Is the real plan....

[diesel50]

Is the Hawks real plan to put out a competitive team "on the cheap"?
That has always been the ASG way. Make money off the team and thus make it competitive enough to make playoffs but never really have a plan to go after a big fish. The team has to walk that balance of keeping fans happy and being cheap.
Ferry doesn't bring a new culture but maybe he brings an answer using Statistics. The Metrics that Ferry uses have never really lead to championships.... without a Tim Duncan.... It has however led to competitiveness. I truly believe that Ferry is out to prove a point to the basketball world and that point is that you can win without stars. The problem with his philosophy is that we have several years of data that says you need at least 2 stars to win it all.

[azuresou1]

All good teams try to put out a competitive team on the cheap. I'm not seeing what your point is..?

[PandaKidd]

I think you need to be patient. If you told me at the beginning of the season at the All Star break we would be 25-24 WITHOUT Al Horford ............and number 4 in the EAST (granted we are 4 games from being out of the playoffs).........

Id say yeah right.

And I have no idea what you are talking about, they dont make money with CHEAP teams, people want to see stars, not workhorses. Have you been to a game in the last 10 years?

Ferry is doing what he can with the assets he has. The only misses for me has been his draft picks (In a mostly TERRIBLE draft class so he has some leeway there) and not trading Josh Smith but then again Im not sure what we were being offered for him so , again, some leeway there.

This offseason will be his true test for me. What we do in a LOADED draft and who we acquire in the offseason. Last offseason we had ZERO shot at Cp3 and D12, and we ended up landing an ALL STAR SF/PF in Millsap for arguably one of the best contracts in the league. So, +1.

We locked up Korver +1
We got guys like Carroll who is infinitely better than any of the fillers we had last year (morrow, stephenson, etc).
Pero has been a pleasant surprise, invited to the Rising Stars challenge for a semi Rookie? +1

Ferry is being competitive in a terrible conference, and waiting for that James Harden moment...if it ever comes. Even so, im not so sure THIS offseason is his best, the following will be the best shot IMO when Love and others are there possibly.

Be patient, this season we are a playoff first round exit.embrace it

[theatlfan]

From a broader perspective, I think that we're still in Phase I (or Phase II if dumping JJ was Phase I) of the Grand Plan. I'm guessing Phase I is to be "flexible" with "moveable contracts" so that we can rearrange the team to put a winning team on the court while also being able to chase big fish in both the FA and trade markets. As we saw with our failed overture to D12 and the rumors of us trying to put together a CP3/D12 FA, Ferry is heavily invested in acquiring a star. Once this is complete then we can go to Phase II which I'd assume is to put together a team around the star/s acquired in Phase I. Until we get to Phase II (or even Phase III), I don't think we can draw any conclusions

One thing that I do think we can carry forward though is that Ferry will always be looking for ways to get production on the cheap - specifically from the role players. Even coming into the season, we had ~$7.5M dedicated to our backup bigs (Brand - $4M; Ayon - $1.5M; Antic - $1.2M; Scott ~ $.8M) and they have performed admirably as a group, both before and after Horford went down. Being able to stack the bench with cheap and useful role players will be key going forward since it'll also allow us to spend more on the starters.

[diesel50]

All good teams try to put out a competitive team on the cheap. I'm not seeing what your point is..?

The Heat?
The Lakers?
The Knicks?
The Nets??

I disagree with your assumption. All good teams would like to be cheaper, but most Good teams realize that you need a Star or two to become competitive and they also know that Stars cost money. I think with Ferry, we will see somebody who is set against bringing in a star (if it all possible). He has a point he's trying to prove.

[diesel50]

As we saw with our failed overture to D12 and the rumors of us trying to put together a CP3/D12 FA, Ferry is heavily invested in acquiring a star.

There are some who would say that we didn't try that hard to get D12. In fact, it's known that D12 never liked Atlanta and when all was said and done, he did what all stars do and Leveraged our having money to get a deal to happen for him.

Moreover, there were others who Ferry could have gone after but didn't. Ellis, Jefferson, etc...
The truth is that Ferry's Montra is advanced metrics... and if you follow Sports.. Teams that use advanced metrics hardly ever go after Stars because it's much easier to go after a cheaper player who has good Metrics (Hello DMC) than to Spend money on a player who is a star or commands a star pay.

From a lot of what I'm seeing and understanding, Ferry's main goal is to prove that Moneyball metrics will work for the NBA. The problem is that we don't have a Duncan to start with.

[theatlfan]

As we saw with our failed overture to D12 and the rumors of us trying to put together a CP3/D12 FA, Ferry is heavily invested in acquiring a star.

There are some who would say that we didn't try that hard to get D12. In fact, it's known that D12 never liked Atlanta and when all was said and done, he did what all stars do and Leveraged our having money to get a deal to happen for him.

Moreover, there were others who Ferry could have gone after but didn't. Ellis, Jefferson, etc...
The truth is that Ferry's Montra is advanced metrics... and if you follow Sports.. Teams that use advanced metrics hardly ever go after Stars because it's much easier to go after a cheaper player who has good Metrics (Hello DMC) than to Spend money on a player who is a star or commands a star pay.

From a lot of what I'm seeing and understanding, Ferry's main goal is to prove that Moneyball metrics will work for the NBA. The problem is that we don't have a Duncan to start with.

Man... I had a post here earlier... Oh well.

Anyway, we had a meeting with D12, gave it a shot, and failed. That's the thing with chasing superstar: 100 hit the market, you get in the door with maybe 20... if you fail on 19 of those, it doesn't matter - you still landed 1. (Aside: completely disagree on your take with D12. 1) Our true shot was that we were the only team that could land both CP3 and D12; once CP3 re-upped with LAC, D12's interest in us waned but the meeting was already set up. Basically, if LAC doesn't give up a 1st for Doc Rivers, then there's a non-zero chance that our roster has CP3, D12, and Horford right now... 2) D12 used us for leverage?!? IF D12 needed leverage for someone to give him the max, then LAL would have been enough.)

Here's the thing with the Moneyball approach - one of the basic tenets is this: the two best contracts are rookie contracts and max contracts; the worst contract is a contract above $10M for someone who'll turn 30 at some point during the contract. Look at the names mentioned: Al Jefferson - 29, got a flat 2 year deal @ $13.5M with a PO for the same; Monta Ellis got 2-year starting @ $8M with increases (Sure, we chased Monta for a week or two, but we were trolling for a deal and when Monta realized what people were offering, he fired his agent). So, yeah, you're correct in that Ferry definitely has some Moneyball in him.

Is this a good thing? No idea, but I do know this: the last iteration of our team was the epitome of frustration - a 2nd round out in the PO without the finances or the talent to be any better; a team that was, at best, the 7th-8th best team in contest when the runner-up is nothing more than a footnote. With this iteration, I feel that the team is about as good when healthy, with some upward mobility in terms of being able to jump into any market with the intention of buying or selling. Now, I'm sure some of that is luck and some of it is a handful of guys (Antic, Carroll, maybe Millsap) that Ferry has probably had in his sights for a few years as someone more hands on while @ SAS, but still, Ferry does deserve credit for what he's done so far in terms of adding the flexibility so that the team can get better while not losing too much from the overall production of the team. I'll give him the time to see how his Moneyball approach plays out... after almost 2 years, it's already shown to produce as productive a team as the last iteration and he's only in year 2.

[parson]

A GM needs to plant seeds everywhere and pray that enough sprout. If he's competent (which means he hires a worthy staff to develop his talent), he manages to get enough for a competent team. If he hits on a couple more, he's a "genius" - another Norman Einstein (thank you, Joe Theismann).

As to the competency, there's backup Millsap becoming an allstar and scrub Carroll becoming an attractive starter, there's nobodies becoming valuable backups. Matter-of-fact, when Teague was thriving, I was about to anoint Budenholzer the next HOF coach.

As to the little seeds -
If Nogueira develops a body...
If Muscala adds muscle...
If Dennis adds an outside shot AND loses the carelessness...
If Mack adds a 3pt shot and speeds up his awareness...
If Jenkins heals and grows up to be Kyle Korver/Kevin Martin with defense...

Lotta little saplings. All of 'em might wither and die - or ...

And, for the rest, there's the lottery and capspace for FAs.

[diesel50]

Is this a good thing? No idea, but I do know this: the last iteration of our team was the epitome of frustration - a 2nd round out in the PO without the finances or the talent to be any better; a team that was, at best, the 7th-8th best team in contest when the runner-up is nothing more than a footnote. With this iteration, I feel that the team is about as good when healthy, with some upward mobility in terms of being able to jump into any market with the intention of buying or selling. Now, I'm sure some of that is luck and some of it is a handful of guys (Antic, Carroll, maybe Millsap) that Ferry has probably had in his sights for a few years as someone more hands on while @ SAS, but still, Ferry does deserve credit for what he's done so far in terms of adding the flexibility so that the team can get better while not losing too much from the overall production of the team. I'll give him the time to see how his Moneyball approach plays out... after almost 2 years, it's already shown to produce as productive a team as the last iteration and he's only in year 2.

The problem is flexibility really only works in a market that is able to draw free agents. We are not that market. I have been a fan for over 30 yrs now...I have seen us pull in 4 big free agents in that time. ALL of them were overpaid. Joe, Moses, Deke, and Theus. Actually, Deke wasn't overpaid?!? but we maxed him out. So now what we have are two conflicting approaches. Ferry's moneyball vs. our FAcy coldbed. Let me tell you how the story will go...

We will set our eyes on some young bigtime free agent and he will leverage us against the deal he wants. Examples of this: Rick Fox, Ced Ceballos, Kenyon Martin, D12, need I go on??? Or maybe we trade for a Free Agent to be... Danny Manning anybody?

So here's the best outcome. Us finding a guy who is good but maybe coming off of a bad year or us finding a guy who hasn't blown up yet... Example of this working for us: Al Harrington, Jamal Crawford, Paul Millsap, Kyle Korver, Stephen Jackson... and just loading the team up with guys who will play hard and will do more than what's expected.

However, Atlanta is a trade town. We have always done our best work via trade. This is the understanding that Ferry will have to get. Because right now, I see a lot of Babcock in his drafting.

[diesel50]

A GM needs to plant seeds everywhere and pray that enough sprout. If he's competent (which means he hires a worthy staff to develop his talent), he manages to get enough for a competent team. If he hits on a couple more, he's a "genius" - another Norman Einstein (thank you, Joe Theismann).

As to the competency, there's backup Millsap becoming an allstar and scrub Carroll becoming an attractive starter, there's nobodies becoming valuable backups. Matter-of-fact, when Teague was thriving, I was about to anoint Budenholzer the next HOF coach.

As to the little seeds -
If Nogueira develops a body...
If Muscala adds muscle...
If Dennis adds an outside shot AND loses the carelessness...
If Mack adds a 3pt shot and speeds up his awareness...
If Jenkins heals and grows up to be Kyle Korver/Kevin Martin with defense...

Lotta little saplings. All of 'em might wither and die - or ...

And, for the rest, there's the lottery and capspace for FAs.

Pars... after 30 years of watching this team's GMs vs. the other guys...I have found that the thing that all GMs need is a plan. GMs with a plan.. even if it's a bad one always does better than GMs without a plan. People criticize him but Billy Knight had a plan. One bad move destroyed anything good that he could have done. That move was drafting Marvin and not CP3. In BK's plan, Marvin was his muse... and it's unfortunate... because we really needed a PG at the time and according to CP3, he really wanted to play here. If we would have drafted CP3, the next year, we would not have gone after Shelden and we prolly would have missed out on Al but I would like to believe that we would be good right now.
I do believe that DFerry has a plan. However, just like BK, I'm afraid that his plan is going to ignore something very important. So just like BK, we will be better than we were before, also like BK, we may miss the obvious and set ourselves up for future failure.
With DFerry in there, I can't get excited about the draft. Every fan likes to believe that his team came away with a great draft. After two drafts with Ferry, I don't feel that way. After hearing how the trade for JJ went down, I don't feel that he's a mastermind trade guy either. My only hope is that metrics will help him with these free agents. But I also hope he doesn't miss out on the obvious thing.

[parson]

After reading your post, I can't tell what your "obvious thing" - the "something very important" - is.

As for Billy Knight, I feel he hired the wrong coach. Woodson disagreed with Knight's dream of a team that played the European way (D'Antoni's way), but with 6'9" to 6'11" loooong, great athletes. Woodson wanted isolations and a slow game on offense, with grinders on defense. He started out switching on defense but gave it up. D'Antoni seems to ignore defense but Billy Knight wanted a switching defense - made up of athletes who could defend multiple positions - that led to turnovers that led to ... Showtime. I'd still like to see someone try Knight's idea (maybe using their 2nd unit). There's nothing more fearsome than 5 tall, fast men running in the open court after a turnover.

However, Ferry and Budenholzer seem to be on precisely the same page. I think Popovich made true believers out of both of them.

As for your "plan" - I know a little bit about organizations. I've heard plan after plan after vision statement after paradigm shift. Whenever I can, I like to go see the best do what they do. One thing I've always noticed: they do whatever they do WELL. That's the secret - doing it well.

If there were a magic plan, everyone would be doing it.

[theatlfan]

The problem is flexibility really only works in a market that is able to draw free agents. We are not that market. I have been a fan for over 30 yrs now...I have seen us pull in 4 big free agents in that time. ALL of them were overpaid. Joe, Moses, Deke, and Theus. Actually, Deke wasn't overpaid?!? but we maxed him out. So now what we have are two conflicting approaches. Ferry's moneyball vs. our FAcy coldbed. Let me tell you how the story will go...

We will set our eyes on some young bigtime free agent and he will leverage us against the deal he wants. Examples of this: Rick Fox, Ced Ceballos, Kenyon Martin, D12, need I go on??? Or maybe we trade for a Free Agent to be... Danny Manning anybody?

So here's the best outcome. Us finding a guy who is good but maybe coming off of a bad year or us finding a guy who hasn't blown up yet... Example of this working for us: Al Harrington, Jamal Crawford, Paul Millsap, Kyle Korver, Stephen Jackson... and just loading the team up with guys who will play hard and will do more than what's expected.

However, Atlanta is a trade town. We have always done our best work via trade. This is the understanding that Ferry will have to get. Because right now, I see a lot of Babcock in his drafting.

Handful of points:
1) Not sure what you're looking for in the FA market. The nature of the FA market is that the player goes to the highest bidder - hence, you can always say a team overpaid for an FA. The biggest exception to this is someone who multiple teams bid max on. This is why a max contract is considered a good deal: there's no telling how much someone would have gotten if there wasn't a cap on a player's contract. This also is why you don't try to get into a bidding war over a Monta Ellis or an Al Jefferson - if you win, congrats, you out laid the most money for someone who is past his prime and due for a career downturn. Maybe he'll hold on for a few years so the contract will stay at slightly overpaid, but if he loses a step, then he could show up on the list of worst contract in the league.

2) As far as the predictions, uh, that's a pretty cynical view (then again, 30 years of being a fan of ATL sports team can lead you down that path). I mean, sure, you could be right - fishing for a superstar can be a numbers game and not everyone who agrees to meet with you is indeed genuine in their interest (remember Eddy Curry?). Still, from above, I can't see why this would mean you don't play the game. Yes, past regimes haven't had the best of luck luring the superstar FA, but I'm not ready yet to toss their stink onto Ferry - at least not yet.

Now, I'm not saying we are better off in the FA market than the trade market - just that we have the option to chose. The inability to attract a FA isn't something to overlook in that decision, but still... Where Ferry is now, he needs to set the foundation first, then he can build on it. Who and where that 1st piece comes from doesn't matter, it's the fact that we'd have one is the key. D12 doesn't talk to HOU if they had signed Monta Ellis or an Al Jefferson and, in turn, couldn't trade for James Harden. Now, it took Morey 6 years to land Harden and I hope Ferry can accelerate that time table some, but in today 's NBA, landing those types of players is what it'll take to truly compete. If we have to land that player via a trade, then so be it as far as I'm concerned.

[diesel50]

After reading your post, I can't tell what your "obvious thing" - the "something very important" - is.

As for Billy Knight, I feel he hired the wrong coach. Woodson disagreed with Knight's dream of a team that played the European way (D'Antoni's way), but with 6'9" to 6'11" loooong, great athletes. Woodson wanted isolations and a slow game on offense, with grinders on defense. He started out switching on defense but gave it up. D'Antoni seems to ignore defense but Billy Knight wanted a switching defense - made up of athletes who could defend multiple positions - that led to turnovers that led to ... Showtime. I'd still like to see someone try Knight's idea (maybe using their 2nd unit). There's nothing more fearsome than 5 tall, fast men running in the open court after a turnover.

However, Ferry and Budenholzer seem to be on precisely the same page. I think Popovich made true believers out of both of them.

As for your "plan" - I know a little bit about organizations. I've heard plan after plan after vision statement after paradigm shift. Whenever I can, I like to go see the best do what they do. One thing I've always noticed: they do whatever they do WELL. That's the secret - doing it well.

If there were a magic plan, everyone would be doing it.

I agree with a lot of what you say but for clarity, an obvious thing right now is a big who can defend the rim and rebound. I don't think Ferry will attempt to address that and it will set us up for failure. The metrics will say that Horf is able to play C and he will prolly keep Horf at Center and focus on the Swingman position. I also think his good guy culture will allow us to pass over some good guys!! I'm not saying go out and get JR Rider, but I am saying that every great player will not be somebody without baggage.

Lastly, don't be fooled about what you see right now. Many Hawks fans have looked at record and said...we're doing good. We have apprehension at PG. We have problems stopping teams from scoring. We have problems scoring the ball. We're just in a season where many teams are tanking and some teams are waiting til late to turn it up. When you see how injured the NBA is right now, it makes more sense to why we have won as many as we have. I applaud Bud for getting the team to do his gameplan this early. It usually takes about 1/2 a season for a team to adjust to a new coach. So Bud has done a great work. Still, personnel wise, we have a lot to fix.

[diesel50]

Handful of points:
1) Not sure what you're looking for in the FA market. The nature of the FA market is that the player goes to the highest bidder - hence, you can always say a team overpaid for an FA. The biggest exception to this is someone who multiple teams bid max on. This is why a max contract is considered a good deal: there's no telling how much someone would have gotten if there wasn't a cap on a player's contract. This also is why you don't try to get into a bidding war over a Monta Ellis or an Al Jefferson - if you win, congrats, you out laid the most money for someone who is past his prime and due for a career downturn. Maybe he'll hold on for a few years so the contract will stay at slightly overpaid, but if he loses a step, then he could show up on the list of worst contract in the league.

2) As far as the predictions, uh, that's a pretty cynical view (then again, 30 years of being a fan of ATL sports team can lead you down that path). I mean, sure, you could be right - fishing for a superstar can be a numbers game and not everyone who agrees to meet with you is indeed genuine in their interest (remember Eddy Curry?). Still, from above, I can't see why this would mean you don't play the game. Yes, past regimes haven't had the best of luck luring the superstar FA, but I'm not ready yet to toss their stink onto Ferry - at least not yet.

Now, I'm not saying we are better off in the FA market than the trade market - just that we have the option to chose. The inability to attract a FA isn't something to overlook in that decision, but still... Where Ferry is now, he needs to set the foundation first, then he can build on it. Who and where that 1st piece comes from doesn't matter, it's the fact that we'd have one is the key. D12 doesn't talk to HOU if they had signed Monta Ellis or an Al Jefferson and, in turn, couldn't trade for James Harden. Now, it took Morey 6 years to land Harden and I hope Ferry can accelerate that time table some, but in today 's NBA, landing those types of players is what it'll take to truly compete. If we have to land that player via a trade, then so be it as far as I'm concerned.

I like this conversation.
Firstly. Most teams don't overpay for good players. I think it's the teams that are recognized as "feeder" teams that do that. There are some exception like Brooklyn with the billionaire and NY with Isiah as GM... but large market teams just go out and pick players and they come. Part of it is being in the right place with a star. Stars beget Stars. There comes a time in most star players life that they want to win a championship more than they want to be overpaid. If a team can show that they have infrastructure for a championship run, star players become more interested. How hard did the Clipps have to work to get Crawford, Reddick, or any of their good complimentary players? Did they overpay?

Second. Yeah, I'm cynical but at the same time.. hopeful. I would love to see Ferry just fool somebody royally on a trade and we move to a higher echelon. But when I look at how he does business, I have strong doubts. He's the new BK. Keeps everything secret. Has a great secret masterplan. The two differences is that he's better at BK at picking coaches. And BK was a better player's GM than he.

Let's be honest for a second.... Morey is the luckiest guy in the freakin world. His luck is about like John Gabrielle and Poppovich's luck as GM. I would love for Ferry to luck into something. However, I don't have that down in the calendar. I would rather see Ferry's plan come together. To be a great FA person, Ferry is first going to have to be more of a player's GM. His treatment of Both JJ and Smoove (as players) was bad. In their free agent time, he didn't work with them.
History lesson... Do you know how we became Cancer to Free Agents?

Babcock. Stan Kasten was a master of Free Agency and a master of the trade. Players loved the way that Kasten ran the ship. Even if Ted Turner sat in the OMNI sleep while the organ played, Kasten was beloved by players because he talked to them and treated them with respect. IMO, when Babcock took over, he just started treating players like Business dollars. Nothing wrong with that but the respect was gone. In several moves, he would take fan favorites like Nique and just trade them away without talking to them. It wasn't just Nique... when Willis was having contract issues, Babcock shipped him to Miami mid negotiations. Babcock shipped Nique to LAC. Then he said the reason he did that is because he didn't want our stars to get old on us. So he tended to trade them while they still had value. Sounds good from a business perspective but if you're a FA, you're not going to consider a team that sent the face of the team packing without him having any input in the move. I think I read somewhere that Nique didn't even know he had been traded. What kinda stuff is that.

The problem is that I see the same thing in the way that Ferry deals. He didn't sit with Joe or Smoove durng their trade/FAcy. Other free agents are watching.

[theatlfan]

I like this conversation.
Firstly. Most teams don't overpay for good players. I think it's the teams that are recognized as "feeder" teams that do that. There are some exception like Brooklyn with the billionaire and NY with Isiah as GM... but large market teams just go out and pick players and they come. Part of it is being in the right place with a star. Stars beget Stars. There comes a time in most star players life that they want to win a championship more than they want to be overpaid. If a team can show that they have infrastructure for a championship run, star players become more interested. How hard did the Clipps have to work to get Crawford, Reddick, or any of their good complimentary players? Did they overpay?

We're talking about using the FA market for two different things here. If you're using the FA market for a complementary piece then you can find deals - DMC and 'Sap here for example. If you're using the FA market to find a #1 or 2 option, then you're typically overpaying unless you're not the only team that hits the cap. Right now, I think we can agree that we need a superstar before the top level complementary pieces will really look at us.

As for the LAC examples though, I can't say I agree. Crawford was probably overpaid by LAC - his 1st year salary was the same amount as a 1-year deal he had with PORT the year before. Players trade short term earnings for security all the time and Crawford somehow got both from LAC. Redick may have had suitors offer slightly more (or not - idk) but his deal is about where I would have expected him to land and considering they already had 2 stars on the roster, I can see why he took the offer. H3ll, JJ probably makes up for whatever minimum amounts he loses in guaranteed money with playoff money anyway.

Second. Yeah, I'm cynical but at the same time.. hopeful. I would love to see Ferry just fool somebody royally on a trade and we move to a higher echelon. But when I look at how he does business, I have strong doubts. He's the new BK. Keeps everything secret. Has a great secret masterplan. The two differences is that he's better at BK at picking coaches. And BK was a better player's GM than he.

Not sure I see this - to me, Ferry is the anti-BK. BK was a scout 1st and foremost and always wanted to be at the top of the draft to get the latest bauble. If BK was "secretive", he was terrible at keeping secrets. I kind of doubt that he actually had a plan as much as he was just content to continually add players until Woodson stepped in and demanded that certain positions (PG and C) be filled. Once he realized that a) the ownership was behind Woodson and would be getting involved more heavily in ensuring that the players BK acquired actually filled needs and b) we wouldn't be picking top 5 again for a long time, Knight left a job where there were only 30 in the world even though ASG actually wanted to resign him.

OTOH, Ferry is an executive who doesn't want to reinvent the wheel but instead wants to re-use a proven path to success. He wants production over potential. He prefers to keep a winning culture around the clubhouse to keep players happy over taking buddy-buddy approach. He doesn't seek out media attention or photo ops but still keeps us in the rumor mill.

Honestly don't see the comp between these two at all...

Let's be honest for a second.... Morey is the luckiest guy in the freakin world. His luck is about like John Gabrielle and Poppovich's luck as GM. I would love for Ferry to luck into something. However, I don't have that down in the calendar. I would rather see Ferry's plan come together. To be a great FA person, Ferry is first going to have to be more of a player's GM. His treatment of Both JJ and Smoove (as players) was bad. In their free agent time, he didn't work with them.

There's an old quote that many of my former coaches used: "Luck is where opportunity meets preparation." I guess you could say that Morey was lucky, but the fact is he collected assets for over 1/2 a decade waiting for a Harden to hit the trade market and when he did, Morey pounced. Does a budding to current superstar get traded every day? No, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be prepared if one does - otherwise, you'll never be "lucky". This same tenet would holds with all the major markets in player acquisition: the draft, the trade market, and the FA market. There's more than 1 way to do business and limiting yourself to just one is foolish.

History lesson... Do you know how we became Cancer to Free Agents?

Babcock. Stan Kasten was a master of Free Agency and a master of the trade. Players loved the way that Kasten ran the ship. Even if Ted Turner sat in the OMNI sleep while the organ played, Kasten was beloved by players because he talked to them and treated them with respect. IMO, when Babcock took over, he just started treating players like Business dollars. Nothing wrong with that but the respect was gone. In several moves, he would take fan favorites like Nique and just trade them away without talking to them. It wasn't just Nique... when Willis was having contract issues, Babcock shipped him to Miami mid negotiations. Babcock shipped Nique to LAC. Then he said the reason he did that is because he didn't want our stars to get old on us. So he tended to trade them while they still had value. Sounds good from a business perspective but if you're a FA, you're not going to consider a team that sent the face of the team packing without him having any input in the move. I think I read somewhere that Nique didn't even know he had been traded. What kinda stuff is that.

The problem is that I see the same thing in the way that Ferry deals. He didn't sit with Joe or Smoove durng their trade/FAcy. Other free agents are watching.

Honestly, when I think back on former GMs of the Hawks, all I think of is how *not* to do business. I don't really care how those guys did it - none of them who a ring so who cares. Get rid of what doesn't work and at least try something new. From what I've seen, Ferry treats the players as professionals and gives them what a professional would want: an equitable contract, a solid locker room, and a chance to win. If there's someone who doesn't value these traits, then do we really want them?

[parson]

BK was a scout 1st and foremost and always wanted to be at the top of the draft to get the latest bauble.

1) I thought he was a poor scout (never worked out Shelden?).
2) I don't think the 2nd part's fair, but it's true he tanked on purpose.

[theatlfan]

BK was a scout 1st and foremost and always wanted to be at the top of the draft to get the latest bauble.

1) I thought he was a poor scout (never worked out Shelden?).
2) I don't think the 2nd part's fair, but it's true he tanked on purpose.

Knight made his name as an executive in charge of scouting in Indiana under Walsh; BK's pièce de résistance as a GM was trading Shareef Abdur Rahim to us for the draft pick that was Pau Gasol. An individual workout is more for a coach than a scout - the scout has watched a top player against a variety of competition already so what is an hour workout going to show?

Maybe the 2nd part is harsh but I don't see it as too far off the mark either. Now, the original tank job was common even today, but the fact that he always seemed more interested in continuing to collect talent than ever transitioning into constructing a team. Example here would be that his 2 biggest moves between trading a future pick for JJ (and, you know, accelerating the time frame to make the playoffs) and when we actually made the playoffs was signing an oft injured Speedy Claxton in FA and trading *away* Al Harrington for a future pick and no players. If you need more you can find where he was quoted as preferring Brandan Wright over Al Horford before the '07 draft. If all you really want to do is collect talent, then you're much more interest in the talent at the top of the draft anywhere else.

[parson]

If you need more you can find where he was quoted as preferring Brandan Wright over Al Horford before the '07 draft. If all you really want to do is collect talent, then you're much more interest in the talent at the top of the draft anywhere else.

So .... you agree he was a poor scout.

[diesel50]

BK was a scout 1st and foremost and always wanted to be
If you need more you can find where he was quoted as preferring Brandan Wright over Al Horford before the '07 draft. If all you really want to do is collect talent, then you're much more interest in the talent at the top of the draft anywhere else.

I always looked at BK as a guy trying to meet that same mantra that he set for himself. Long, Athletic, Versatile, potential. If you think about it that way, Brandan Wright is as much of his muse as Marvin was. Wright was longer than Marvin... However, what BK never considered was passion. If he were truly a scout, Passion would have been on the checkoff list. However, when you consider Marvin, Chillz, and now Wright, you have to say that Passion was lacking in his checkoff list. Some picks we can't accredit to BK though. Everybody talks about the Shelden pick. I thnk that the Shelden pick was locked in the day that JJ said he would wait for the Hawks to get their situation cleaned up. Remember, our ownership split and there were other teams like Milwaukee & NY who were willing to pay JJ but JJ said no... he would wait on us. That was because JJ's agent was calling the shots.... and when JJ's agent needed somebody to take his other player (Shelden)... we were the lock. In fact, I recall him also saying that LaMarcus and Roy were also headed where he wanted them to go.

[theatlfan]

If you need more you can find where he was quoted as preferring Brandan Wright over Al Horford before the '07 draft. If all you really want to do is collect talent, then you're much more interest in the talent at the top of the draft anywhere else.

So .... you agree he was a poor scout.

As diesel50 points out above, he was missing something in his evaluations. If you're drafting top 5, then you should have a better hit rate than 1 out of 3...