S.T.H. Event w/ Gearon Jr.

[Ruhiel]

A poster at peachtreehoops attended Gearon's townhall (back in February) for Season Ticket Holders before the game at Hawks practice court, he took questions from the crowd, some nuggets,

- He was asked why do Hawks draft 6’ 9" centers, and another question about lack of centers, he answered he is mostly happy with play of Al, and that there are few Dominant centers today compared to past. He also pointed at fact Teague is 6’ 2" so they don’t draft 6’9" players always!! He said wish he could get Lion back before end of season.

- On subject of Teague, he talked how when Bibby trade went down, Wizards really wanted Teague, but he was not willing to trade Teague for Kirk. He said there were a lot of internal discussions. But he also pointed how team really got lucky when Kirk went down to try Teague and see what Teague is about. He said he realized what Teague was about when in playoffs last year he hurt both wrists, and wanted painkiller shots so he could quickly go back in and play, which he got.

- On whether he will sell the Hawks again, he sounded like he is in it for long term. He spoke to fact he could never hold a town hall meeting for hockey fans. because he doesn’t get hockey. The fact that he has been a Hawks fan since he was 4. He spoke to fact that one of reasons he bought the team was so a team that had become a losing team could again see good times and his kids could experience good basketball the way he had grown up with. He explained how tough it was selling Thrashers, how he asked his son to come to the meeting when he was going to confront newspapers about the sell, and how he broke up. He said at those low times an opportunity to sell the team came up and he agreed to sell. After sell did not go through, he took summer off, disconnected in his words, waited for lockout to finish and then came back. He is not looking to sell now.

- on subject of luxury tax he spoke how team is already in luxury tax. He spoke about Kenyon Martin. He said Kenyon was in ATL and had talked to Hawks and players. Hawks had told him they wanted him. But he also said Kenyon has a house in LA, so he thought just based on that fact, and the fact LA and NY markets always being magnets for players, it be tough to steal him

- He did speak about Jamal, and how he and his family so much like Jamal. But he believes Hawks have a deeper bench. Kept talking about value of Stackhouse in the locker room and the value of having veterans on the team.

- Spoke about Smoove. How he believes Josh is misunderstood. Talked how Josh’s facial expressions many times show a side of him that really is different than what he is inside. He did talk about Josh being All Star material, talked about the Chicago game and how Josh had filled the stat sheet with something that had not been done for many years and only by 4 players ever.

- He talked about value of continuity of having same core. Compared it to Orlando, who busted their team up and now are at worse place. Or talked about NY trying to put a team together and how tough it is. He spoke to fact that JJ came here, and how when JJ came here Cavs wanted him too, but were not willing to pay for him. He talked about Larry Hughes was the other free agent, and how Larry Hughes is now nowhere and JJ is still around. He talked to fact JJ is shy and doesn’t talk much. And even after the Detroit game, all JJ said was this is what they pay me to do.

- When the topic of center was raised again, he answered he thinks getting a center will reduce Smoove’s value by moving him away from the basket. So he is not convinced anything other than Lion and Smoove is necessary.

- He spoke how Teague is the first player who's a PG to lead the team in assists in the past 5 years rather than other positions. He did say Teague still does not credit for what he does, and does not get the fouls called, which is why he jumped the refs in the Pacers game.

He said that he'd attend another one and try to get more tidbits so I just wanted to post this here now in anticipation of another meeting and update on what Mr.Gearon says about the team.

[HMFFL]

Thank you for sharing.

[Ruhiel]

• He started the townhall talking about his 4 year plan. At the end of which he hoped Hawks would compete for championships. He said his first goal was to be an elite team, he said elite means getting past the first round of playoffs. And then he talked about championship level, which he defined as being able to get to conference finals. We are not championship level yet.
• He is very disappointed in not being able to see if we can compete at championship level when Al got hurt. He stated he went to bathroom and threw up when that happened (I think he was kidding). He believes Hawks are competing well with all the injuries.
• He started to cover players, starting with Josh. As soon as he said Josh has done good, there was strong applause. He then talked about Joe and Zaza and there was applause, my applause meter did not register as strong a scale as for Josh.
• He talked about Zaza, saying in March he is the third best center in the league. He said no one loves Atlanta as much as Zaza. And he is doing everything asked while he could be a consistent starter for many teams.
• He gave players and coaches credit. Hates the schedule Hawks have. He said Hawks are the only team with two 10 day trips. Only team to play Miami and Chicago on back to back nights. And Hawks started with the worst starting segment of any team in the league.
• He talked about bench and how losing Jamal was tough, but bench is helping and now he said we need help from fans.
• He talked about his work habits and how Mondays are his stats days where he focuses on stats. He said when Joe scores over 20, 90 percent of time Hawks win. If we score 92 points we are 22-4. He talked about D. And he said Hawks are number 1 team defensively in 4th quarter, and number 4 team in 1st quarter. We have won 18 games if we lead after 3rd quarter.

He then started taking questions,

• Q: Why did we not do anything at trade deadline, what can we do next year? He said we did not do anything because we are seven games over 500 at trade deadline, and Al is not with us. He wants to wait till end of season, because this is the year we were targeting towards making a run for championship level, and changes would have to happen after 4 years in off-season if we are not there.
• Q: What about some new coach? Examples: Nate McMillan or Mike K. from Duke. He said he won’t even entertain that question, as LD is the coach.
• Q: What is his position about use of advanced stats? There was mention of a conference in Boston (I think called Sloan) and what is Sund’s position on using advanced Stats for player evaluations? He said he is 50-50 on use of advanced stats. His son who works for Golden State is much bigger into that stuff. He said he believes in balance, don’t choose players by just letting a computer do the job. He said he believes in chemistry. He told story of the president in Seattle for whom he worked, I think he said his name is Wally Walker, who traded two first rounders for a center, who happened to be a stiff based on stats and never worked out
• Q: where is Al and will he be back? He said he honestly doesn’t know. He said Al is now running and doing some shooting. He does not want to make predictions, though he hopes he can have him back by playoffs. He talked about how this group of Hawks are such good people and have good chemistry. He said Al is such a team guy, he would not mind not starting and do whatever needed if he can come back. He said also it is important to note this year’s team does not quit. Last year’s team would quit. Some he said, is maturity of the players, and some are the veterans on the team. He said other teams have quit games but not Hawks. Because Hawks play D, he also said Chicago is the other team that does not quit. He also said the deeper bench stops us from quitting. Sund said the vets have no ego, and they don’t have to worry about development, unlike Pape Sy!!!!
• Bob Rathbun who was sitting next to him said this is his sixteenth year, and the best chemistry he has seen ever, and the best group of guys. Like he said in the last long road trip, the only clunker was vs. Clippers.
• Q, What is his philosophy of college vs. High school players? He said there are some excellent high school players. But then he mentioned two players: Kirk and Collison (I think he meant the Collison that plays for Thunder) as 4 year vets who liked college and were ready.
• Q: what about arena improvement and fan involvement? At this point the president of Hawks took over. He spoke about a new restaurant they are building. It is named Red which will open in April. It will have the most unique eating arrangement for a sporting arena in America. With tiered levels of eating with full view of court. It is supposed to be a full service restaurant. It is going to have American menus created by the ATL food restaurant icon Pana Karatassos . It will sit 350 patrons. The president then talked about the end zone scoreboards that went bad at end of ATL Dream season. He said even if they ordered it it would not have arrived till April and would not have been custom made. They have to be custom ordered. The new ones are LEDs, with replay capability at both end zones. And also tremendous visual acuity.
• Q: why can’t we get the great free agents? He said well we kept Joe who was a great free agent. He could have gone to Chicago or NY, but he chose to stay here. He said that is a credit to ATL. He also said national and local media don’t give Hawks enough credit. He said read Byron Scott comments about Hawks after playing Cavs, Byron said that team is a good team who punched us in the mouth. Or how Keith Smart of Kings said Hawks are the kind of team he wants Kings to become.
• Q: Free agency, Keep Josh. He said that question gets answered in off-season. He said he does not believe in rumors that were spread last week. So a source said Josh wants out, who is the source? He does not believe in rumors.
• Q: another person just shouted Keep Josh!!! Ditto to last person. Let him flourish here, we have seen him grow. Sund said Josh is under contract for next year too. He also said this year we are limited by the tax and that is why a lot of our veterans have short term contracts. He said a team can become elite level without tax. But for a team to become championship level (remember that means conference championship at least) a team has to at least flirt with the tax. He gave credit to his owners for getting Damp which got us into tax. Bob said look Cuban won a championship but spent 1B to do that. Our owners are doing a fine job.
• Q: ownership change, can it happen again? Sund said he can’t answer that, as he is just an employee. The president said the lawsuits were exhaustive as was the sale of Thrashers. They had seller remorse immediately after sale. This ownership group is now committed long term

[dms269]

Zaza as the third best center? Sorry but Zaza is nothing more than a solid backup. He comes dumb plays out there. It literally hurts me to watch Zaza on the court. From his moving screens to lack of defense. Yes he is intense, yes he can be the annoying player out there, but please don't say he is the third best center.

These comments just seem like the same old same old. Yes we kept JJ, but only because he paid him out the wahoo.

The comment about not doing anything at the trade deadline because we are 7 games over .500 annoys me. We are currently the 6th seed in the east. Yes we don't have Al but it seems like they are basically saying that we are folding are hand this year since Al is out.

There are 3 years difference between JJ and Hughes. No wonder Hughes isn't around anymore.

This just seems like the normal b.s. We are trying to build a championship title team, we feel we are there, blah blah blah.