He's That High

Here's the link to Hoopionion that will then take you to SB Nation, so you can see what I've been saying about Rick Sund for going on 15 months now...in a nutshell, anyone who thinks he's a good GM...uh, I beg to disagree

Check the link here

Breaking, Shocking News...

Just a quick one today...

Two developments occurred today:

1. The Hawks are allegedly going to shock the NBA establishment by signing Josh Powell to a (get this) veteran minimum contract for 2 years. Yes, we're getting Kobe's confidante and 12th man from the defending champions to be our...oh, maybe 10th man (at best). My only question is whether Joe Johnson went out to recruit him to join us.
   
2. Chris Paul put out a manifesto to the Hornets saying pretty much - trade me to one of these teams. I always wonder how that works because if I was a GM - I'd pretty much ensure that he never gets to one of those places UNLESS I get a sweetheart deal to do so. Otherwise, goodbye N.O., hello Minnesota or Sacramento. Why is this on a Hawks blog, you ask? Well, it's because I would like for the rumors about transactions for once bend to the side of something exciting that could potentially point us toward a title. Last time that happened was when Amare Stoudamire was on the rumor mill for us... Anyway, if you're me - you've called the new GM in N.O. and you've offered everyone on our team with the exception of Josh Smith first, then you acquiesce and say - ok, we'll give you Josh, but we gotta keep Al and then, you can go for anyone else - that includes Joe Johnson if they will take him. Draft picks...yep, those too...then, you rely on Chris Paul and one big man stud to actually recruit players to play in Atlanta.

And on another note - how hard is it to recruit to Atlanta? Short of an incompetent front office (now that I think of it - that phrase is going to answer this question for itself), I STILL can't for the life of me understand why the land that almost every black man (esp. one with money) would die to be in (and many live in). A land that rivals NYC, LA, and Miami for sheer black man love...how are we NEVER in the discussion for this? Who are these old men who are having problems getting athletes to come to Hotlanta? I mean seriously...this really bothers me.

Disclaimer: I love all people of every race, so please don't send this blog to Fox News or else you'll be apologizing to me when I show you my life's work and the fact that I could write a blog about why white athletes should come here too, but since only David Lee is worthy of being recruited here and he's in Golden State...this point should be moot, but I needed to say that.

The hits keep coming...

In searching for one sign of positivity for the Hawks this season, we reach over to the Summer League (since reports like - we're going to bring back Jason Collins and the rest of the minimum vets that can't get a sniff from Boston, Miami, Orlando, and LA are not doing the trick). While the able writing hands at Peachtree Hoops and Hoopinion have done a stellar job of giving game recaps, I wanted to rely on watching the games and not being flooded with other thoughts.

Note: This is also due to the fact that when I'm reading other thoughts - many of them find ways to make Rick Sund's decisions good ones, make Joe Johnson the linchpin of some future Hawks championship run, and able to see coaching genius in Larry Drew, so I'm sworn off reading things for understanding my Hawks. I think my conclusions are good enough (even when wrong).

Which brings me to this week's 'DAMN' segment, check out the Summer League All Tourney Team and tell me who is missing.

T-Mobile Rookie of the Month
DeMarcus Cousins (Sacramento)

Most Outstanding Player
John Wall (Washington)

All-Tournament Team
Sam Young (Memphis)
JaVale McGee (Washington)
Reggie Williams (Golden State)
DeMar DeRozan (Toronto)
JJ Hickson (Cleveland)
Ty Lawson (Denver)
Dominique Jones (Dallas)
Derrick Caracter (LA Lakers)
Larry Sanders (Milwaukee)
Gani Lawal (Phoenix)
Jermaine Taylor (Houston)
Alonzo Gee (San Antonio)

As I review the list, all I see is a bunch of guys who aren't going to start and possibly won't be in the rotation (save Wall, Cousins, and possibly Hickson). So, it doesn't give me any confidence that the player who is supposed to run our team in October can't make the All Tourney team over a bunch of late 1st round and 2nd round picks. There's no shame in it not happening, but if your hope was that Summer League was going to give you that boost of confidence that Teague was going to be hitting jump shots and running teams ragged with his stellar court leadership and dogged defense...well, there's always training camp.

And before anyone tries to tell me that I need to have patience, I do have patience and I have always believed that Teague is better than Bibby right now, but I'm not sure that Teague has the ability to move the Hawks past the 2nd round and really that's all that matters at this stage. And any thoughts that Jordan Crawford will be a good pro are muted by the fact that he ..uh, um...plays the same position as the guys who shoot the most on our team. So, as excited as I could get - I'll just say...uh, we probably won't see much Jordan Crawford on this team until they let Jamal Crawford walk next season OR we trade Jamal Crawford for a useful piece during the season before he walks away for nothing.

New Ownership Insights

As many of my 5 fans know by now, I am no fan of the work of our ownership, our management (even though I blame ownership more), and our coaching staff (even though I blame ownership for the coaching situation).

That's pretty clear, but I do want to highlight a few things that the recent sale of the Golden State Warriors tells us and some are bad and some are great.

So, first, the good:

• It's important to note that a team purchased for $119M in 1995 just was sold for $450M in 2010 during a recession. Which means you'd have to lose over $20M a year for 15 years in order to NOT make money over the duration of the this ownership period. That doesn't include the tax savings you get for claiming the loss that happens each year over the 15 years. Golden State has never been one of the best teams in the NBA. This deal did not include a hockey team or an arena. Get where I'm going with this? Yes, this means that as much as we discuss the fact that ASG is cash poor (and they may be) - they are NOT going to lose money at the end of the day. They just are losing money in operating costs NOW.
  
• So, in a nutshell, as I always say - you don't buy a non-NFL sports team (and even the NFL is getting less and less) in order to make money on an annual basis. You buy it for $200M in order to sell it for $$800M 15 to 20 years later. That should give some context for discussion on why we should be hopeful for getting an owner to buy our team who gets that.

The Bad:

• So, since we know that the money is made on the back end and not annually, this does highlight the biggest issue for our ownership and it's not that we aren't spending money. It's that we aren't spending money WISELY. The main reason teams end up over the luxury tax is that they aren't spending all of their money wisely and yet are willing to spend more money to account for the mistakes being made. So, Rashard Lewis for $111M is a mistake, but going out and getting more pieces to go with him make up for that mistake. And this is done because 1) they want to win a title and 2) they know that they will recoup the money that was ill-conceived in the first place when the owners decide to sell the team.
• This is leads to another bad outcome and that's that - you can't sell a team for $450M and make the player's union believe that the league is hemorrhaging money. The player contracts and the value of the teams are not in sync with - we're too poor to sustain this model. So, if I'm a player, we're going to have to have a work stoppage (Note: this presumes that as a player I've saved my money well and am able to live for a year or two without a paycheck vs. owners who don't even eat off of the money made or lost by their teams. Since we know that too many players are NOT that financially savvy, the owners still have a bargaining chip that is easy to chomp on.) Anyway, if the players are smart, they won't allow owners to simply scream about operating expenses. That's NOT how owners make their money. If they want to scream about expenses, then you can't go over your own salary cap and pass out bad contracts at the same time. Either eat the contracts, spend more, and shut up about poverty or don't eat the contracts and allow your team to get worse before it gets better.
  

So, the moral of this story is hopefully there is an owner who sees the big picture in Atlanta and no, I'm not buying the poverty chants of owners (ours included) - it's just bad ownership, not cheap ownership that has caused us to mismanage our salary cap and is preventing us from moving for as a franchise. They are right to communicate that we spent money on pieces (such as Jamal Crawford, etc), but the problem is - as wonderful offensively that he is...that was still $9M not well spent. Mike Bibby and Marvin Williams' contracts are money not well spent. Spending $20M+ on Joe Johnson next year, much less for the following 5 is not money well spent WHEN you still need about 3 more quality pieces that you need to add to the roster. That's what's so funny about this Shaq for Marvin debate or anything else about adding pieces. We aren't 1 piece away - we are more than that away.

Sigh....

The Clippers of the South

While we wait for the next (oops, first) shoe to drop as it relates to the alleged improvements to the roster, I'm trying to write my way into purging my disgust with what's happening with the Hawks right now by comparing them to the Clippers.

1. Ownership - Donald Sterling has been known as the cheapest owner in the league...only to pay up at the point at which he was actually being lampooned to the point that a stand had to be made...only to overpay the wrong guys and underpay the right ones. Save the slumlord-edness of Mr. Sterling...sounds familiar
   
2. Coaching - Simply put, save Larry Brown - has there ever been a coach of any substance in either franchise's history? And don't say Lenny Wilkens - he was past his prime when he was in Atlanta.
   
3. Players - Lately, our players for the most part have played out the string. Been a lot of lottery picks and a lot of talent, but nothing approaching championship quality. That happens when you know that your ownership and coaching isn't up to snuff, so you just work to get as much money as you can.
   
4. Free Agents of nothingness - Basically, when is the last time a player of substance REALLY came here to be a part of the team? I would say Joe Johnson, but he's had about $200M reasons to be in Atlanta since he wasn't going to make that money in any other city. So, him aside is anyone ever joining one of those teams for market or less than market value. Yeah, that's what we thought..

And not to mention that the fan base is pretty blase and the media don't really have much respect for us. So, tell me again why we haven't signed ONE free agent to help us get a couple of these humps. Kinda trying to figure out how the Miami Heat have gotten a roster almost filled before we got any help.

Yep, get ready for a bunch of veteran minimum players, Hawks fans. Sigh...

Our First JJ Contract Casualty

So, in our first casualty of the summer, we have....

a sign-and-trade of Josh Childress for a Phoenix Suns 2012 2nd Round Pick.

I'll let my friends at Peachtree Hoops and Hoopinion tell you why this may or may not be a great thing, but let it be repeated here - that this is missed opportunity no. 1 for management to prove to me that they were trying to add pieces to the roster in an effort to contend for a title. It was pretty much a forgone conclusion that Josh Childress was never going to be brought back here. I'd just like to see which overseas talent we're going to bring back with the 40-50th pick of the 2012 draft only to leave them overseas so we don't have to pay them. Should be interesting...

Let the Al Horford Contract Watch begin...

So, for my blog haters, I don't blame JJ for this (I blame JJ for lying about whether or not he wants to win a title over making an extra $30M or so - he absolutely would sacrifice a title for the money, which is fine - just don't lie and say that something that's not true). I am consistent about this much - ASG is certainly talking out of both sides of its mouth. You don't trade first round picks for cash or trade assets you kept for 2 years with no return only to get back a 2nd round pick. I'm almost CERTAIN that the Bucks would have given the Hawks a better 2nd round pick and even a player last year for Childress, so this is actually getting to the point of laughability with regards to what these guys say and what these guys do. I'm watching what they do and it all points to ... here's why you're broke.

The New East

So, while everyone waits to see how the East shakes out, I'm going to do my 2nd annual Way Too Early to Predict 2010-2011 standings.

1. Orlando (SE Division Champ)
2. Miami
3. Boston (Atlantic Division Champ)
4. Chicago (Central Division Champ)
5. Milwaukee (Updated: Michael Redd is not planning to return until Feb. 2011, so this may be adjusted soon.)
6. Atlanta
7. Charlotte
8. New York
9. Cleveland
10. Toronto

And the rest of them...

Now, before folks start going wild like they did last year when I suggested that the Hawks could end up fighting for the 7th or 8th seed. These standings are made with the thought that all players on these teams will be healthy during 90% of the season. It all presumes that the teams will do what they normally do to keep their teams viable during the season.

So, without any further ado, yes - we expect the Magic to continue to rule the roost. We can't say we are sure that they will win a title, but they will be motivated to get back to the NBA Finals and have the purse strings to add whatever components necessary to stay ahead of the Miami (Super) Heat. In filling out the rest of the standings, we do believe that the role players of the NBA are going to line up to play with the Heat (why wouldn't they?), so while they have no team now - we're not really concerned about it in a way that says they won't be a title contender by season's end the way that the Celtics were in '08. Boston has secured another veteran led campaign and while we don't believe they can win a NBA title again - they certainly can win their division once again.

Which leaves us with the push for the 4th seed - 6th seeds and personally, I am not optimistic about our ability to hold off the Bucks and Bulls as we are presently constituted. The Bulls added Boozer and subtract Hinrich...but still have Noah, Deng, Rose, and a defensive-minded coach. A Bucks team that was pushing hard down the stretch now has a tested Brandon Jennings and adds Bogut as well as Michael Redd back to the roster will be battling for supremacy in the Central Division.

Which leaves us with the Hawks fighting to keep pace in an Eastern Conference that just shifted the balance of power significantly. Now, as was the case last year, many things can change (Arenas and guns, Redd/Bogut injuries, Bulls giving away Salmons, etc) and so, I am not sentencing the Hawks to 6th or wishing it, but the Hawks have made no improvements unless (again) you determine that the core will get better by virtue of playing together another year and that Jeff Teague is the answer that Mike Bibby was not last year. I have rejected the core getting better answer for the 2nd straight offseason (and to be clear, winning 1-2 more games is NOT our answer to whether or not a team is better - as we always say there are a lot of bad basketball teams out there) contrasted against adding an asset like Boozer or getting Redd/Bogut back or adding two top 10 talents to the Heat.

While this will be more useful in about 2 months, we are ready to hear your thoughts. After another Hawks playoff implosion, what specific players do you think the Hawks should sign or trade to address their weaknesses? Do you believe the Hawks will lose ground, maintain status quo, or improve their record and playoff prospects next year?