Several Years Later.... What is the impact of.....

[Diesel]

What was the impact of us Losing Childress to the Greek League?

Quote

The 6-foot-8, 210-pound guard/forward averaged 11.8 points and 4.9 rebounds as the Hawks' top reserve last season. He averaged 11.1 points and 5.6 rebounds in four years with Atlanta about being drafted sixth overall in 2004 out of Stanford.

Just to complete the information portion of this post.. when he returned from Greece, we traded him to Phoenix for what would become Mike Scott.

 

Now.. why ask the question?

Well, I was thinking about how tight  Childress, Horford, Marvin, Joe, Josh, and Bibby were. 

 

In losing him to Greece, did we mess up our team's chances?  He was the 6th pick of the draft in a strong draft year. He was efficient.  Would keeping him have made a difference for us?

 

[capstone21]

What is the point of this?

[thecampster]

I see great similarities between Childress and Bembry's games. I see Bembry as an even better defender and Childress being a bit more smooth. In the end, I am hoping Bembry discovers his shot.  If Bembry could become a 38% from 3, 44% from the field guy, I believe he could become a 2 way player at 16-5-5.  This was never Childress' ceiling.  A better question might have been, what was the impact of holding onto Woody too long as coach and not giving Drew more time.  The team which won 60 games was effectively Drew's squad.  Bud just fell into them and we've seen a slow decline since.  I liked Larry Drew and I think the bigger impact was giving up on Drew and giving Woody 1 year too many.

[sillent]

This is like asking what if we kept Smoove over Horford. To me Smith proved himself as a multi skilled PF but he and history showed that wasn't his goals. He balled out at Pf when Horford was gone and did everything asked for and we made yet another playoff run because of it. We later kept Horford and added Paul Millsap who besides athleticism (that Smoove no longer displayed). Now we have a completely different team in every aspect and some of the players in that pic are no longer in the league (Big 3) and the others are on completely different teams. Too irrelevant for a current conversation but when it came to the choice of which Josh I still think we picked the best one.

[Diesel]

1 hour ago, capstone21 said:

What is the point of this?

My bad.  I thought this was an Atlanta Hawks messageboard.  I guess we should talk about the Braves or something... How's Dale Murphy doing these Days.

[Diesel]

1 hour ago, thecampster said:

I see great similarities between Childress and Bembry's games. I see Bembry as an even better defender and Childress being a bit more smooth. In the end, I am hoping Bembry discovers his shot.  If Bembry could become a 38% from 3, 44% from the field guy, I believe he could become a 2 way player at 16-5-5.  This was never Childress' ceiling.  A better question might have been, what was the impact of holding onto Woody too long as coach and not giving Drew more time.  The team which won 60 games was effectively Drew's squad.  Bud just fell into them and we've seen a slow decline since.  I liked Larry Drew and I think the bigger impact was giving up on Drew and giving Woody 1 year too many.

I don't see anything in Bembry yet.   He is a guy who does a little bit of everything but all at a low level in comparison to the NBA.  I don't see Bembry ripping down 5 rebs... Sorry. 

[lethalweapon3]

I feel like the impact turned out great for the Hawks fanbase. It was the first time we were compelled to deal with playoff-roster players, particularly starters, willfully Looking Out For Number One and departing, and the team not making a tough situation worse by tossing bad money out there to avoid the risky P.R. “problem” of losing “something” for “nothing.”

The few times the organization pulled out the pocketbook to keep their talent in-house (ex. Joe, Baze), rather than “let them walk,” they’ve been widely excoriated for their trouble. Chillz’ departure steeled our loins for the offseasons to come (ex. Craw, Zaza, Smoove, JYD, Horf, Sap; also, Smoove RFA, Teague RFA) where Hawks HQ was happy to let their players assess their own market value, rather than rush out there with an offer they couldn’t refuse.

I always imagine opening a Hawks Won’t Make the Playoffs ‘Cause Museum downtown, with a statue of Chillz (and maybe Sir Charles) outside the front door. Every preseason, there was some reason the Hawks were supposed to fall out of the Top 8 in the East. And it began after the first modern-day playoff run, with Chillz heading across the Adriatic and leaving us high-and-dry. At least this season, such arguments would finally be understandable.

I feel just a little less enamored with the impact on Chillz’ pro hoops career. Just a little. Yes, the dude got pizzaid. But foregone was the chance to develop and enhance his skillset at the NBA level with some of the best personnel in the world at his disposal (maybe not so much with Woody around, but still!), honing it against top-notch competition. And hindsight being 20/20 and whatnot, but could the homie have picked a worse country above the Equator to land at that particular time?

Greece was getting racked with mounting government debt, major bank closures, and a miffed citizenry stressing over bailouts and austerity measures just a few years after the Olympics skipped town. In the middle of all this, the nation’s equivalent of the Lakers goes and woos a conspicuous American overseas, granting him a floor with a swimming pool all to himself in a high-rise condo, and parading him around as the closest thing to MJ they can get (“for the time being… just y’all wait ‘til LeBron and Kobe become free agents!”)? And then he goes out and can hardly average 10-and-5 per game? Bad optics, all around.

Greek fans didn’t get the GOAT they were sold, but Chillz’ eight-digit contract sure got their goat, especially as his team could muster just one midseason cup and amounted to mere parity with their national Celtics-style archrival. By the time he returned stateside at age 27, he was what the cool kids these days call, “washed”, and his sketchy behavior in subsequent competition didn’t help his overseas profile (it’s ideal for BIG3 comp, though).

It would not have been wise to keep Chillz at the value he was expecting to receive. But it would have been intriguing to see, whether with the Hawks or somebody else, what a serious effort to work on his jumper and defense could have done for his long-range NBA prospects. Oh, well!

~lw3

[ATLSmith]

On 7/24/2017 at 10:10 PM, thecampster said:

I see great similarities between Childress and Bembry's games. I see Bembry as an even better defender and Childress being a bit more smooth. In the end, I am hoping Bembry discovers his shot.  If Bembry could become a 38% from 3, 44% from the field guy, I believe he could become a 2 way player at 16-5-5.  This was never Childress' ceiling.  A better question might have been, what was the impact of holding onto Woody too long as coach and not giving Drew more time.  The team which won 60 games was effectively Drew's squad.  Bud just fell into them and we've seen a slow decline since.  I liked Larry Drew and I think the bigger impact was giving up on Drew and giving Woody 1 year too many.

Bembry has way better handles.  Childress was always a bit clumsy.

I don't think you can say the 60 win team was Drews squad.  Other than Horf and Teague, they were very different teams.

[benhillboy]

Never cared for Chillz but he was uncanny at tight-roping the baseline and scoring in the under-glass area.