Hawks Off-Season Plan...

[conleyorbust]

I really like Blair, worrying about him being like Shelden is silly to me. Blair's weight is concentrated in his lower body which makes him impossible to move. Blair also has some of the best hands I've ever seen. Blair has a much higher bball IQ than Shelden too.

Blair's offensive rebounding is just off the charts, its insane that he grabs a full quarter of his team's misses.

[evildallas]

I don't think he's at all like Shelden. I just needed an example of the worst possible undersized PF who had a good college career for my range. Shelden couldn't catch the ball and any GM that deserved to have a job could have seen it. God I hate Billy Knight with all my being. Essentially our draft needs are still to fill areas that Billy Knight left horrendously bare during his time in charge.

A PG who can penetrate and take advantage of the adjustment in the NBA rules to replace failed attempts Speedy Claxton and Acie Law
Beef on the inside who can come off the bench and allow our bigs to play reasonable minutes as well as match up against Jason Maxiell, Reggie Evans, Powe and Big Baby, etc. This would be instead of the already gone Shelden Williams and never on the court Solomon Jones.

Blair looks good and we know how well he can dominate tall, skinny bigs. Not sure how he'll do offensively overall though because of his height. My thing is that I really like some of the PGs that might be on the board. As for Mullens, I'm just desperate for length in the lineup defensively. If I was the GM I would have a strategy to obtain that length in free agency and let someone else try to groom the ultra raw Mullens. If Blair and my PG targets are all gone then I would probably look toward one of the veteran swingmen like Terrence Williams or Sam Young. We have enough holes on our bench that almost any BPA would also fill a need for us.

[evildallas]

An update, the latest DraftExpress mock now has Jeff Teague at 18, Eric Maynor at 19, Craig Brackins at 20, BJ Mullens at 21, and Dejuan Blair at 22.

If the board is that loaded when we pick then pja123 strategy of picking up a 2nd 1st would be golden. I'd gladly welcome Eric Maynor and Dejuan Blair to our rotation.

By comparison, NBAdraft.net currently shows Maynor at 18, Sam Young at 19, Blair at 20, Mullens at 21 and Teague at 22.

[parson]

Blair looks to me like a rich-man's version of Jason Maxiell. With the depth at PF we already have, I can understand why folks don't think we'd draft him but I'd sure draft him before Maynor.

[raleigh]

The good thing about this draft from an early perspective - it looks like it's deep with role players.

[evildallas]

Blair looks to me like a rich-man's version of Jason Maxiell. With the depth at PF we already have, I can understand why folks don't think we'd draft him but I'd sure draft him before Maynor.

What PF depth to you refer to? Josh and Al can both play the position, but as they both start it doesn't translate to depth.

Also, don't sleep on Eric Maynor because he went to a small school. He was a late bloomer that was overlooked by major programs. He has skills and could develop into a stud PG done the road. There's no sin in finding your PG around that spot in the draft (see Jarrett Jack and Rajon Rondo).

[johnny878]

Why would you resign bibby over Marvin? Bibby is old. Horrible on Defense. And has plenty of games where he just decides not to show up at all.

Marvin is young. The best perimeter defender on the team. And has shown growth to his game(added a 3pt shot).

Bibby can be replaced by a ton of pg's in the league.

[D21]

Both Bibby and Marvin get 21M this season, so even each at 10M/yr, they would cost less than now, and don't hurt so much the team. And I believe they can both stay for less than that, so I really don't understand why we continue on this Marvin over Bibby, or Bibby over Marvin.

And even if we want to change the starting PG, we won't get a better than Bibby by letting him go, and sign another one, because if we keep Marvin, even starting at 7M, we won't have enough money to sign a PG for more than the MLE: we have to renounce the rights on Bibby, Zaza, Murray and Childress to be at 41M, Marvin at 7M make it 48M, add 1.35M for a 19-20th pick and you only have 7.65M to sign the PG, and fill the roster with minimum contracts.

What is better ? Sign Marvin and a 7.65M PG and lose player/rights Bibby, Zaza, Murray and Childress (or the same thing with Bibby signed and a MLE SF or big if you want to keep only Bibby and not Marvin), or sign both Marvin and Bibby starting at 8M (being at 41+16=57M, so nearly the estimated cap for next season), and still have all the exceptions (MLE, BAE) and rights on Zaza, Murray and Childress to make some sign-&-trade and get just under the tax ?

We can also do a sign-&-trade of Bibby and/or Marvin, but if we want to stay just under the tax with the best team we can have, it's certainly not by letting Bibby go somewhere else and renouncing all the rights on Zaza, Murray and Childress.
I will repeat, but we can keep both Bibby and Marvin without any financial problem (even if we have to think about Joe salary for the following season, there will be the 5M of Speedy expiring contract).


Murray is a special case, because if we renounce all these rights, and use cap room, we would need some of this cap room to sign him, and if we keep all these rights, we can sign or sign-trade Bibby, Marvin, Zaza and Childress for any amount, but Murray can't get more than 120% of his actual salary because he's a non-bird own free agent. So in any case, Murray will need a part of the MLE to be signed (if I am not wrong).
Too bad Murray was not signed for 2 or 3 years, and Evans only one