RealGM

I think it's a perfect time to analyse our leadership group.

The Hawks have Sund as GM who came into a team that had a core (and coach) with years of experience together (save Horford who "fit in" instantly). His first year philosophy: take a year to get to know the team. What? The minute I heard that I was very discouraged. Another year of watching contributing players move from team to team while Sund sits on his a$$ for a year. WHY? To get to know the team? That's a joke. One or two contributing players added to the team would have made a difference. He also gave Woodson a two year extention. I'd say about 70 to 80% of the forum/blog fans I see did not want to see Woodson extended. As far as coaching and team progress, I also say there was total stagnation. Josh Childress was let go in what I think turns out to be the perfect cost cutting move. Childress and Speedy, two high cap players, cost the ASG next to nothing. It's just saved money. But, it's money on the cap, limiting contributing players. Outside of our starting five, we have Zaza at $4M, Mo at about 3M and flip at about 1.5M and Law is on a cheap rookie deal. We also have two starters on rookie deals. That must be the cheapest bench in the NBA.

No matter the moves made this summer, our ASG/GM have conspired to cut cost to the extent of not even paying our own productive players, signing only the cheapest replacements and actually adding nothing to a team that is supposedly on the rise and possibly near the peak of this groups time.

I will not look to the future and excuse the categoric limitations of the owners past moves. I expect that the trend will continue and that the ASG will continue to run the team on the cheap and limit growth potential through what should be called negligence.

Perhaps if teams were forced to run as non-profits, winning (competition) could once again become the emphasis of team management.

It's a bit obsurd to be a fan when accounting is more important than competing.

Tbhawksfan- are you under the impression that the Hawks made money this season?

But Anyway- that aside I can't imagine that anyone will try and say that the ASG are good owners. They have never been willing to pay the money needed to fill out a solid bench. I think to this point most of the complaints about Sund should really be laid at the feet of the ASG.

I'll give the ASG credit for funding the Bibby trade which was all about just cutting a check for a player that could help the team. If you want to give them credit for spending money I suppose Speedy claxton is a plus for the ASG. They certainly can't be accused of trying to skimp there. I don't blame them for not being willing to pay the luxury tax for this team- unless you are championship caliber I don't think thats necessary. Not sure what else there is to give them credit for. Joe Johnson they weren't trying to skimp on.

Actually it really isn't a good time to evaluate anything Hawks-related. We're in the middle of getting roughed up by the best team in basketball at this time. The season is likely over in a few days (if not sooner). It's probably best to wait a couple weeks to let the sting of this ending fade so that things can be evaluated fairly (for better or worse). I don't say this to defend the ASG. It's just that any thread is going to take on a very negative vibe at this time.

BTW, Speedy isn't cheap unless he's paid by insurance. I don't feel good making that assumption without getting it verified.

I hate to post after someone says we should just let this die, but oh well...

Anyway, what did you want Sund to do? He inherited a team that was considered one of the up and coming teams in the NBA after shocking the eventual NBA champions by taking them to 7 games. He went into the off-season with 3 priorities: resign Josh Smith, resign Josh Chilldress, and add some depth to the end of our rotation. Considering the relative situations for all 3 of these, all would last all off season as seen by Smith's RFA journey and the Flip Murray signing. Sund tried to work Chills' situation similar to how Smoove's worked out, but Chills flipped and ran overseas. Sund was left scrambling since this happened toward the end of FA and many of the better players had already signed. He did what he could considering the $$$ he had to spend (dictated by the CBA - not the ASG) in singing Evans.

I not an ASG backer or anything, but I simply can't see what the complaint is here...

The ASG group is probably the 3 worst ownership situation in the league (behind Sterling and Sarver). That being said, what's your beef with Sund? He did a great job signing Smith cheaply, should have had the same result with Childress until he ran off to Europe with his tail (and dignity) between his legs, and signed two significant contributors in Evans and Murray.

To the rest of you - keep in mind that this thread was written by the last remaining Billy Knight fan on earth - so take all this with a very large grain of salt.

Can't blame Sund for his first offseason with the team, he came in to a team that just showed promise in the playoffs, had no draft picks and very little cap space. He wasn't going to make any trades involving the core considering they proved themselves capable and only stood to get better with Bibby having a full season with the team, his main priority was keeping that core intact. With Chillz I think we all agree we would not be happy paying him the type of money Greece offered him and we got Smoove cheap by playing hardball. Woody was an obvious extension to maintain continuity and with the cap he masterfully picked up free agents that filled out needs on the cheap. A true evaluation of Sund's abilities will be this upcoming offseason to see if he addresses the same issues that we saw all season through the draft and free agency.

I'm not really even what you percieve as a fan. My opinion is not an emotional reaction, but an intelligent observation over time. I'd call myself a very interested but casual observer, not the traditional idea of a fan.

What did Sund do? Basically nothing. He retained Smoove which was a no brainer unless you were going to trade him for equal or better value, lost Chil and only replaced him with two very low budget 8th, 9th, 10th type rotation players.

He re-signed Woodson.

He made no moves to help our two biggest rotation needs: defensive big and penetrating PG.

You can't look at the symptoms and say it's normal to be sick, without acknowledging the desease that has caused the symptoms.

You sit on your hands, keep a coach that most have already determined to be inferiour grade, make no moves to improve the rotation and you get a failing grade from me.

Maybe some of you Homies need to forget your misplaced sense of belonging and look at the sports as the business that it is. No emotion, no good ol boy attitude, just the best possible moves to make the Hawks the best they can be.

Oh, and I'm not a BK fan. There are only two people in the world that I'm a fan of, my two children.

Status quo is only acceptable if you think your the best you can be. Sund came into a Hawks team that wasn't the best it could be and he did nothing to change that.

My season grades:

Players: C- Bad team cohesion, poor individual development.

Coach: D- More of the same from Woodson. Bad team cohesion, poor individual development. No O

GM: F He basically took a year to get to know the club. Even admits to it. No positive moves. Allowed the team to take a slight step backwards rotation wise.

ASG: F- More of the same from a pitiful group of partners.

The Hawks were a top 10 offensive team. The Hawks GREATLY exceeded the expectations of what their talent level should accomplish- they finished 9 or 10 games ahead of where Vegas predicted that they would. They went from backing into the 8th seed to getting home court advantage in the first round and beating Dwayne wade and teh heat to advance. I simply don't think that particularly banged up that the Hawks have the roster to beat the Cavs.

How anyone could give the team overall a C- is just beyond me. On what planet was this season below expectations!?

tbhawksfan wrote:I'm not really even what you percieve as a fan. My opinion is not an emotional reaction, but an intelligent observation over time. I'd call myself a very interested but casual observer, not the traditional idea of a fan.

What did Sund do? Basically nothing. He retained Smoove which was a no brainer unless you were going to trade him for equal or better value, lost Chil and only replaced him with two very low budget 8th, 9th, 10th type rotation players.

He re-signed Woodson.

He made no moves to help our two biggest rotation needs: defensive big and penetrating PG.

You can't look at the symptoms and say it's normal to be sick, without acknowledging the desease that has caused the symptoms.

You sit on your hands, keep a coach that most have already determined to be inferiour grade, make no moves to improve the rotation and you get a failing grade from me.

individual development.

Sund had no draft picks and no capspace. Most likely resigning Woodson wasn't his call in the first place. What did you expect him to do?

he signed Flip and Mo. Flip had a big year. he resigned Smith to a reasonable contract. The team improved by 10 games.


There are plenty of things to criticize the Hawks for but Sund isn't one of them, at least not yet.

tbhawksfan wrote:I'm not really even what you percieve as a fan. My opinion is not an emotional reaction, but an intelligent observation over time. I'd call myself a very interested but casual observer, not the traditional idea of a fan.

What did Sund do? Basically nothing. He retained Smoove which was a no brainer unless you were going to trade him for equal or better value, lost Chil and only replaced him with two very low budget 8th, 9th, 10th type rotation players.

He re-signed Woodson.

He made no moves to help our two biggest rotation needs: defensive big and penetrating PG.

Again there were no draft picks or cap space. No one in the NBA would pay Chilldress the contract he ended up with yet Sund managed to replace his production and then some with two VERY cheap aquisitions. Our needs were at PG and C yet you forget we have a top 10 pick penetrating guard sitting right there on the bench, it is not Sund's fault the coach didn't utilize him to atleast see what he could bring. Given the cap situation we would not have been able to sign a proven defensive big so Sund took a flier on Randolph Morris, a big with some potential but at the very least would give the team a big body. Walking into a new situation with very few options Sund did a better than expected job considering we got a 47 win second round team out of it.

I'm simply amazed by this. As a Hawks fan, I've grown used to b!tching about a lot of things about the team, but I honestly can't say that there's anything to what you're saying that I'm buying.

1st, Woodson. I'm not a huge fan of his by any means, but we've gone from a laughingstock to a mid-lottery team to a team that eked into the playoffs to a solid 2nd tier Eastern Conference team over the last 4 years. All of this while the ownership of the team was being decided by a court in Maryland, the GM was generally considered one of the worst GMs in the NBA for most of the time, and one of our key rotation players fled to Greece. To me, that means that someone in the organization is a genius and the only stable piece to our management in that time has been Woodson. Maybe it isn't him, but until it's proven different, I can't blame the new GM for retaining him.

2nd, Sund. Could you have done better? Yes, he lost Chills, but at the point he lost him, there was NOBODY left in FA and no real assets that we could trade. Yeah, I wish he'd made a bigger move to get a bigger name, but the proof is in the pudding: we're still the clear cut #4 team in the East right now with a 10+ game improvement over our record last year. If we take another step similar to what we did this year, then we're competing for a spot in the Finals. What more do you want?

Look, you make points about there being a "disease" and that we're happy with the "status quo", but explain to me how a team can jump from fighting for 8th to comfortably in 4th and say that there is a disease on the team or that we're happy with the status quo. Your statements simply don't match the facts...

Because, I see this team topping out. Some say that their only vision is a champioship, but when you try to make the argument that that's not happening, everyone seems to jump to the defense of their team.

The team is what they can make it. Without some good moves and better coaching, I'm afraid next season will resemble the last two.

Do you not think that another BIG would have helped? A better coach? Do you think losing Chil and bringing in Mo and Flip was the best Sund could do with an off-season.

There were many minor moves that would have benefited the team. None were made. I'm not happy with that.

The differnce between first seed and fourth is HUGE. The difference between fourth and eighth seed not so big.

JJ and Horf were worked to death by bad coaching and Sund's inability to make even a minor move.

I've been waiting for the maturing after years of watching the rebuilding, the progress we've seen is due to that maturation. For the team to go farthur, the maturation process needs to continue. Under Woody and to this point, progress other than maturing seems to have stopped cold.

Last season BK brought in Bibby and tried to make the coaching move. What did Sund do with his year?

tbhawksfan wrote:Because, I see this team topping out. Some say that their only vision is a champioship, but when you try to make the argument that that's not happening, everyone seems to jump to the defense of their team.

The team is what they can make it. Without some good moves and better coaching, I'm afraid next season will resemble the last two.

Do you not think that another BIG would have helped? A better coach? Do you think losing Chil and bringing in Mo and Flip was the best Sund could do with an off-season.

There were many minor moves that would have benefited the team. None were made. I'm not happy with that.

The differnce between first seed and fourth is HUGE. The difference between fourth and eighth seed not so big.

JJ and Horf were worked to death by bad coaching and Sund's inability to make even a minor move.

I've been waiting for the maturing after years of watching the rebuilding, the progress we've seen is due to that maturation. For the team to go farthur, the maturation process needs to continue. Under Woody and to this point, progress other than maturing seems to have stopped cold.

Last season BK brought in Bibby and tried to make the coaching move. What did Sund do with his year?

The Cavs were the no. 4 seed last year and we were the no. 8 seed. We also swept the no. 8 seeded Pistons this season. So yes, there is a big difference.

tbhawksfan wrote:I'm not really even what you percieve as a fan. My opinion is not an emotional reaction, but an intelligent observation over time. I'd call myself a very interested but casual observer, not the traditional idea of a fan.

What did Sund do? Basically nothing. He retained Smoove which was a no brainer unless you were going to trade him for equal or better value, lost Chil and only replaced him with two very low budget 8th, 9th, 10th type rotation players.

He re-signed Woodson.

He made no moves to help our two biggest rotation needs: defensive big and penetrating PG.

You can't look at the symptoms and say it's normal to be sick, without acknowledging the desease that has caused the symptoms.

You sit on your hands, keep a coach that most have already determined to be inferiour grade, make no moves to improve the rotation and you get a failing grade from me.

Maybe some of you Homies need to forget your misplaced sense of belonging and look at the sports as the business that it is. No emotion, no good ol boy attitude, just the best possible moves to make the Hawks the best they can be.

Oh, and I'm not a BK fan. There are only two people in the world that I'm a fan of, my two children.

Status quo is only acceptable if you think your the best you can be. Sund came into a Hawks team that wasn't the best it could be and he did nothing to change that.

My season grades:

Players: C- Bad team cohesion, poor individual development.

Coach: D- More of the same from Woodson. Bad team cohesion, poor individual development. No O

GM: F He basically took a year to get to know the club. Even admits to it. No positive moves. Allowed the team to take a slight step backwards rotation wise.

ASG: F- More of the same from a pitiful group of partners.

I'm confused about the basis of your argument there. Wouldn't the "emotional reaction" of a fan be to want Sund to go out and make a ton of moves immediately? To be honest, it seems like you are the one overreacting, as we need to be patient and see what Sund does over the next couple of seasons before we can really give an accurate observation on the man.

Again - you people are just arguing with a very bitter Billy Knight fan. Please ignore him - he's been hilariously touting the genius of Billy Knight for years. At one point, it got so ridiculous that I thought it was Billy himself or one of his relatives posting under this moniker. Best to just ignore this complete nonsense.

TB - there's a reason BK's still unemployed and will never ever EVER be hired as a GM again. Give it a rest.

tbhawksfan wrote:Because, I see this team topping out. Some say that their only vision is a champioship, but when you try to make the argument that that's not happening, everyone seems to jump to the defense of their team.

The team is what they can make it. Without some good moves and better coaching, I'm afraid next season will resemble the last two.

Do you not think that another BIG would have helped? A better coach? Do you think losing Chil and bringing in Mo and Flip was the best Sund could do with an off-season.

There were many minor moves that would have benefited the team. None were made. I'm not happy with that.

The differnce between first seed and fourth is HUGE. The difference between fourth and eighth seed not so big.

JJ and Horf were worked to death by bad coaching and Sund's inability to make even a minor move.

I've been waiting for the maturing after years of watching the rebuilding, the progress we've seen is due to that maturation. For the team to go farthur, the maturation process needs to continue. Under Woody and to this point, progress other than maturing seems to have stopped cold.

Last season BK brought in Bibby and tried to make the coaching move. What did Sund do with his year?

Flip was probably the best free agent value in the league.

Sund did a decent job. I thought he should have been a little more aggressive in the off-season though. I can see why he didn't make any trades because it was an evaluation year, but there were plenty of people here that were getting a little frustrated that we were just waiting for Childress while guys like Matt Barnes,Mason,Azubuke,etc were getting signed for way less than what Childress apparently wanted. I guess you can't be too angry because we eventually got Flip for nothing though.

This also means nothing in the long run but I was pretty upset that we didn't even attempt to get Minnesota's 2nd round pick or work any prospects out for the draft. It was like Sund wanted to let us know that he's going to be the exact opposite of the new more active breed of GM's like Morrey,Presti and Pritchard(who is already working people out as we speak). It just annoys me that we have wasted all these 2nd rounders over the years but decide not to give one up when a guy like Chalmers slips in the draft. It was just another no risk situation that the Hawks failed to capitalize on.

tbhawksfan wrote:Because, I see this team topping out. Some say that their only vision is a champioship, but when you try to make the argument that that's not happening, everyone seems to jump to the defense of their team.

The team is what they can make it. Without some good moves and better coaching, I'm afraid next season will resemble the last two.

Do you not think that another BIG would have helped? A better coach? Do you think losing Chil and bringing in Mo and Flip was the best Sund could do with an off-season.

There were many minor moves that would have benefited the team. None were made. I'm not happy with that.

The differnce between first seed and fourth is HUGE. The difference between fourth and eighth seed not so big.

JJ and Horf were worked to death by bad coaching and Sund's inability to make even a minor move.

I've been waiting for the maturing after years of watching the rebuilding, the progress we've seen is due to that maturation. For the team to go farthur, the maturation process needs to continue. Under Woody and to this point, progress other than maturing seems to have stopped cold.

Last season BK brought in Bibby and tried to make the coaching move. What did Sund do with his year?

I don't understand why a you'd be afraid of having next year's team "resemble the last two", if we improved by another 8 Ws (the average increase in Ws over the last 2 seasons), then we'd have 55 wins - a # that means you're a contender for whatever your goal is. That was something you never answered for me: how these improvements that are easily measured so easily overlooked. I mean maybe you're right, and we have reached our peak - I dunno. But it's way too early to call a team with 3 starters and another key bench player under 25 topped out.

The one thing I really respect Sund for is the clear vision that he brought for year 1: stability. For the last 4 years, BK completely dismantled the team and were very selective about the players brought in. That isn't a bad thing per se (more on this later), but it did mean that we had a lot of players come and go while we pieced together who we thought were our players. Sund showed a very clear vision that he wasn't interested in coming in and tearing down again to see if he could build it back up. Yeah, maybe we could have gotten a better coach, but the players responded to giving Woodson a shot with a team that could actually go 7-8 deep of players worthy of being on an NBA roster. Yeah, maybe we could have gotten a big, but I'm not sure that I would have like some newbie pulling the trigger to trade Smoove, Horford, or Zaza - who comprised over 87 minutes of the total 96 played between PF and C and would have had to be moved to create the minutes for the new guy. Yeah, maybe he could have gotten a penetrating, pass 1st PG, but Bibby is stepping up as one of the leaders of this team right now. Yeah, we could have cut bait with Chills sooner, but who would have thought that he'd be the 1st player who had a spot in an NBA rotation to decide to go to Europe? Yeah, there were some bumps in the road and some opportunities not taken to implement his vision, but it did give all of our young players they haven't had since being in the NBA, and obviously, they responded by putting up 10 more Ws over the year before. Maybe that's not what was wanted or needed, but I like that he showed that he's willing to walk into a situation, create a vision, and implement it in a manner where we can continue to take a step forward without having to take 2 steps back.

Now, if he decides to follow the same vision in year 2 or not, we'll see. But he's bought another year of a "honeymoon" from me, so I'm willing to step back and see what his vision will be for next year. I do agree that "stability" only has so long a shelf life though and this year's theme should be aimed at getting in the "elite" tier of the NBA and not settling for the 2nd tier of the Eastern Conference which we're in right now. At this juncture, I see nothing that does not make me think that Sund can map out and implement a plan to do just that though.

Before I hear pining over the BK years, I really don't want to hear it. As stated, he opted to tear down the team and build it from scratch. This isn't a bad thing, but if after 5 years you've only really located 7 players, then, yeah, it's time to go. In the era of free agency, it can't take you that long to build a team (and no complaints about the court house restrictions either - he made that bed, he lied in it). He may have wanted to fire Woodson (although who would've actually a) been an upgrade and b) taken the job from a guy who just taken 5 years to finally acquire a PG, who was acquired in a salary dump, and a "Center", who still is widely considered a PF, is beyond me), but it was way too little, too late. While he was searching for only "his" people in the draft, he passed over such players as Josh Howard, Luol Deng, Andre Iguodala, Andris Biedrins, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Brandon Roy, and Thaddeus Young. Sure, he hit on a couple (Smith, Horford), but his picks versus the "conventional wisdom" picks was 2 out of 6 - not good for someone who was a noted talent evaluator when he took the job. His 2nd round picks were worse: passing on Chris Duhon for Royal Ivey; Salim Stoudemire over Monta Ellis, Andray Blatche, and hometown kid Louis Williams; and not even getting someone with enough talent to play for a cash strapped laughingstock in Viktor Sanikidze and Cenk Akyol. Every draft pick listed are players we were projected to take in several mock drafts and was higher on the boards over internet draft sites. This doesn't include the decisions of taking Travis Hansen over Steve Blake and Mo Williams or Solomon Jones over Paul Millsap and Daniel Gibson, since these didn't necessarily mean that it was painfully obvious that someone like me who read a handful of sites could have made better picks. (As an aside here: could you imagine a team consisting of Josh Howard, Andris Biedrins, Chris Paul or Deron Williams, Josh Smith, Brandon Roy, Thaddeus Young, Monta Ellis, and Al Horford. How 'bout slapping Millsap and Mo Williams on that team? Now, add in an FA or 2. Yeah, some "talent evaluator" BK is...) The '04 draft specifically hurt when he took 4 SFs and Royal Ivey in the top 43 picks - 1 remains on the roster. Oh, and the one time he really made a splash in FA, the owners ended up in court. Yeah, that guy was a disaster - thank god he's gone.

The last point that you bring up is the ? of maturation versus development. The problem is that I can't say there is a difference that would be visible to someone not associated to the team. The more you mature as a player, the more likely you'd develop your game. But if the coach is the one helping you mature into being a player, then should that count as development? There's also the questions of how should the development occur. Should a coach teach a system to win games and simply demand that the highly paid professional athlete mature into a player? It's been my experience that for some people, if they're not forced to mature, then they simply won't. Or should a coach take his time teaching fundamentals to these same professionals? Maybe, but it seems like Jr High to me. I don't guess there really aren't answers to these questions, but to discount what effects Woody has had in the player's development by simply calling it "maturation" is pretty petty IYAM. I guess it's an easy way around opening a dialogue, just change the language - it seems to be the American way today.