NBA'S BIGGEST OFFSEASON LOSERS

[LL Cool Scott]

From ESPN.COM

LOSERS


Atlanta Hawks
You've got to hand it to the Hawks, currently the most dysfunctional team in the NBA. After finally making the playoffs and pushing the Celtics to a seventh game in the first round, the Hawks looked like the team on the rise. Then the offseason came and the Hawks' ownership group, Atlanta Spirit, got to work.

Their first move was a good one, letting GM Billy Knight walk. The Hawks were in the playoffs despite Knight's consistent botching of the draft, not because of him. Unfortunately, after Knight resigned, everything got seriously mangled in Atlanta. A number of the top GM candidates they pursued said "no, thanks" and the Hawks ended up settling on Rick Sund, a nice guy who's failed badly as a GM in his last two stops in Seattle and Detroit.

Sund's first move was to bring back head coach Mike Woodson -- a guy who several players don't really like and whose coaching style doesn't fit the talent on the team.

Then the Hawks completely mishandled Josh Childress. First, they offered him a contract for less than the midlevel exception. Then they told him to go find a better deal, thinking no team would make a strong offer. Childress found a better deal in Greece and warned the Hawks he'd take the money. The Hawks called his bluff and Childress took the money and ran. Normally, I wouldn't make such a fuss over a sixth man, but Childress was the glue that held the team together -- he was very underrated.

Now the Hawks are between a rock and hard place with Josh Smith. Their offer is lower than what Emeka Okafor and Luol Deng got. Smith is upset and doesn't really want to play in Atlanta. If they up the offer, they risk overpaying a player who is unhappy in Atlanta. If the Hawks don't increase the offer, they risk Smith taking the one-year qualifying offer in Atlanta and bolting next summer as an unrestricted free agent.

Well played, Atlanta Spirit. You guys are basically a committee full of Donald Sterlings. You're such a complete embarrassment. This team will never go anywhere until this team is sold. It's even worse than when the Smith family owned the Falcons. At least that was just ONE incompetent tight-wad, now we have to sit around and watch in misery as an entire COMMITTEE of incompetent tight-wads ruins our franchise.

What was hilarious was getting an email soliciting my season ticket renewal THE DAY AFTER CHILDRESS SIGNED WITH THE TEAM IN GREECE. The next day! My email reply could basically be summed up as "F--- You!!! You will not get a single penny of my business until you sell this team."

Another thing - these clowns didn't let Knight "walk" - they actually wanted to keep him!!!

[HMFFL]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/s ... son-080804

[tbhawksfan]

ESPN is jumping the gun. It's too early to rate the summer. When the FA period is over and the rosters are set, then it will be time to judge the moves.

Sign Smoove near $11M it's a good summer. One more decent big and it's a real good summer.

[conleyorbust]

ESPN is jumping the gun. It's too early to rate the summer. When the FA period is over and the rosters are set, then it will be time to judge the moves.

Sign Smoove near $11M it's a good summer. One more decent big and it's a real good summer.

Judging by LL and other's reactions you can say it was a bad summer regardless of what happens.

The team is going to lose money because there are season ticket purchasers who decided not to buy this year because they wanted to know the deal with Smith and ASG didn't look like it was headed in the signing direction.

[Master8492]

LL should be happy regardless since BK resigned.

[smabie]

LL should be happy regardless since BK resigned.

As Jesus once said (from Life of Brian), "There's no pleasing some people."

[Harry10]

i miss Ted Turner!!!

[evildallas]

Actually, I would rate the Hawks as offseason losers even if they can resign Josh because of the massive PR hit during the summer. They went from team on the rise to the butt of jokes again in record time. I also don't see the coaching or GM hires as particularly great moves.

[killbuckner]

people were going to be disappointed if it were just resigning the Joshes and adding minimum salary players. I can't see how you would call it anything but a poor offseason if they basically traded Childress for Evans and didn't add anything else significant.

[parson]

A poor offseason becomes an irrelevant offseason if we win.

[High 5]

Having a good offseason is a huge key to winning. Teams everywhere are improving, Hawks are going to be lucky not to become worse. At best they will be about even, which was a 37 win team. That won't cut it this season.

[Rod700]

I agree with tbhawksfan that ESPN is jumping the gun. Regardless of whether we take into account PR, and if re-signing Smoove isn't enough in and of itself, the offseason isn't over yet and can't be evaulated. Having said that, it's my personal opinion that re-sigining Smoove and adding Evans and Morris won't be enough allow us to significantly improve. At most, we might end up staying at the same level of competitiveness when we needed to improve.

[evildallas]

I was counting on the playoff experience helping to improve the existing roster. I like the Evans signing, but saw the Morris signing as nothing more than a low risk gambit. I still think a veteran big would have made more impact in addition to taking a chance on Morris developing. I wonder if Morris will get substantially more minutes than Solomon got.