GM Rick Sund answers questions

[HMFFL]

MB: I know what you said last year about Al Horford being a center. Do you still feel that way, and do you feel like your team is big enough, given that you were outrebounded on the season?
RS: Yeah, I do.

MB: Understanding that you’re still in your evaluation process, what do you see as a greater need – more size up front or backcourt help?
David Andersen, about whom I plumb forgot to ask, hoists one over Pau Gasol, whom I would've remembered.

RS: I don’t know. I’d have to look at it and talk to my staff a little more. I like Zaza. I think Zaza and Horford did a really good job at the center position. We weren’t beat at the center position very often this year.

MB: And you don’t feel you have to make a major move?
RS: I think we’re in a position where we can do both. If some major moves make some sense for us and we can do it, great. If not, we have growth from within. We’re in the best of all worlds at this point. We’re at the point where we are a bona fide playoff club. So we went in the past five years from bad to good. Now we’ve got to go from good to great, and that’s the really hard part in the NBA – going from good to great.

Late-breaking addendum! The extremely thoughtful Rick Sund responded to the e-mail about Andersen. Quoth the GM: “We are in the process of evaluating David Andersen via film. He is in our discussions and is another ball we will be juggling. He is another moving part that we will consider.”

Link

[HoopsGuru25]

I agree that the Cleveland series was pretty meaningless from an evaluation standpoint because of how good they are and how injured we were...but the offense sucked vs a pretty ordinary Miami team as well. I would hope he realizes that we need another really good offensive player to improve our half court offense.

I also disagree with him that it's proven that you can win a title w/o a superstar. It's happened once in the last 25-30 years-but I wouldn't expect anything else considering how hard it is to acquire a true superstar player.

And was it me or did the "I didn't draft Acie,I inherited him" line seem a little strange? He didn't say that about Horford,Marvin,or Josh which might be a little telling as to how highly he regards Law as a piece going forward.

[dms269]

If I have to go through another season of undersized Horford and clueless zaza at the 5 I might throw up.

[evildallas]

The superstar discussion is actually a bit moot. You got lemons, you discuss how lemonade gets the job done. Teams with a superstar that haven't won it talk about whether their superstar has a good enough second fiddle or if their superstar really should be a second fiddle. Teams without a superstar are asked if they need a superstar. It's so hard to acquire a superstar unless you draft well/get lucky that you wouldn't be very well served by saying we really need a superstar. He is right that you can win with a team fully of top tier players at their positions and in doing so some of those players elevate their status. It's not impossible. It's still not that likely, but it is possible. The thing is that a team with that complete of a lineup (that's healthy at the time) you still have to have players step up when the time is needed. Detroit had different players stepping up offensively to be the star of the game when they beat the Lakers (Chauncey, Rip, Rasheed) and they had an overall defense identity. They also had bench players step up with double figure nights along the way. The other thing you can see by going back to those box scores is the consistency of their backcourt. Rip and Chauncey never seemed to have totally horrible nights. They were always good for close to 20 and occasionally stepped up for 30 if needed.

The Hawks aren't there yet. Our defense isn't that good. On offense we didn't have the consistency in the backcourt. We also didn't have as many people capable of stepping up. A big night for Bibby this year was an average night for Billups during their title run. Joe and Josh were capable of having an upper 20 or low 30 night, but there wasn't a 3rd starter showing that potential. We also didn't have anyone when they weren't contributing much offensively be a shutdown defender instead (like Prince and Ben Wallace). If we reach that level, you'll see a team with 3 starters scoring over 20 on a good night or one guy going for 30 without the rest of the roster recoiling into single figures. Don't know if the Hawks will ever get that good, but that is the model they've followed. It would take major risky moves to change the model at this time.

[killbuckner]

I wouldn't have a problem with Horford at center if I thought he could exploit slower centers on offense. I have absolutely no problem at all with Amare being the center on this team because I have faith he can brutalize big centers even more than they can take advantage of him. But Horford simply hasn't shown that ability at all.