Remember when HOU fans wanted Millsap and picks for Asik?

[Jamaaliver]

We only had 9 bodies available for WED night's game vs WAS. Only one Center among them (if you can call Brand a Center). With hours left til the trade deadline, sounds like Ferry is maintaining roster flexibility for impending moves.

The Rockets have renewed efforts to trade disgruntled center Omer Asik, with the Philadelphia 76ers emerging once again as a potential landing spot...The Hawks like him, but not at the Rockets' current asking price.

At least DF is looking at deals.

NOTE: Had we traded Josh last year for Hawes/Turner we'd have two attractive, expiring assets to offer in trade.

And...

Philadelphia's floor-spacing Spencer Hawes interests the Rockets

Letting our top trade chip (Smoove) walk away for nothing last summer is hindering us from making moves this trade deadline, since, you know, you can't trade cap space.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/writer/ken-berger/24447420/sources-rockets-exploring-asik-trades-again

[parson]

We only had 9 bodies available for WED night's game vs WAS. Only one Center among them (if you can call Brand a Center). With hours left til the trade deadline, sounds like Ferry is maintaining roster flexibility for impending moves.

Or, Ferry's done with player development this year for the vets and is turning to our youngsters. I've got to admit that the tankers may be right about Ferry building a team that would tank naturally.

NOTE: Had we traded Josh last year for Hawes/Turner we'd have two attractive, expiring assets to offer in trade.
...

Letting our top trade chip (Smoove) walk away for nothing last summer is hindering us from making moves this trade deadline, since, you know, you can't trade cap space.

50 years from now, Jamaaliver lies, dying in bed, with a glass globe in hand, uttering the words, "Josh Smith, Josh Smith" (er, I mean, "Rosebud, Rosebud") over and over again.

[theatlfan]

We only had 9 bodies available for WED night's game vs WAS. Only one Center among them (if you can call Brand a Center). With hours left til the trade deadline, sounds like Ferry is maintaining roster flexibility for impending moves.

The Rockets have renewed efforts to trade disgruntled center Omer Asik, with the Philadelphia 76ers emerging once again as a potential landing spot...The Hawks like him, but not at the Rockets' current asking price.

At least DF is looking at deals.

Outside of a handful of "rotation vet for a 2nd" type deals, the only deal that I've seen Ferry really in on are deals where we're expecting that the opposing team to eventually dump the player. HOU and BOS are confident that they can find value from Asik and Green respectively, but it's doubtful that there has been a serious suitor for either of them unless you consider deals where we're willing to set their contract. Pretty sure that, at this point, it's on them - if they continue to demand big value, then they can keep those contracts; once they're content to clear them off their payroll, then we'll work something out. After the deadline though, I think Ferry will tear up his current evals and start anew.

NOTE: Had we traded Josh last year for Hawes/Turner we'd have two attractive, expiring assets to offer in trade.

And...

Philadelphia's floor-spacing Spencer Hawes interests the Rockets

Letting our top trade chip (Smoove) walk away for nothing last summer is hindering us from making moves this trade deadline, since, you know, you can't trade cap space.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/writer/ken-berger/24447420/sources-rockets-exploring-asik-trades-again

Not exactly sure why this deal keeps coming up.
1) From the reports I saw, we didn't kill the trade - PHI did because they wanted to see how their parts fit around Bynum 1st.

2) Even if we could have pulled the trigger, what good would it have done us at this deadline? PHI has desperately been trying to deal both of these guys for months now and haven't been able to - they've even lowered their demand for Turner to a 2nd now.

[PandaKidd]

Hawes off the market, off to CLEVELAND aka where players go to die.

Asik looked good last night vs the AAU Lakers. Still cant believe how high Morey is on Asik and MJ. 1st round picks ........... terrible

[Jamaaliver]

50 years from now, Jamaaliver lies, dying in bed, with a glass globe in hand, uttering the words, "Josh Smith, Josh Smith" (er, I mean, "Rosebud, Rosebud") over and over again.

Hopefully, I'll be over the trauma of watching that kid chuck, whine and scowl for 9 years by the time I'm on my deathbed. Been a Hardcore Hawks fan for 17 years. sadly, most of those came with the knucklehead as a starter.

Couldn't get Mutombo, Smitty or Shareef for a decade. Had to be the moron.

More than anything, I just really think we missed some great opportunities to improve our team the last few years. Lillard, Pau, Monroe, Turner. We're so untalented right now it's sickening.

Not exactly sure why this deal keeps coming up.
1) From the reports I saw, we didn't kill the trade - PHI did because they wanted to see how their parts fit around Bynum 1st.

2) Even if we could have pulled the trigger, what good would it have done us at this deadline? PHI has desperately been trying to deal both of these guys for months now and haven't been able to - they've even lowered their demand for Turner to a 2nd now.

Just re-iterating the fact that:

A. Ferry has dismantled most of our CORE and all we have to show for it thus far is capspace no one wants, a losing record for the first time in years and Lucas Nogueira.

B. Guys here were adamantly against trading for Hawes and Turner, but at the very least these guys could have been packaged in later trades for tangible assets. At best, their combined 30 ppg and 14 rpg could provide needed production for our ball club. Today's haul for Philly:

The 76ers made three trades on Thursday, sending out starters Hawes and Turner along with Allen and getting back Earl Clark and Henry Sims from the Cavs, Byron Mullens from the Los Angeles Clippers and Granger, along with a total of five second-round draft picks.

Nothing to set the world on fire. But if Philly can get multiple 2nd rounders for Hawes, couldn't we have gotten at least as much for Josh.

And for the record, I believe Turner has a real chance to play a big role in Indy. But, as always...time will tell.

[theatlfan]

Just re-iterating the fact that:

A. Ferry has dismantled most of our CORE and all we have to show for it thus far is capspace no one wants, a losing record for the first time in years and Lucas Nogueira.

B. Guys here were adamantly against trading for Hawes and Turner, but at the very least these guys could have been packaged in later trades for tangible assets. At best, their combined 30 ppg and 14 rpg could provide needed production for our ball club. Today's haul for Philly:

The 76ers made three trades on Thursday, sending out starters Hawes and Turner along with Allen and getting back Earl Clark and Henry Sims from the Cavs, Byron Mullens from the Los Angeles Clippers and Granger, along with a total of five second-round draft picks.

Nothing to set the world on fire. But if Philly can get multiple 2nd rounders for Hawes, couldn't we have gotten at least as much for Josh.

And for the record, I believe Turner has a real chance to play a big role in Indy. But, as always...time will tell.

I'm really shocked here...

Let me put things this way: PHI made 3 deals today. In two of those deals, they traded Hawes and Turner in deals where the other players in the deal were mostly names that no one expects to have any impact on their new teams. In these deals they took on $8M and got 3 mid-to-late 2nds. In the 3rd deal, PHI traded nothing for Eric Maynor - a straight salary dump to help make a deal work. In this deal, they took on $2M in salary for 2 mid-to-late 2nds.

Looks to me like they did better in trading cap space than the deals where they actually traded Hawes and Turner...

Look I agree we gambled on Smith by taking him to FA and we lost the gamble. Still, it's crying over split milk to look at it as anything other than a lost opportunity. All you do when you lose an opportunity is to just move on to the next one. Ferry has used the Smith $$ on someone who has already made the AS game. Time to focus on our current opportunities and let the ones in the past stay buried.

[parson]

So, can we put the Josh Smith angst to rest? By not trading him, we signed Paul Millsap. If we had traded him to PHI, we'd have 3 second round picks coming our way. And, in the interim, we'd have played some really bad basketball.

[Jamaaliver]

it's crying over split milk to look at it as anything other than a lost opportunity.

So, can we put the Josh Smith angst to rest?

I'll get there, promise. But today, as it stands, this roster has a serious dearth of talent. Ferry's moves have been uneven and unfruitful.

The first thing Ferry did upon taking over was take Josh Smith off the trade market, then offer him an extension. he spent the next 12 months preparing for the chance to woo Dwight Howard to play for us. In my view, these moves were complete folly. In the meantime, we sidestepped, avoided, ran away from other opportunities to improve our ballclub.

I grow less enamored with Ferry by the day. And it all started with trading our leading scorer and All Star for scraps and letting our best player walk away for nothing. I'm starting to suspect Ferry has no real master plan. But is just waiting, aimlessly for a deal that may or may not come.

When I complain about Smith, it's an indictment of past leadership that was way to comfortable with mediocrity and the status quo. When I complain about Smith, it's a criticism of the lack of direction our current GM seems to operate with. (We're keeping Smith, no we're trading him. We're competing this season! No, we're tanking!) When I complain about Smith, it's a shot at the many posters here who dismissed, attacked and outright insulted me over the years for having an opinion different than theirs. I literally took years of abuse for stating what is now pretty much accepted: Josh Smith is a disappointment. A blockhead. A headcase. A slightly above average player whose best days are already behind him.

I'll get over the trauma, sooner than later. But for now, as I see teams compete, strip down, rebuild and compete again...I can't help but remember all the times we could have made a move...but instead chose to continue hoping that Josh would 'TURN INTO A 20/10 BEAST' and carry us.

Two years ago, POR turned an expiring Gerald Wallace contract into a (top 3 protected) lottery pick. That pick, had it been us, could have netted us Lillard, Drummond or Barnes. Every trade deadline since then has been a complete and utter disappointment as a Hawks fan.

[theatlfan]

^^I guess if you want to live in regret of the past a while longer, I can't stop you. The only thing I'd say is that teams get lucky in deals all the time. Sure it would be nice to be an obvious winner on every deal as soon as the deal was announced ala the G Wallace deal, but the reality is that doesn't happen often. It would be unreasonable to think a GM should be able to do something like that at every deadline.

I also think you're being a bit hypercritical of Ferry's moves here as well. I haven't seen the same wishy-washy moves as you're implying. I see someone who came in, tried to only make obvious moves while he took 12 months to evaluate everything for stem to stern, then unfurled his plan last offseason. From comments I've read both here and elsewhere, I think he decided a 5 year face lift was his preferred direction to which we're still in year 1 or 2 right now. I don't see how any of his moves can truly be judged when we're so incredibly far away from the end goal right now.

To be overt here though: I'm not saying Ferry is the end-all, be-all either. He's better than our former GMs for sure, but there are definitely some chinks in the armor as well. Still, we're very early in his grand plan and I'd prefer to judge the completed body of work instead of nitpicking the intermediate steps.

[Jamaaliver]

^ Sure it would be nice to be an obvious winner on every deal as soon as the deal was announced...but the reality is that doesn't happen often. It would be unreasonable to think a GM should be able to do something like that at every deadline.

It'd be nice to trade for a player at the deadline...and not waive said player within days of acquiring them. 2nd year in a row that's occurred.

[theatlfan]

^ Sure it would be nice to be an obvious winner on every deal as soon as the deal was announced...but the reality is that doesn't happen often. It would be unreasonable to think a GM should be able to do something like that at every deadline.

It'd be nice to trade for a player at the deadline...and not waive said player within days of acquiring them. 2nd year in a row that's occurred.

Maybe it's me, but I'm not concerned with one day on the calendar. In the big picture, I think Ferry's next big move should be to get someone we can legitimately build around and any minor move between now and then should be to put us in position for such a move. The problem with this past deadline is that it was such an extreme buyer's market that even the sellers had to reassess whether they wanted to sell at the prices offered, so the only things they sold were pieces they really didn't want. Sure, "one man's garbage..." and all, but typically, it's best to avoid those types unless it's for a specific role and I just don't think we're there yet.

[parson]

Well, the problem with missing out on the deadline is that we shut the door officially to this year. Sure, we already knew it, but there's a finality to 3:01pm on deadline day. It's a letdown.

I would have loved to have gotten Asik for a fair deal and moved, mentally, into next year. Or Afflalo. Or, if we had traded Millsap to HOU for a king's ransom, this board could have begun talking about where we're headed.

Now we're talkers without anything to talk about, except for an injured, 8-man roster of a team.