Good post from ESPN.

[Playmaker0017]

LOL @ blow em up. And get who? This team has solid core talent. But what this team lacks is good coaching. You can see it on the floor every game. A good coach puts his players in the best position to make plays.

A lot of you were really jaded about how good our team was. Say what you want about Big Dog, but now I hope you all see that he was obviously NOT the problem here. The same problems that existed before he was here . . existed while he was here . . and still exists today.

It's safe to say that S-Jax will be nothing more than a complimentary player with horrible shot selection and suspect handles. It's also safe to say that Dion Glover will continue to be a 3rd tier player that will always be inconsistent and never reach his potential. Looking back on it now . . maybe trading Theo wouldn't have been a bad idea at all. Who knew that he would never get back to the level he was in Philly. JT shows flashes of greatness ( a poor man's Baron Davis ), but still turns the ball over way too much late in the game. And Reef is starting to play All-Star caliber ball, even though he doesn't come through in crunch time either. Even with all of this, the Hawks are in games on most nights.

But what really kills the Hawks, is that we have virtually NO bench. When you don't have any type of bench, you're going to struggle in this league . . unless all of your starters are good players.

But you can't blow up the Hawks and bring in scrubs. We did that 4 years ago, remember? Trading all of the Hawks talent is NOT the answer here. You trade Reef and JT now, and the Hawks won't even sniff .500 for another 5 years.

What needs to happen, is for Terry to be fired ( or reassigned ), and bring in the type of coach that understands what the game is all about and will light a fire under the players. Who that guy is? I don't know. I personally would make an offer to a guy like John Thompson, if he still yearns to coach. He's a guy that knows how to teach the game and that the players would instantly respect.

As far as Utah goes, Utah has talent. Harpring and Kiralenko are good players. But Utah also has a [censored] of a coach in Jerry Sloan. That's the difference between a team like the Hawks, and a team like the Jazz,

And the players do care about winning and losing. It's just on most nights, the Hawks aren't better than their competition. The circus this past offeseason with the sale of this team, absolutely killed management's chances to drastically improve this team. We needed a solid 3rd scorer, and a coach. We got neither.

What's really crazy, is that we're only 3 games back from the #8 spot in the conference.

[chillzatl]

Bigdog wasn't the only problem. He just exacerbated a problem that was here when he arrived. When you have a team of shoot first, pass second players, you can't expect good things. Adding in a guy that becomes your #1 shot taker, who is also a shoot first, pass later guy, only makes it worse.

I think this team can win though. They've jumped out to way too many 15pt leads for this to be false. The problem is that they get those leads with raw scoring talent and as a team, they lack the ability to execute.

Going down the stretch, being able to execute your plays is what seperates good teams from bad teams. Even if that means they do nothing but play off the strengths of their star player, they still execute.

our team can't do that. When the defenses tighten up and execution becomes paramount, we can't get it done. At one point in time I would have said that was due to lack of team experience. But most of these guys have been playing together for a few years now. So that isn't a valid excuse.

The truth is what it has been. It is what we've known it to be for a year or more now. This team has no playmakers, no leaders. Without a playmaker and leader, this team will never win.

[swolehawk2]

Dog was a problem... but I don't think anybody here thought once Dog left we would when 50 games but what was the point of keeeping an overpaid old jump shooter with bad ankles... [censored] if we want to throw away money we can give it to Hendu and CC....when a jump shooter is taking the majority of shots on your team you are in trouble.

Our problem is effort and making decisions with the basketball.

we simply have to put JT in a position where he is scoring and not thinking. Now what do we do to solve that problem is the hard part.

I think a great vet coach could have us in the playoffs now with the talent we have.

[JTFan31]

I agree what chillz is saying. We are jumping out on double digit leads and losing those leads in the 3rd or 4th quarter. The teams with the bad records in this league arent doing that as much as we are. So obviously we must be doing something right. Some games we play great and we beat great teams, some games we still look good and get a big lead and lose it.

[swolehawk2]

The sad thing is when we have leads we don't need a outstanding superstar playmaker to hold on to them. We need to just make basic basketball plays...We make stupid mistakes like throwing lazy inbound passes or getting picked bringing the ball up the floor or throwing a pass that everybody in the the world sees is going to be picked.....then we go in a shell thinking about how bad things are on O and we stop playing D.

Same old sad song.

We need a coach that makes grown men wanna cry when they make these types of plays.

[chillzatl]

Don't get me wrong, he's not free of blame. But I can't stick all that on the coach.

This team needs a playmaker. It doesn't matter if its' a superstar or not. We need someone that knows how to execute down the stretch and is good enough that most teams can't stop him from doing what he needs to do. That certainly doesn't have to be a star or superstar. Mookie did just that and he wasn't a star by any means.

I think Stotts deserves some credit personally. He's gotten this team to play a great first half of basketball. For 24 minutes, these guys are playing like they are a contender (in the east at least). That tells me that at least part of his plan is getting through to the players AND it's working. The problem comes when teams adjust to us and make changes to their O and D.

Sure a lot of that falls on the coach for not properly preparing his team and not coming up with an equally good plan for countering the other teams strat.

But in the end it comes down to players making plays and we don't have those players. If we could combine JV and JT into one player, Stotts would probably be looking like a COY candidate right about now.

[swolehawk2]

It shouldn't take us that long to adjust to what teams do to us in the second half....its not like it something difficult to understand...they just pick up their intensity in the late stages of the game and we continue to play the same way we played the first half. We know our guards will get pressured full court...we know teams will over play the passing lanes ....we know they will double Reef immediately...and guards will dig down on our post players ...so what is the problem.....we can't continue to do the same things ...if it means putting different people on the floor at the end of games...or getting rid of somebody...or firing the coach... something has to be done.

[Focus]

-need to make the game plan around Reef, if anyone don't follow, branch them.

-Branch Dion and start Diaw, let Diaw run the offence.

-Tell JT to just shoot the dam ball, don't think about pass.

-Play Hansen more, this guy have ball.

-try Dion/Hansen/Diaw/Theo/Nazr, this should be [censored] of a rebound/def team to hold the lead.

-Can we run triangle w/ Reef Diaw and JT?

If we do it all, we should be won a few more now.

[mdawg]

I really think all you guys, while being good fans, are quite delusional. This team is no where near being a contender. The pieces just don't fit. JT isn't a point guard. This franchise needs two things: cap space and lottery picks. The Hawks need to do what the Nuggets did, which is basically sacrifice two years so you can be bad enough to get top 5 draft picks. Now look at where Denver is. If there are teams willing to give lottery picks/cap space for Theo and SAR, I say do it ASAP. Start Diaw, Hansen, and Dickau so you can see what you need with the lottery picks. The Hawks have to hit rock bottom before they can improve. I'm not happy about it, but it's the truth.