.

The team is under construction.

The arguments have been centered around what is the best way to do that.

Edited April 9, 2014 by JayBirdHawk

[AHF]

The team is under construction.

With no path to:

* get a top draft pick to draft a star

* acquire the draft assets to trade for a star

* get the team in position to attract a star FA

Without a path to a star doesn't "construction" resemble shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic?

[MaceCase]

Josh might have been the best player I just never thought the team was 'built' around him. I've watched enough Bball to know that the collection of players after the Joe trade was just that. I said back then 'They are pieces you build WITH not AROUND.' Both him and Al.

Yea, I'm not understanding this argument either. Last year's team was a combination of expiring deals and other detritus placed on top of the remaining mostly expiring core of Al, Josh, Zaza and Jeffrey. I don't know how someone makes the argument that the team was built around Josh from that. It would suggest that the pieces retrieved from the Joe and Marvin trades plus the signing of Louis were all done specifically for the purpose of accentuating Josh rather than......the rather obvious nature that they were all expiring or just good value gets. Then to say we are building around Al......the guy who says he's a PF but the first free agency get was another PF?

As to Paul getting a billboard......The narrative throughout the ASG's reign has been that they are cheap as f***. They have had "promotions" for you to bring your own white tees to playoff games and players themselves have complained about the lack of promotion around the city and for league wide awards. Paul Millsap gets a poster and now people act like it's the statue of Jordan outside the United Center. Danny Ferry has constantly mentioned the need to fix ownership first, goes out and does something that nearly every other franchise does for their players/coaches regularly but the interpretation becomes "Millsap is a Hawk for life!!!!".......rather than "Oh yea, Danny is doing the amazing of making the franchise NBA caliber".

[Guest]

With no path to:

* get a top draft pick to draft a star

* acquire the draft assets to trade for a star

* get the team in position to attract a star FA

Without a path to a star doesn't "construction" resemble shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic?

See my revised post!

[Wretch]

Yea, I'm not understanding this argument either. Last year's team was a combination of expiring deals and other detritus placed on top of the remaining mostly expiring core of Al, Josh, Zaza and Jeffrey. I don't know how someone makes the argument that the team was built around Josh from that. It would suggest that the pieces retrieved from the Joe and Marvin trades plus the signing of Louis were all done specifically for the purpose of accentuating Josh rather than......the rather obvious nature that they were all expiring or just good value gets. Then to say we are building around Al......the guy who says he's a PF but the first free agency get was another PF?

As to Paul getting a billboard......The narrative throughout the ASG's reign has been that they are cheap as f***. They have had "promotions" for you to bring your own white tees to playoff games and players themselves have complained about the lack of promotion around the city and for league wide awards. Paul Millsap gets a poster and now people act like it's the statue of Jordan outside the United Center. Danny Ferry has constantly mentioned the need to fix ownership first, goes out and does something that nearly every other franchise does for their players/coaches regularly but the interpretation becomes "Millsap is a Hawk for life!!!!".......rather than "Oh yea, Danny is doing the amazing of making the franchise NBA caliber".

So you have a guy that takes more shots than anyone on the team...to include Joe Johnson...and you move JJ out of his way and you expect what exactly? A smooth offense that doesn't get clunked up by that miserable black hole? A more team oriented offense where we score by committee?

We weren't rebuilding. We were clearly looking to compete for something. What was our gameplan if not the frontcourt featuring Smoove/Horf. And all that talk about Josh's chance to shine, lead the team, etc....none of that happened either?

The Joe Johnson deal was something in and of itself. You get a chance to move a contract like that, you do it. The plan was always to remain flexible going forward, so no surprise as to what kind of contracts we brought on.

But there is no mystery about the intentions of this team to compete and how they planned to do it. Call it what you want, but we built a competitive team featuring Josh Smith. This year, we rolled out a competitive team featuring Al Horford. It's not so hard to connect the dots on their plans for Millsap.

Nobody is complaining that we're trying to market the team. It needs to happen. My problem is logic behind it.

A franchise as miserable as this one is in attendance...where a very good team get's booed on its home court by raging bandwagon fans that flood the arena...goes out in a year where we struggle to hold on to an 8th seed that is basically there for a team of 89 year old women to take....and we erect a statue of Paul Millsap and expect people to say, "Omigosh! The Hawks are serious! Look at that! Let me go get my Millsap jersey and playoff tickets TODAY!"

Does our management believe this?

Or is this more about ramping up their efforts to bring back Millsap? Believe what you want.

[MaceCase]

Ah, so we've gone from "built around" to "featured". How cute.

No, the Joe deal was not just some passing happenstance. It was a deal that shaped the franchise's immediate and, in NBA terms, far future. Just because Josh Smith happened to believe that he was the best player remaining didn't make him the center piece of the franchise especially considering that he was shopped not even halfway through the season before being unceremoniously let go at the end of it. The way this theory is being framed it's almost as if Danny said "no, no, no, give me Petro instead of Humphries, I don't want anything getting in the way of my featured duo of Horf and Smoove."

I don't see dots being connected, what I see is goal posts being moved with flimsy reasoning. The team has managed to "feature" 3 different players in not even the span of 2 years, really? That is quite a bit of spur of the moment franchise building. Sounds odd but when a foam billboard starts to get exaggerated as a statue I start to realize that I'm dealing with some tinfoil hat folks here.

The perception of the franchise exists both within and without. I already mentioned how players, Smoove in particular, complained that management didn't do enough to prop them up on the national stage. Where other franchises participate in bobble head nights and viral marketing campaigns on the regular few outside of this board recognize that Joe Johnson made not 1, not 2 but 6 All Star selections as a Hawk.....

So here we have Paul Millsap, a player that made the All Star team and that should just go without any publicity? Nothing should or can be done to make the city nor the player proud of that accomplishment without it being taken that he received a 6 year 120 million contract offer to go along with that billboard now.

Here's the thing, plenty have speculated up and down about the dark and sinister deeper meaning of the Millsap contract. It has gone from being a conspicuously obvious *wink* *wink* convoluted deal signed specifically to trade him elsewhere to now being a no doubt extension candidate for the new face of the franchise. How about this, yes Ferry has every intention of remaining competitive in the interim but he will do it while still maintaining flexibility through to free agency periods where he can find real franchise level pieces. Folk talk about "woe is the Hawks, how will they ever attract any premier free agents???" well how about they treat the ones that they do get like motherfucking kings? That can't hurt, right? When the Kevin Loves, Aldridges, Asiks, Hibberts, Gasols, Irvings, Leonards, Rondos, Thompsons etc. etc. see how the team treated a player of Paul's caliber they might say "hey, imagine what I could do there." right? And if the team decides to move on from Paul he should easily say that there's no hard feelings, right? That he had a great time and opportunity playing for a class organization, right?

Of course not, that sounds entirely too plausib........positive to be taken seriously.

[Diesel]

Here's the thing, plenty have speculated up and down about the dark and sinister deeper meaning of the Millsap contract. It has gone from being a conspicuously obvious *wink* *wink* convoluted deal signed specifically to trade him elsewhere to now being a no doubt extension candidate for the new face of the franchise. How about this, yes Ferry has every intention of remaining competitive in the interim but he will do it while still maintaining flexibility through to free agency periods where he can find real franchise level pieces. Folk talk about "woe is the Hawks, how will they ever attract any premier free agents???" well how about they treat the ones that they do get like motherfucking kings? That can't hurt, right? When the Kevin Loves, Aldridges, Asiks, Hibberts, Gasols, Irvings, Leonards, Rondos, Thompsons etc. etc. see how the team treated a player of Paul's caliber they might say "hey, imagine what I could do there." right? And if the team decides to move on from Paul he should easily say that there's no hard feelings, right? That he had a great time and opportunity playing for a class organization, right?

Of course not, that sounds entirely too plausib........positive to be taken seriously.

Let's be honest now.. shall we.

When we got Sap, he was coming off of a bad year. He was falling fast. He looked like a guy who got the big contract while being a good Back up... Got in the limelight of being a starter, Peaked and was on his natural decent. When Ferry signed him, I'm sure that we offered him the most money he could get based on his fall. So Ferry gave him a prove yourself deal. Prove yourself and you can get better money. If you don't prove yourself, you won't get better money. I have no doubt that the intent was to trade Sap the whole time. I think what happened was that Morey don't like to be used and he refused to trade Asik without us giving up a pound of flesh in the process. Then... Horf got hurt. Sap had to become the man and to an extent he did. His numbers have blown up... but more importantly, his trade value is up too.

This whole talk about cap flexibility is a red herring. The whole league knows that this is one of the hardest destinations for Free Agents. Our thing should be collecting tradable players... even if it means building them ourselves. That's the only way we will get a superstar to come here. Is through trade.

[HawkItus]

Ah, so we've gone from "built around" to "featured". How cute.

No, the Joe deal was not just some passing happenstance. It was a deal that shaped the franchise's immediate and, in NBA terms, far future. Just because Josh Smith happened to believe that he was the best player remaining didn't make him the center piece of the franchise especially considering that he was shopped not even halfway through the season before being unceremoniously let go at the end of it. The way this theory is being framed it's almost as if Danny said "no, no, no, give me Petro instead of Humphries, I don't want anything getting in the way of my featured duo of Horf and Smoove."

I don't see dots being connected, what I see is goal posts being moved with flimsy reasoning. The team has managed to "feature" 3 different players in not even the span of 2 years, really? That is quite a bit of spur of the moment franchise building. Sounds odd but when a foam billboard starts to get exaggerated as a statue I start to realize that I'm dealing with some tinfoil hat folks here.

The perception of the franchise exists both within and without. I already mentioned how players, Smoove in particular, complained that management didn't do enough to prop them up on the national stage. Where other franchises participate in bobble head nights and viral marketing campaigns on the regular few outside of this board recognize that Joe Johnson made not 1, not 2 but 6 All Star selections as a Hawk.....

So here we have Paul Millsap, a player that made the All Star team and that should just go without any publicity? Nothing should or can be done to make the city nor the player proud of that accomplishment without it being taken that he received a 6 year 120 million contract offer to go along with that billboard now.

Here's the thing, plenty have speculated up and down about the dark and sinister deeper meaning of the Millsap contract. It has gone from being a conspicuously obvious *wink* *wink* convoluted deal signed specifically to trade him elsewhere to now being a no doubt extension candidate for the new face of the franchise. How about this, yes Ferry has every intention of remaining competitive in the interim but he will do it while still maintaining flexibility through to free agency periods where he can find real franchise level pieces. Folk talk about "woe is the Hawks, how will they ever attract any premier free agents???" well how about they treat the ones that they do get like motherfucking kings? That can't hurt, right? When the Kevin Loves, Aldridges, Asiks, Hibberts, Gasols, Irvings, Leonards, Rondos, Thompsons etc. etc. see how the team treated a player of Paul's caliber they might say "hey, imagine what I could do there." right? And if the team decides to move on from Paul he should easily say that there's no hard feelings, right? That he had a great time and opportunity playing for a class organization, right?

Of course not, that sounds entirely too plausib........positive to be taken seriously.

[Guest]

Let's be honest now.. shall we.

When we got Sap, he was coming off of a bad year. He was falling fast. He looked like a guy who got the big contract while being a good Back up... Got in the limelight of being a starter, Peaked and was on his natural decent. When Ferry signed him, I'm sure that we offered him the most money he could get based on his fall. So Ferry gave him a prove yourself deal. Prove yourself and you can get better money. If you don't prove yourself, you won't get better money. I have no doubt that the intent was to trade Sap the whole time. I think what happened was that Morey don't like to be used and he refused to trade Asik without us giving up a pound of flesh in the process. Then... Horf got hurt. Sap had to become the man and to an extent he did. His numbers have blown up... but more importantly, his trade value is up too.

This whole talk about cap flexibility is a red herring. The whole league knows that this is one of the hardest destinations for Free Agents. Our thing should be collecting tradable players... even if it means building them ourselves. That's the only way we will get a superstar to come here. Is through trade.

There was no one who thought Sap got a big contract quite the opposite. Everyone thought the Hawks got a great deal in terms of cost and length of contract.

On the Morey front, I think the opposite happened - no one would meet his ridiculous asking price for a guy who was due 15 million next season. He did not have the upper hand in this case with Asik wanting out.

Sap was productive and efficient before Al got injured - he was such a breath of fresh air from Josh.

[MaceCase]

Let's be honest now.. shall we.

When we got Sap, he was coming off of a bad year. He was falling fast. He looked like a guy who got the big contract while being a good Back up... Got in the limelight of being a starter, Peaked and was on his natural decent. When Ferry signed him, I'm sure that we offered him the most money he could get based on his fall. So Ferry gave him a prove yourself deal. Prove yourself and you can get better money. If you don't prove yourself, you won't get better money. I have no doubt that the intent was to trade Sap the whole time. I think what happened was that Morey don't like to be used and he refused to trade Asik without us giving up a pound of flesh in the process. Then... Horf got hurt. Sap had to become the man and to an extent he did. His numbers have blown up... but more importantly, his trade value is up too.

This whole talk about cap flexibility is a red herring. The whole league knows that this is one of the hardest destinations for Free Agents. Our thing should be collecting tradable players... even if it means building them ourselves. That's the only way we will get a superstar to come here. Is through trade.

See, more tinfoil hat people.

Let's continue to perpetuate the myth that Paul was coming off a bad year now. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaa give up 3 minutes of playing time so those lotto picks behind you that the franchise eventually decided to actually build around can get playing time means you had a down year.

Yeaaaaaa, he was falling fast and peaked........in his 3rd year as a starter.

I mean it's not baffling how this logic just escapes people. You have a GM who specifically goes out and tears down the team to become players in the 2013 free agency, signs a guy whose deal runs out in the 2015 free agency.......but people still can't separate what they want or what they think should happen from what is staring them right in the face. No instead this franchise is running more espionage than the Soviets ever did.

[Wretch]

Ah, so we've gone from "built around" to "featured". How cute.

No, the Joe deal was not just some passing happenstance. It was a deal that shaped the franchise's immediate and, in NBA terms, far future. Just because Josh Smith happened to believe that he was the best player remaining didn't make him the center piece of the franchise especially considering that he was shopped not even halfway through the season before being unceremoniously let go at the end of it. The way this theory is being framed it's almost as if Danny said "no, no, no, give me Petro instead of Humphries, I don't want anything getting in the way of my featured duo of Horf and Smoove."

I don't see dots being connected, what I see is goal posts being moved with flimsy reasoning. The team has managed to "feature" 3 different players in not even the span of 2 years, really? That is quite a bit of spur of the moment franchise building. Sounds odd but when a foam billboard starts to get exaggerated as a statue I start to realize that I'm dealing with some tinfoil hat folks here.

The perception of the franchise exists both within and without. I already mentioned how players, Smoove in particular, complained that management didn't do enough to prop them up on the national stage. Where other franchises participate in bobble head nights and viral marketing campaigns on the regular few outside of this board recognize that Joe Johnson made not 1, not 2 but 6 All Star selections as a Hawk.....

So here we have Paul Millsap, a player that made the All Star team and that should just go without any publicity? Nothing should or can be done to make the city nor the player proud of that accomplishment without it being taken that he received a 6 year 120 million contract offer to go along with that billboard now.

Here's the thing, plenty have speculated up and down about the dark and sinister deeper meaning of the Millsap contract. It has gone from being a conspicuously obvious *wink* *wink* convoluted deal signed specifically to trade him elsewhere to now being a no doubt extension candidate for the new face of the franchise. How about this, yes Ferry has every intention of remaining competitive in the interim but he will do it while still maintaining flexibility through to free agency periods where he can find real franchise level pieces. Folk talk about "woe is the Hawks, how will they ever attract any premier free agents???" well how about they treat the ones that they do get like motherfucking kings? That can't hurt, right? When the Kevin Loves, Aldridges, Asiks, Hibberts, Gasols, Irvings, Leonards, Rondos, Thompsons etc. etc. see how the team treated a player of Paul's caliber they might say "hey, imagine what I could do there." right? And if the team decides to move on from Paul he should easily say that there's no hard feelings, right? That he had a great time and opportunity playing for a class organization, right?

Of course not, that sounds entirely too plausib........positive to be taken seriously.

Guys like you love semantics. Built around? Featured? Are you really sitting there putting a different meaning behind these words? If you're gonna do that, then you're not even trying to understand where I'm coming from - and you're just looking for an argument to fluff yourself up. That's petty and pointless.

But let me back up.... My apologies if I wasn't clear in the wording of my opinion. Of course Danny Ferry didn't "build a team around Josh Smith" in the traditional way that teams build around franchise players. He didn't have enough time to and he never will with these mini/incremental reloads. Does it matter when the net result is the same?

Really? Just because we made smart deals, brought in the right kind of players, etc....it negates the presence Josh Smith? It doesn't mean we're going to "feature" him the following season? It doesn't mean the team is his? Doesn't mean it's a mini-build around him?

You can't have a player like that on your roster, starting games, and shooting like he does and at the same time suggest that you're not putting the franchise in his hands (even if only for a season). No matter how much spin you put on your opinion, the fact remains that when it was all said and done Josh Smith was left as our alpha player. He took more shots than anyone (even during the peak of our rise with Joe, rivaling Kobe Bryant), he had been captain, he was the most recognizable face we had, he was the most tenured player we had.

If you keep him, this is his team.

You may not see it that way, but that's kinda how it works. When we traded Joe, we didn't break the team down. We brought in guys that could help us compete. No tinfoil hat, no conspiracy, no semantics, no insults, no fluff there. Just common sense. We were competing with Josh/Horf as our core.

Are we saying something different?

Did we expect something different?

Sure you can say, "Oh well, we traded him mid season. They didn't want him here. He wasn't a part of the plan. They were trying to get rid of him all along."

Nonsense.

If you clean house, you clean it. You don't want Josh, you get rid of him. You don't need half a season to evaluate him. The whole league has evaluated him for years. You know what he brings. You know what he's doing to the offense (which sucks if you really want to "compete"). You also know you can't pay him the money he's asks for. You don't let him walk for nothing and you don't wait midseason. You deal him.

Ferry kept him and in doing so it became his team, or a team built around him, or a team featuring him, or a team that he is headlining, by default. Whatever you want to call it... Saying otherwise is the same as suggesting that it's not Horford's team right now. That's a bit of selective logic considering people cling to the idea that we'd be able to topple the Heat or Pacers had he not been injured.

What you are implying though, is that Ferry has no clue as to what direction he's going in. He's not rebuilding. He's not looking to contend with THIS roster. He's trying to compete, but he is doing so without considering the skillset of any specific player or regard for any sort of "core/cornerstone."

Ultimately, you just have your point of view centered on "building around player X" and what that is supposed to mean to you. From my point of view, Danny is doing exactly what he said he would do - bring in quality guys, maintain cap flexibility, and compete (I.e. - make the playoffs). I don't think you can compete, or even think about it, without have a core to build a gameplan around. Two seasons ago, that was Smith/Horford/Teague. This season, it is Horford/Millsap/Teague. It will continue as the question over Horford's head becomes more visible...and it will likely "feature" or be "built around" or "take into consideration" a CORE of Millsap and more journeymen.

And it will spell an early exit. Not sure that there's much more conversation to be had with you homie. Like I've been saying for the past two seasons...we will see.

Edited April 10, 2014 by Wretch

[MaceCase]

I'm not being petty, your idea is still poorly thought out and you clearly seem to be someone who gets exasperated when having to read a tome that didn't flow from your own genius fingers. Your logic doesn't seem to account for net result that after your claims of Josh being the "alpha", built around in a "non-traditional" way, the "feature" etc. etc. etc.......That he's no longer in Atlanta. Yea, let that sink in. He's gone. You're talking about he should have been moved earlier now?...Well did it escape you that the only worthwhile offers on the table for a guy that has been evaluated by every NBA GM was Ersan Ilyasova, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and Ekpeh Udoh?

Should the GM be forced to take back that collection of mediocre to terrible players on horrible contracts just to escape any accusations that he's building his team around Josh Smith? Is he wrong to mutter "we value Josh" under his breath and let Josh go shoot as many "the hopes of a franchise" commercials as he wants while the GM himself hopes that someone will form temporary amnesia and make a worthwhile offer and if not, f*** it, he's still free of him come the summer?

Did he not realize that any two members of the original core were still talented enough to win a lot of games in the NBA regardless of how one's style is not conducive to efficient team ball? Doubtful, he just saw Joe, Josh, and a crapload of journeymen from TMac, to Willie Green, to Erik Dampier just win the equivalent of 50 wins the season before. Was he fine with inheriting a playoff team? Yes. Did he move any of those two tons of expirings before or at the deadline to boost a deeper playoff run with that group? NO.

I'm not the one fixated on my own point of view here. I'm not the one who thinks that the best apple left in the bunch automatically gets to be promoted up to the face of the entire juice company. I haven't been brainwashed by ESPN into believing that there has to be a "man" responsible for everything on any team. Ferry comes in and preaches "system" from day one, goes out and gets his own coach who preaches "system" from day one. Puts together a team of characters from the Land of Misfit Toys that fit said coach's "system" yet we are still trying to convince ourself that a core is being built, or taken into consideration, blah blah blah over any particular player. Even while they are in a suit and the team continues to compete for a playoff spot. The beauty of this logic is that the buck can just keep getting passed down. Sap goes down and Jeffrey is the Alpha. Jeffrey goes down and Kyle becomes the Feature. All as originally planned.

It's funny that we recognize that there are no Duncans on the team. Look at a roster of complimentary pieces and others whose contracts all seem to coincide with free agency periods when ~Duncan caliber players are available but the belief is that Ferry is propping up the players he already has to those levels. We watch another deadline roll by with nothing but a trade for cash go down 2 months after losing the team's "featured" player but we still think that he's dead set on propping this squad to contender status rather than just recognizing that this is the transition squad. Yea, the transition squad, not a core but a transition group good enough to win some but not all. We throw around compete and flexibility but for some reason we forget what exactly the flexibility is for.........I'll give you a hint: it's to get better players than the ones you can only compete with.

[BrazilianHawk]

As a brief aside, does anyone think Millsap left money on the table (i.e. refused a better deal) to come to the Hawks? I tend to think he took the best deal he had available.

Doesn't matter, If other teams lowballed him, then they're stupid, as they passed on an All-Star because of a couple million bucks.

[AHF]

As a brief aside, does anyone think Millsap left money on the table (i.e. refused a better deal) to come to the Hawks? I tend to think he took the best deal he had available.

No. I think he took the best offer. It matters only to the extent that someone thinks that Danny Ferry and his system are going to land stud FA's or guys at big discounts just for the privilege of being part of his system. It is a great value contract while he is here and a fine trade chip this offseason if Ferry wants to go that route.

Edited April 10, 2014 by AHF

[BrazilianHawk]

All-Star or not, he's by far the best FA signing the Hawks have made in recent history. IMHO, That's the right way to build a contender, establish a system and get some players who can be "circumstantial" all-stars to play. We have two of them now. Hopefully the missing piece will be one of our draftees. Millsap was dratfed in the second round, just like Manu and Parker is a late 1st rounder.We could just luck out in the draft, who knows.

Edited April 11, 2014 by BrazilianHawk

[Vol4ever]

All-Star or not, he's by far the best FA signing the Hawks have made in recent history. IMHO, That's the right way to build a contender, establish a system and get some players who can be "circumstantial" all-stars to play. We have two of them now. Hopefully the missing piece will be one of our draftees. Millsap was dratfed in the second round, just like Manu and Parker is a late 1st rounder.We could just luck out in the draft, who knows.

Kinda left that little tidbit of Robinson and Duncan out. We are 28th in the league in rebounding and 2nd in assist I believe.

We are also last in attendance.

[Wretch]

I'm not being petty, your idea is still poorly thought out and you clearly seem to be someone who gets exasperated when having to read a tome that didn't flow from your own genius fingers. Your logic doesn't seem to account for net result that after your claims of Josh being the "alpha", built around in a "non-traditional" way, the "feature" etc. etc. etc.......That he's no longer in Atlanta. Yea, let that sink in. He's gone. You're talking about he should have been moved earlier now?...Well did it escape you that the only worthwhile offers on the table for a guy that has been evaluated by every NBA GM was Ersan Ilyasova, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and Ekpeh Udoh?

Should the GM be forced to take back that collection of mediocre to terrible players on horrible contracts just to escape any accusations that he's building his team around Josh Smith? Is he wrong to mutter "we value Josh" under his breath and let Josh go shoot as many "the hopes of a franchise" commercials as he wants while the GM himself hopes that someone will form temporary amnesia and make a worthwhile offer and if not, f*** it, he's still free of him come the summer?

Did he not realize that any two members of the original core were still talented enough to win a lot of games in the NBA regardless of how one's style is not conducive to efficient team ball? Doubtful, he just saw Joe, Josh, and a crapload of journeymen from TMac, to Willie Green, to Erik Dampier just win the equivalent of 50 wins the season before. Was he fine with inheriting a playoff team? Yes. Did he move any of those two tons of expirings before or at the deadline to boost a deeper playoff run with that group? NO.

I'm not the one fixated on my own point of view here. I'm not the one who thinks that the best apple left in the bunch automatically gets to be promoted up to the face of the entire juice company. I haven't been brainwashed by ESPN into believing that there has to be a "man" responsible for everything on any team. Ferry comes in and preaches "system" from day one, goes out and gets his own coach who preaches "system" from day one. Puts together a team of characters from the Land of Misfit Toys that fit said coach's "system" yet we are still trying to convince ourself that a core is being built, or taken into consideration, blah blah blah over any particular player. Even while they are in a suit and the team continues to compete for a playoff spot. The beauty of this logic is that the buck can just keep getting passed down. Sap goes down and Jeffrey is the Alpha. Jeffrey goes down and Kyle becomes the Feature. All as originally planned.

It's funny that we recognize that there are no Duncans on the team. Look at a roster of complimentary pieces and others whose contracts all seem to coincide with free agency periods when ~Duncan caliber players are available but the belief is that Ferry is propping up the players he already has to those levels. We watch another deadline roll by with nothing but a trade for cash go down 2 months after losing the team's "featured" player but we still think that he's dead set on propping this squad to contender status rather than just recognizing that this is the transition squad. Yea, the transition squad, not a core but a transition group good enough to win some but not all. We throw around compete and flexibility but for some reason we forget what exactly the flexibility is for.........I'll give you a hint: it's to get better players than the ones you can only compete with.

This is the league leaders in FGA's in 2011/12 (Joe's last season in Atlanta).

It's a very basic stat, but it conveys a very basic point. The influence of these players is...significant. Pick what you'd like to call that and that's Josh Smith post Joe Johnson - and as long as it gets us into the playoffs, then it works for Danny Ferry.

I'm not entirely sure how that doesn't make sense.

Is Ferry content with that? Not if he's smarter than us armchair GM's. I imagine he is. Though, for reasons regurgitated ad nauseam, I believe his method is questionable - and by your own logic, pointless in the interim.

You make a lot of assumptions.

I'm not a narcissistic clown. I'm a quiet, reasonable, lurker that reads far too much of this site. I will talk when I feel strongly about something. I am also not a sheep. I don't follow generic, sensationalist "reporting." Though I do use generally accepted terminology and ideas that seem to be more or less common f*ckin' sense.

[MaceCase]

Correlation does not imply causation.

Josh shooting like he is a star player does not make him considered to be a star player.

The GM was content with Josh's overinflated ego of himself because said ego made him a toxic asset to move for anything less than other toxic assets.

The GM seems content in establishing the tenets in which he has spoken of ad nauseum.

I do not make a greater amount of assumptions than any other reasonable poster on this site.

[Diesel]

See, more tinfoil hat people.

Let's continue to perpetuate the myth that Paul was coming off a bad year now. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaa give up 3 minutes of playing time so those lotto picks behind you that the franchise eventually decided to actually build around can get playing time means you had a down year.

Yeaaaaaa, he was falling fast and peaked........in his 3rd year as a starter.

I mean it's not baffling how this logic just escapes people. You have a GM who specifically goes out and tears down the team to become players in the 2013 free agency, signs a guy whose deal runs out in the 2015 free agency.......but people still can't separate what they want or what they think should happen from what is staring them right in the face. No instead this franchise is running more espionage than the Soviets ever did.

If you believe that Millsap wasn't falling in Utah..... YEAAAAAA. His former team treated him like we treated Smoove. They watched him and Big Al walk and didn't fight to keep them. What they basically said is that R. Jefferson and Biedrins is more important to us than Millsap. And you in the tin hat somehow believe that he wasn't having an off year? This is about as useful as your 3pt shot selection argument. You just can't accept the truth... you have to come up with some outlandish conspiracy to deny it. YEAAAAA?

Moreover we did seem to get a great deal because he signed for 2 years. 2 years is the win... not the 9.5 Million. Ferry was applauded for getting a player of his calbre to sign for just 2 years.

[Wretch]

Correlation does not imply causation.

Josh shooting like he is a star player does not make him considered to be a star player.

You're talking about labels and again propping up your opinion with semantics. You're using that to argue against simple math, but it doesn't agree with you. You can't shoot like that and at the same time not be the single biggest offensive factor (good or bad) on the court. In the NBA, this is the player you entrust the fate of the season with.

Either you're just trolling now or you fail at math and it's correlation to the basics of competition. If it were me, I'd just admit that I understand the point being made and leave the semantics out of it.

The GM was content with Josh's overinflated ego of himself because said ego made him a toxic asset to move for anything less than other toxic assets.

...and you're wrong here too.

Josh smith was in the last year of his contract. That is often the single biggest determining factor on a player's moveability (see D12). Morevoer, Josh made the strategic comment (here) about being worth a max deal - likely at the behest of his agent to gain leverage to stay. The combination of those two factors is what sunk his trade value.

We (stupidly) risked that in 2012 because Danny Ferry was not confident that he could unload JJ and Josh Smith and still make the playoffs. Which is of paramount importance to our GM and the ownership that hired him.