AJC > Sports > Hawks > Blog > Archives > 2007 > January > 29
Monday, January 29, 2007
You’ve got to start somewhere
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What would you do?
It’s the question that’s asked of me time and time again, not that anyone who owns a team (NBA or otherwise) has called me lately asking for my advice. But it’s a valid question, given my penchant for yapping about all things like I’m the Wizard of NBA OZ. What would you do if you were running the mess that is the Hawks right now? (You asked dap and now I’m going to tell you).
Well, right after I went out and upgraded the house, cars, wifey’s wardrobe and an assortment of other trivial material things to get myself out of the doghouse at the crib in advance (the pay stub would be a bit bigger than my current one, so I’d have to floss a little bit), it’s lock down for me.
Because I’d spend the next two weeks before the trade deadline locked in my office (with my basketball staff, scouts and all) studying not only my team and figuring out who goes and who stays, but also picking the brains of every league contact I had to find out what players would fit into what I have going on here and then figuring out ways to get them here within the constraints of my current situation (the owners have the final say, so whatever I do has to be cleared by them, right?).
Some harsh realities would have to be acknowledged on my part. I’d have to admit to a few mistakes and rectify them immediately. I’d have to come to grips with the fact that no matter how much I want it to be, rookie big men like (Lorenzen Wright, Zaza Pachulia, Shelden Williams, Esteban Batista and Solomon Jones) aren’t going to be capable of playing over their heads on a nightly basis and competing at a high level against the likes of say Dwight Howard and Sam Dalembert, to name just two of the recent higher level big men my team has faced.
But the personnel department is where my changes are coming. Period. I know that the only way to change my team’s fortunes right now is to change my team.
So the real question becomes what would I do to fix this mess under current circumstances?
And that’s where things get real sticky. Because I’m not sure what I could do if there were operating constraints (that haven’t been acknowledged publicly) preventing me from doing whatever I wanted to in an effort to fix things.
Either way, the first thing I’m doing is calling the 29 other GMs in the league, the guys in my division and everywhere else, and trying to work up a list of bigs and point guards that are available via trade.
I’ve talked about the point guards I think would fit perfectly (Luke Ridnour, Anthony Johnson, etc.) on this team. The bigs that interest me change on a nightly basis. I watched Seattle lose to the Clippers last night and realized that even a 17-win Sonics team has a batch of big men (Andre Brown, Nick Collison, Danny Fortson, Johan Petro, Mouhamed Sene and Chris Wilcox - Robert Swift is hurt) that I can only dream of having. With that being the case, there would have to be some way for me to pry a big man away from a team with an overload, because even if their bigs aren’t All-Star caliber, they’d have to be able to help my team in its greatest area of need.
If I don’t add but two guys, two veteran guys that I know can provide instant production, it’s done. Because I can’t wait on the draft and how things might shake down in a few months, and I know can’t just sit around and let this current team simmer in a pool of its own inconsistent juices. It would only erode their collective confidence even more than it has already. They need a boost. And you can get that boost in a number of ways.
But this is where I’d start on Jan. 29. And the job would only get tougher. But I’d have to start somewhere.
