RealGM

Horford/Smith/Marvin/Joe/Bibby

give this team one more year, can they improve enough to beat Cleveland?

swap Bibby with a PG free agent, which might be a slight upgrade, is the upgrade still good enough to get past Lebron?

lets say that the Clips would let Kaman go for Smith (even though they have Thorton and Zach, and Baron's contract). is Kaman/Horford good enough to play help defence with Lebron bull doze his way to the basket?

the big question is what to do with Bibby, Marvin and Horford.

or should the Hawks do what the Celtics did last year and get a big three together? maybe not only getting 1 star but maybe 2 stars and a vet: Amare, Bosh, Iverson, Kidd, Odom, Gordon, Shaq, Camby, TMac, Miller, etc?

I think the goal of an NBA GM should be to just build the best team possible. If your only goal was to really build a team to win it all...you would just tank every year in hopes of getting the next great player. You would obviously lose your fan base and get fired trying to do that though.

Winning a title involves a lot of luck. The two favorites for the title this year are Cleveland and LA. Cleveland won the lottery the year Lebron came out and the Lakers(although they've made some pretty good moves)were basically handed an all-star big man in his prime to go along with a guy who is one of the top 20 players ever.

The team I look at that should be the realistic blueprint is Denver. They have two really good but not quite great players,3 really good defensive big men,a guy off the bench who can give them instant offense,and a pretty good coach. They probably wont win the title because they don't have a top 5 player,but they are still a really good team.

Simply put if Joe Johnson is your best player I do not believe that you have a chance to win it all.

HoopsGuru25 wrote:I think the goal of an NBA GM should be to just build the best team possible. If your only goal was to really build a team to win it all...you would just tank every year in hopes of getting the next great player. You would obviously lose your fan base and get fired trying to do that though.

Winning a title involves a lot of luck. The two favorites for the title this year are Cleveland and LA. Cleveland won the lottery the year Lebron came out and the Lakers(although they've made some pretty good moves)were basically handed an all-star big man in his prime to go along with a guy who is one of the top 20 players ever.

The team I look at that should be the realistic blueprint is Denver. They have two really good but not quite great players,3 really good defensive big men,a guy off the bench who can give them instant offense,and a pretty good coach. They probably wont win the title because they don't have a top 5 player,but they are still a really good team.

I agree.

Harry10 wrote:lets say that the Clips would let Kaman go for Smith (even though they have Thorton and Zach, and Baron's contract). is Kaman/Horford good enough to play help defence with Lebron bull doze his way to the basket?

Kaman is injury-proned and his salary is large compared to his production. I don't think he's worth Smoove all by himself -- and I don't think the difference is small, either. LAL would have to pay a good bit more for Smoove.

^ it is just a hypothetical that i don't agree with, but imposed to illustrate a point, that a major move will have to be made to get pass Lebron.

What we need is a dominant ballhandler. Bibby is not that player. If we went to using the pick n roll, he might be better. However, offense isn't everything. Some of the better teams now have solid defensive PGs - Billups, Rondo, Kidd... We need to find ourselves a solid PG that can defend well first and be able to drive the basket and make plays second. Law wasn't a good choice looking back because he's not a defender and is mainly a shooter.

If by "dominant ballhandler" you mean playmaker, I completely agree. I'd love to see what our youngsters, especially Horford and Smoove, could do with a true PG feeding them the ball in places where they can score.

I didn't agree with all that Mark Bradley had to say about the team's needs, but I agree we don't run plays at all for Horford and rarely for Smoove.

Last year we were all clamoring for a PG and I was pretty far into the Andre Miller camp before we got Bibby. Its sort of fun to think about what woudl have happened if they got Miller at that point instead. I do think that Bibby's outside shooting has been absolutely invaluable but I also think the hawks have a lot of guys who would do better with a true facilitator.

Not that I can see. Trade Josh Smith for a big 4.

Joe Johnson has to learn how to lead a team.