Sund for BK was...

[tbhawksfan]

a bad move for the Hawks.

Word is that not only did BK want to fire Woodson (numerous times) and add Andersen to the team. I'm also thinking that BK would have handled the Chil thing differently.

ASG offered BK the same lame duck contract as Woody. ASG blocked BK's moves. Shelden drafting was probably an ASG move (conspiracy theory).

Sund lost a #6 pick, effective Chil for nothing and brought in two role players in Mo and Flip. Not top eight rotation type players on a good team. He stated that he wanted to take a year to get to know the team. WHAT!!!!!!! And he's a NBA GM ?

So a year of a do nothing GM and a do nothing right Woodson.

I'm shocked that any Hawks fan can accept this CRAP.

Maybe JJ won't be such a supporter of Woodson this off-season. Woody fried him once again and our best player looks like CRAP. No bench. No offense. 30 point road blow outs, every game.

The Hawks did not really improve from last season. their improved record was due to continued maturation. The play offs are showing that it's still the same team in every other aspect of the game. Poor, CRAP coaching, no bench, no offense, no exploitation of the teams strengths, failure to develop valuable players.

NO IMPROVEMENT

[killbuckner]

BK was a comically bad GM who botched numerous draftpicks yet people still are pining over him? Ridiculous. Repeatedly he showed he was a poor evaluator of talent in the draft. He was a strong believer that PG's were uninportant right as the handcheck rule change made PG's more important than ever and he gave woodson a real NBA PG for just half a season. I can't believe anyone would even have this argument.

And I'll even agree that the ASG are totally incompetent but once you are trying to lay ridiculous draftpicks at their feet then you know you have gone off the deep end. Its not like the ownership group wasn't willing to spend the money on the better player- BK just botched the picks.

And I can't wait to hear how you blame the ASG for Speedy Claxton.

[LL Cool Scott]

This is too stupid to even attempt to reply to.

[tbhawksfan]

Speedy was the second best FA PG available. I think Cassell was first. I'm not really saying that I want BK, just that we may be worse off with what we got, than what we would have gotten if BK had won the Woody thing.

Main point: Why wasn't Sund ready when he took over the Hawks? Every decent Hawksfan knew what our needs and situation were. We all knew Woodson's limitations and they haven't changed a bit. We all knew we needed another quality big, to develop our young PG and to have a deeper bench. Sund did nothing to improve those needs.

[killbuckner]

Speedy was a lousy contract from the moment he signed and I said so at the time. The Hawks were put in that position because of the ill fated attempt for BK to play Joe at PG and even then BK wanted a nontraditional defensive PG instead of someone who can initiate the offense. Over and over teams make the mistake of throwing money at someone who just happens to be available without regard to whether its the right move for the team longterm. It was simply a bad move.

I'll EASILY take Woodson over BK. Once Woodson was given an actual NBA PG the Hawks were a top 10 offense in the league. I seriously doubt that BK will ever be allowed to GM a team again.

Sund I am not a massive fan of but he deserves credit for the flip murray signing. He also deserves credit for signing Smith to a more reasonable contract than I thought he would get. I was convinced that the sixers would overpay for Smith but it never happened. (though I'm sure they now wish they had done that instead of signing brand) We'll see what Sund does in the draft- BK left him without any picks this past season. I am really hoping that he doesn't reach for project 7 footers like he did in Seattle but only time will tell on that. I badly want Dejuan Blair but I don't think he will be available when the Hawks pick and I don't think that Sund will be active about moving up.

[HMFFL]

Shelden drafting was probably an ASG move (conspiracy theory).

Billy had the final say with Shelden Williams at the time. You could tell he was sold and his eyes would light up when Shelden's name was mentioned. However, I remember Dominique Wilkins and Larry Drew being high on Shelden.

Speedy was the second best FA PG available. I think Cassell was first. I'm not really saying that I want BK, just that we may be worse off with what we got, than what we would have gotten if BK had won the Woody thing.

Before signing Speedy, Billy Knight offered Sam Cassell 14 million per season. Look at his production after signing his last contract. Signing speedy was a failure from the start, but I believe the organization was trying to please, and assumed they could just force pieces together. I hope the organization and Billy Knight learned from rationalizing things and not trusting the draft.

Main point: Why wasn't Sund ready when he took over the Hawks? Every decent Hawksfan knew what our needs and situation were. We all knew Woodson's limitations and they haven't changed a bit. We all knew we needed another quality big, to develop our young PG and to have a deeper bench. Sund did nothing to improve those needs.

Sund did his job the second he signed on. He added two "role" players that have been wonderful and key pieces to our teams success. Sund signed Flip for 1.5 million and Mo Evans for 2.5 million. How can you complain about those basement prices for the production we're getting out of the two? We lacked so much depth and those two guys filled two giant holes.

I love the way Sund handled Josh Smith during free agency. He let Josh seek out his own price and was prepared to match. All I heard was people around the city and Josh Childress being hard on Sund for the way he handled free agency.

It's very difficult to find a quality big during every off-season and even harder to convince one to play behind ZaZa. You don't force your hand just to acquire or sign another big that's going to make 5 million +. Kwame Brown sticks out the most to me. Care to elaborate who you wanted?

Solomon Jones deserved his opportunity this season and it's obvious he's an underachiever. Will have some options this off-season, but if ZaZa signs you can probably only expect a big from the draft. Your acting as if we have an endless amount of money to spend on free agents.

[JoshB914]

Is this serious?

Sund really didn't have to do much last summer, whenever a first-year GM comes in I think it's smart to evaluate things before making a ton of rash decisions, especially after the progress we showed against Boston. We ended up getting Josh for a quite reasonable contract, and made two under the radar signings in Flip and Mo that immediately gave us a better bench than we had ever had under BK and it's not even close. If you wanted him to bring Andersen over for the kind of money he is asking for that would have been a disaster as well. I'll take Zaza for the same type of contract all day long.

In the mean time, we won 47 games, snagged home court, and got out of the first round. What on earth is there to complain about? I'm going to wait a year or two to see if Sund can do the job, but this team has accomplished their main goals this season, and at least some of that credit has to go to the new GM.

And who cares about Chilldress anymore? Personally I'm happy he didn't stay here for the $7-8M deal we offered him. We are much better off with Mo and Flip, two guys who can defend much better than him and are better fits for our team offensively.

[parson]

tbhawksfan, 1st of all, thanks for properly spelling "role player." If I had a nickel for every time someone typed "roll" instead, I'd be rich.

As for the rest of your post ... sorry.

Seriously, Childress is not Sund's fault; he just got paid better than the NBA could (or would) offer. Evans and Murray have been more valuable. And Shelden Williams was indeed Billy Knight's mistake. I admit that I was one of those screaming that we had to have a big man. I was right about the need but wrong about the particular man to do the job. BK reached to satisfy a NEED. I guess I've learned you never do that with an especially high draft pick (oh wait, Chris Paul!!).

As for Woodson and Joe? You may be right, but how will we ever know?

[Skyhawk1]

I disagree 100% with the thread. It's not based in real facts, so it's got no credibility, sorry, but it's my opinion.

[evildallas]

^^^^ Totally agree about Childress. Mo Evans replaced him effectively with a better 3 pt shot. Flip Murray was the type of player we had need of for a couple years but BK hadn't gotten around to finding. Andersen had signed for big dollars in Barcelona before the Hawks had their free agency situation settled at all, so he really wasn't an issue except for an empty promise BK made on his way out of town. Sund hasn't had a draft to deal with yet because BK had jettisoned those picks, but in my book the only mistake he's made was paying Randolph Morris to sit at the end of the bench. That's a minor one as NBA teams historically always overpay for length at the end of the bench.

The thought BK actually makes me violent. We've discussed his numerous failures before and we could bump up any of those threads. I wouldn't hire him at any level of basketball. His successes are small enough to list again though, drafted Josh Smith, traded for Joe Johnson, signed Zaza Pachulia, drafted Al Horford, and traded for Mike Bibby. Although the 2 trades should probably have asterisks beside them as he traded when he could have signed Joe Johnson and the Mike Bibby trade while a steal finally brought in a PG for the last few months of BK's contract after years of bungling the filling of that position (Ivey over Duhon, resigning Lue, passing on best PG draft ever, drafting Shelden instead of a G and signing Speedy, drafting Law). His inability to judge PGs didn't only hamper the Hawks during his tenure, it likely set us back for a decade.

[ATL DirtyBird]

Im learning on the fly here, im basically a kid still and odnt know much about the management and all that. Is Rick Sund a good GM, or do we not know yet? Whats all this stuff about ownership fighting? Does that fighting hurt our team in any aspect right now?

[lunarblues]

you don't wanna know about the past...

anyway, BK is in the past and the players have already made their peace with him (they even mentioned them after getting past the first round). we are a top 10 team in the NBA and we still have enormous potential to imporve moving forward. lets hope that sund makes the decisions to get this team further into the playoffs. BK built the foundation (shakey but still standing) sund needs to finish the building.

[johnny878]

im glad he didnt give childress money. he really wasnt that good.

this will be a good offseason to evaluate him tho. The draft, fa of marvin and bibby, etc