RealGM

In the NBA where would you put the Hawks starting lineup. Upper tier, Middle tier, or lower. Or rank em 1-30. I dont have time right now to rank em but I wanna know what you guys think.

Top 10 starting line-up easy. Pretty much everyone in your starting lineup can make things happen and make plays. I was wondering though...

I know that Marvin Williams is a RFA this upcoming summer while Bibby is an UFA. If no team offers Marvin his qualifying offer (7.4 I believe), whats the chance that he just takes the qualifying offer from you guys and becomes an UFA in 2010? Or is there a better chance of the Hawks offering him an extension?

I go top 10 when considering all 5 positions evenly, but some teams have a superstar or two that allows them to be weaker at some spots without an overall drop off. Joe Johnson is the closest we have to that superstar, but he isn't consistent enough in his assertiveness to rise to that level. Not ranking them all, but although I'm not a fan I think the Lakers when healthy have the best starting 5 in the league because of greater length and consistency of performance than anyone else. Some starting fives I grade down because while talented they don't play both ends (like Phoenix). You can't be an elite starting five if 3 of your starters only play offense.

Marvin's contract situation is a hard call. We've had threads discussing it in the past. He progressing, but hasn't necessarily shown the killer instinct or drive to be the best that you expect when you pay someone at that level. He's also got the back injury that has to be evaluated before any long term investment occur. At the same time cap rules make it hard to replace him with equal value if we go another route. I expect ownership to play cat and mouse gambling that no one will break the bank for him, and allow the market to set the price. I'm sure they'd love to lock him up at a good price, but it is hard convincing RFAs coming off their rookie deal that they should get what certain other players in their class got (look at Ben Gordon last year turning down 10M per). With Joe's deal ending after next season and Al Horford coming up for an extension a year after that, Marvin may not be priority #1 with the front office. I can't say with any confidence what the magic number is that the Hawks wouldn't match. Not much of answer I know, but the situation is very fluid.

Definitely top 10, maybe even borderline top 5. To get home court advantage in the playoffs with a bench consisting primarily of 3 castaway FAs means that you have a fierce starting 5 - no matter how well the castaways played. To think that if Marvin, Horford, and/or Smith continue to improve, well...

As far as the Marvin ?, prolly deserves another thread, but yeah, it's possible. I'd imagine we'll approach his RFA like we did with Smith and Chills. Give a decent offer - a little low, but decent. Let him go out and explore FA and see what's out there. Then he can either work out a SNT where we get decent value, sign an offer sheet (in which case we'll match more than likely), resign with us, or accept the QO. Considering what the QO would be for someone taken @ #2, the QO may be his best move.

Starting line?

Feel strongly
Cleveland
Boston
Orlando
LAL
Utah (healthy)
SAS (counting Manu as a starter and healthy)
NOH (healthy)

On the fence
Portland
Houston
Dallas

BlaZeN27 wrote:Top 10 starting line-up easy. Pretty much everyone in your starting lineup can make things happen and make plays. I was wondering though...

I know that Marvin Williams is a RFA this upcoming summer while Bibby is an UFA. If no team offers Marvin his qualifying offer (7.4 I believe), whats the chance that he just takes the qualifying offer from you guys and becomes an UFA in 2010? Or is there a better chance of the Hawks offering him an extension?

Good question. It has been discussed quite a bit on here. On the one hand, it would make sense for Marvin to just play out his QO since it is already such a large one and go for the big payday next year. On the other, there have been some unsubstantiated rumors out there about a team like Minnesota popping up and offering him $10M a year this summer. It should be interesting.

I think the questions with MW are, if a team offers him an offer above his QO with long term security, how high will the Hawks go to match? How high is too high with JJ and Horford contracts on the horizon?

Horford and Smoove's play at PF/C is still improving and may be eliminating the need for a starting C type. If we keep Zaza, maybe the best move would be to play Zaza at back up PF and bring in another BIG to play back up C. Or leave Zaza at C and bring in a Wilcox to run at back up PF.

Point is, MW is very valuable to our team at SF and he will still get better.

Bibby/Law and PG seem to be key to our cap situation. Law will still be moderately inexpensive (if his play improves). Tying up around $8M in Bibby or another starter seems undoable if we want to keep the core of JJ/Horf/Smoove/MW and a bench. I htink PG can be the most important part of a sucessful team, but I also think we need to try and find a PG that can help the Hawks continue their progression at a lower cost. Hinrich, B Davis and others are also going to demand a high salary.

If we combine Laws $ with what we have to spend for a starter and from that revenue find the best starter and back up available for that $.

It appears that Law is missing another opportunity to show what he has. Should we trade him? He will make nearly $2.5M next season. If we have a total of about $10M to spend on the point and still keep some flexibility to work wiith JJ and Horf, can't we find a quality sarter and a reliable back up for that money? We also have Speedy's money coming off when JJ's next contract will begin.

It seems that we have the cap space to maintain the core, keep a quality bench and have a quality PG with a reliable back up.



Bibby and the