RealGM

John Hollinger has a piece up (released in chunks) at ESPN (Insider only) where he breaks down the future prospects of each franchise. Since it is an insider piece I won't go into much detail but will point out that the Hawks fell 7 spots to the lower half of the survey. Two reasons were given for the fall, 1) the pathetic exit to the playoffs last year has called into question the potential of the roster 2) Joe Johnson's contract combined with the ownership unwillingness to spend over the luxury tax threshold limits future options.

It's an interesting read if you have insider. To be honest though we never had a chance, while we were ranked in the top 10 in players, other categories like Management, Market, Money, and Draft we're in the lower half of the league. 3 of those are tied together closely with ownership and likely won't change until someone else owns the team. Market is limited but could grow with a true star to sell to the casual fan to boost attendance to the point Market becomes a plus. The only other way to sell casual fans is post-season success and that seems unlikely given the ownership.

After rereading the piece I realize that Money and Draft refer to cap room and upcoming picks rather than likelihood of spending and making good picks. That leads me to believe that we should have ranked even lower on upside since we don't utilize the whole draft and won't spend to fill out the roster with quality or strategy.