For those claiming BK made bad moves....

[Admin]

did you guys ever stop to think for 1 second that maybe the deal that got us Rasheed and ridded us of SAR and Theo plus their salaries hinged on us giving them Dickau? I am sure that we arent the only team in the league to see the potential in him and its possible that Portland wouldnt agree to the deal without him being included. Or perhaps he ASKED to be included in the deal so that he could go play ball up there with his wife?

Sure BK cleaned house, but he didnt just get rid of the entire roster just to put his own mark on the team. He got us a ton of cap room much earlier, made sure that we had a high lotto pick and also got us the extra pick that will someday be the superstar of this franchise we have been begging for.

So what if we lost Dickau, any of the major PGs we get this offseason will be better than him because they will have better size which is something that will help make us a better defensive team. Personally I liked Dickau and was thrilled when we traded up to get him and I hated that he never got a real shot here, but thats life and I will be much happier with Paul, Williams, etc. running our point next year.

So what if we lost Nazr. He is never going to be a center that you can win a championship with. He isnt a transition center and he isnt a banger either. He is simply a guy who puts up nice stats, while being a major liability on defense. He was getting paid far too much for what he should be doing on a championship caliber team, coming off the bench backing up the 4 and 5. Either this offseason or the following offseason we will replace him with someone bigger, stronger, and nastier. Someone who is more of a true center.

Anyways, these are my thoughts. I am happy with what BK has done. The only thing I regret is not getting Howard out of this draft, but from what I understand he made them a VERY fair offer for that pick and they wouldn't bite. Hopefully in 2 years we will get the best player off of Howards team, Randolph Morris, to be our beast center of the future. Perhaps soon after Howard will be a FA and will want to be re-united with Smooth and Morris. Talk about a dream come true.....

[phoostal]

Only time will tell about BK's moves. Right now all it has gotten us is the worst record in the league. A lot of cap room that no free agent will take and plenty of chances in the lottery. We will see how it turns out.

Nothing positive so far. You may say hey we got smoove, but we could have gotten him if we made the playoffs. Since he went 17.

P

[pathway23]

hey phoostal we wouldn't have had the 17th pick if we kept Rasheed Wallace. Weren't you calling for us to keep Rasheed Wallace so we could make a playoff run?

[KBatPCSOM]

I'm curious, because Billy Knight made it perfectly clear from the very beginning that this wasn't going to be a quick turnaround.

Billy is just now starting to get the players he is going to build this team around, and it starts with Josh Smith and Al Harrington at this point. Those two players are the only players on the team right now that I consider to be the building points.

We will see how Josh Childress develops, because he has a great chance to be a part of this.

[Wretch]

Because I don't see that either. I'm not saying he's a horrible GM. I loved the way he built the team over the summer. I think he has done a good job of drafting and he made some damn good deals for Toine and Harrington.

However, I really am not impressed by salary dumps. I like that we have room to entertain the thought of making an offer to a max free agent, but we would have that anyway. We got a high draft pick, but we were headed there anyway - and regardless, that's not hard to do either. It's actually more like a byproduct of salary dumping.

I like the Josh Smith pick as much as the next person, and he may certainly be worth Dan, Theo, and Reef or even moreso. But when those deals were made, nobody (to include BK) knew that so many other teams would pass on Smith. So I give him credit for doing what any other GM not named Babcock would have done at 17.

Don't get me wrong. I like the direction we're going in and I have faith in Billy Knight. I just don't think he's perfect. Nor do I believe that we should have so hastily dumped EVERYBODY.

I think Billy Knight himself makes the best arguement:

Quote:

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Knight will have to take some chances, perhaps targeting some lesser-known players he's convinced will come into their own with an increased role on a team in need of a boost.

He pointed to the Pistons' starting backcourt of Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton as the most obvious example.

"They were both young guys that people gave up on for whatever reasons," Knight said. "They were the starting backcourt for the world champions, so

you have to be extremely careful in your evaluation of talent

and how it can impact your team.

"We're in the microwave age right now, where everybody wants everything right now. And sometimes a player needs some seasoning, a chance to come into his own.

That's something we all have to be conscious of now to make sure we're not making as few mistakes as possible during the evaluation process

."

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[Plainview1981]

Quote:

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I'm curious, because Billy Knight made it perfectly clear from the very beginning that this wasn't going to be a quick turnaround.

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Sure because this team will not have the chance for the

playoffs for probably 5-7 years atleast. Haven taken

the place of teams such as the Nuggets/Cavs and teams

like that.

[Admin]

I probably would have made more of an effort to get one of the top 2 picks since those were obviously the stars of the draft. I also think we should have gotten more for Nazr than we did, but it was nice to be able to dump his salary while his value was high to a desperate team since he certainly isn't worthy of being a franchise center.

The big thing that you guys arent taking into account about this roster makeover is how MAJORLY IMPORTANT it was to get rid of the old players and the negative connotation that they brought to the team. JT, SAR, Theo, Nazr, etc.....while all being good players, represented the losing ways of this team and Billy wanted to start fresh with new, younger, more athletic players that wouldnt be tainted by players like SAR and Theo who would be leaving after this final year of their contracts anyway. While we are still losing, this team is growing together and the young kids are getting playing time which will make the rebuilding quicker and that wouldnt have happened with all those other vet players still hanging around.

By the way, you do have to give Billy credit for Smooth for many reasons. First, had he not made the trades he did, we would have never had a shot at Smooth and would have hated seeing him blow up like this someplace else. Also, he did take the risk on the guy that the "experts" like Bilas said would be the biggest bust of the draft and that was passed over 16 other times.

[BlackHawkDown]

I never thought I would say this But you are dead F'Ning on. I agree 100 percent.

I thought I was the only one who Noticed Nazr was second rate and Theo and Reef were limited.

[tmac13]

Nazr salary was not a burden on the team, and while he may not be a star, he all, by himself puts up better numbers than Collier, Drob, and Willis combined..Bk could have also made it very clear to Stotts last year, DO NOT WINNNNN..That would have been easy since it is a very common practice in the NBA to tank for a better draft pick..As for Smooth, we would have had at least a top 17 pick last year even if we didn't trade anyone..We may not have Chills, but Smoove would have been around for BK to take.

[Admin]

He was a guy that DOES NOT fit the style of play that we want to play and he still has 2 years at almost 6 million per on his deal. No thats not an Antoine type salary, but that is 6 million bucks that could be the difference in us getting a player this offseason that can be a big part of our future.

Also, while yes its true we could have gotten Smooth and no Childress hasnt been great this year, he is still very talented and does a lot of things well and will someday be an integral part of this team. So please dont make light of just not having Childress on the roster.

Also, there is no way that Stotts would have just lost on purpose, knowing that he wasnt going to be coming back the next year. I mean honestly, why in the world would you instruct your team to lose when you knew you werent coming back the next year. Plus, what kind of message does that send to the league about your team. While its true that we suck this year, I can promise you that other teams notice how hard we play night in and night out and that will play a factor in the offseason in us being able to acquire a difference maker.

[tmac13]

And it made no difference in players wanting to come to a horrible team..And, in case you haven't noticed, we don't play hard every game, about 1 in 3 we get literally blown off the court..And if, BK didn't tell Stotts to tank the season, he should be fired, cause that was the whole purpose of gutting the team, to get a better pick.

[Admin]

Gotta love paying a guy to tell another guy you are paying to lose lose lose....if I was Atlanta Spirit I would fire you in 2 seconds if you were my GM telling my coach to lose on purpose.

Just so you are clear, we didnt make a serious attempt to sign any marquee FA this offseason. We made a half ass attempt to sign K-Mart, knowing he wanted to play for the Nuggets all along and we were RUMORED to be going after Damp (when in reality we offered him less than half of what he got from Dallas).

Also, this team does play hard every night. Getting blown out is not a sign of a team not playing hard. Its a sign of a team severely deficient in depth. Your starters arent going to have a good night every single night and when you have depth that is as poor as what we have, plus 2 young rookies playing huge minutes, you are going to struggle. Next year we will draft a legit star quality PG, we will sign mid level free agents and be a little better than we are this year. We will go into the following offseason with a boatload of money, another lotto pick, and we will be looking like Denver did last year as a team on the rise with money and a good young team.

[Diesel]

Reading that quote, I get images of Billy Knight signing Swift/Kwame in the offseason.

Young guys that people have given up on?

[phoostal]

Yes, I wanted to keep Wallace. If we kept him and was a boderline playoff team, let's say anywhere between picks 11 -18. We still could have picked Smith.

Childress doesn't matter, because in my opinion he has shown nothing to get excited about, like Smith.

Who knows we may have been able to resign Wallace and still have Smith.

I will give credit to Knight on the Harrington deal, that's the only thing.

It doesn't take much to do a salary dump for cap space and to have a S#$# team to get in the lottery every year. We see how it turns out. I'm just not impressed so far.

P

[phoostal]

I never said I was expecting a quick turnaround. I'm just not impressed with what BK has done. He has made some good moves and some bad. I'm not condemning for what he has done. I will give it time. Just don't ask me to get excited that he cleared cap space and has gotten us to be a lottery team every year.

P

[Wretch]

Sometimes all it takes is the right player and sometimes it takes a combination of that and coaching - look at Chicago, Seattle, and Phoenix. So no, I don't think a complete (as in 100%) overhaul is ever completely neccessary - no matter how many times BK and the media say it is. I agree 1000% that the culture of losing around the team needed to be changed, and that for the most part the guys we had needed to go; however, individually I hold each one less accountable and with the right environment maybe they had more to offer. Eitherway, I just don't think it wise, or that difficult, to "give" players away - especially productive ones with ending contracts.

As for Josh Smith, I realize that we took a risk on him with the 17th pick and that 13 other teams passed on him. Yet, you can't really fault the first 5 picks, so that leaves 10. Discouting us and Chicago (because I can't really fault them for taking Deng), that leaves 8 teams that could have picked up Smith.

And while it is true that BK made the right call at 17, I think any GM working for Atlanta makes that same move. There might have been a little choice between Nelson and Smith, but to me this is still a no brainer for us; especially after missing out on Howard. The timing (considering new ownership and new direction) was just dead on. As for the pick itself, I don't think getting a mid-late 1st rounder for Rasheed Wallace was all that difficult to do.

I give credit where credit is due, but alot of this stuff is just fluffing BK's resume. The typical life cycle of a GM isn't 13 years. If (and when) BK leaves, he wants to make sure that people can look at what he did for the most mediocre, forgotten, and useless franchise for the NBA - all by himself. With a "get out of jail free" card, in other words a "valid" reason for getting rid of everybody, I can uderstand.

[Wretch]

Yeah, you just know something like that is coming down the pipes.

[VDiLetto]

Last year's team was a fun team to watch. They busted their asses out their and palyed hard and beat some teams they should not have beaten. I wish we had resigned Sura and honestly I think that if we had kept Rasheed and Pryzbilla, and Zabraca had been healthy, we could have snuck into that 8 spot. Anyone remember seeing them play with Sheed and how they all played so hard. We lost that game but it was a bunch of guys who had never met. Of course, we would have never gotten Josh Smith had we not gotten rid of sheed, but it would be nice to not say just once...wait till next year. Heck ,we were saying that before THIS year... I'm tired of looking at the next draft instead of the actual season.

[Plainview1981]

The big thing that you guys arent taking into account about this roster makeover is how MAJORLY IMPORTANT it was to get rid of the old players and the negative connotation that they brought to the team."

That hasn't changed. The Hawks are worse than a EXPANSION

TEAM. Same stuff it has been for years. Josh Smith helps,

but the Hawks will need alot more going for it.

Quote:

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Reading that quote, I get images of Billy Knight signing Swift/Kwame in the offseason.

Young guys that people have given up on?

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Why would you want a p*ssy like Kwame on your team?

Seriousally, I wouldn't have thought he was as big of

a cream puff as he is. I would take Swift at a cheap

price tag but just say no to Kwame Brown.

[Diesel]

That's the image that comes to mind.

Really I don't know what BK will do and neither do any of us on this board or any board.

He could turn around and resign Walker. He could turn around and trade Harrington. He could turn around and go after a big Euro-Bust in the draft. The point is that we don't know. However, i have some trust in BK based on what he has done previously. I believe he has a plan and that's better than NO plan (i.e. see the Babcock years)... because when you don't know what you want you will take anything.