AJC > Sports > Hawks > Blog > Archives > 2007 > May > 21
Monday, May 21, 2007
Trying to make sense of it all
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Hawks’ day of reckoning is just hours away and we’re no closer to knowing what will happen than we were two months ago when the season ended and we first started speculating about what might be.
I swear to you, there is not a more maddening time of year than the idle days leading up to the draft lottery. A nightly barrage of compelling playoff games certainly helped pass the time. But none of us will feel complete until late Tuesday night, when we know exactly where things stand with the draft lottery.
So while you wait, I have something else for you to chew on (and you better have a few minutes because this is going to be a marathon post). I spent a good portion of a day last week with Hawks GM Billy Knight trying to delve into the psyche of the man I consider the most polarizing figure in Atlanta’s professional sports scene - not named Vick (the profile on Knight will be published in Tuesday’s paper and probably around these parts some time later this evening).
The day started in a conference room at Hawks’ headquarters, which is a short walk across the street from the AJC Bat Cave on Marietta Street. We talked, we watched film (some fabulous and some fabulously awful), did lunch, came back and talked some more before parting ways before the rush hour traffic kicked up on the downtown connector.
I don’t care how much time you spend with him, and over the past three years I’ve been around him probably as much or more than any other member of the local media, Knight’s a guy you never feel is letting you in on everything. He’d be a fantastic card shark, if that were his preferred line of work.
Love him or hate him, and I know where most of you stand on that one already, the guy is sticking to his guns. He won’t budge on the decisions he’s made (even if he feels deep down that he made a mistake, he’s not telling us about it). And he won’t play the ‘what if?’ that we (especially me) spend so much time playing around here. No matter how much you might want him to, dude’s not biting.
We talked about all things basketball, most of it on the record but a few things off the record. But he’s as shrewd as they come in terms of keeping what he wants private kept private. It’s just his way, as I learned from talking to some of the folks closest to him. And it has been forever.
So the venom and vitriol aimed at him from the fans and the media, the latter being folks he keeps at arm’s length, is obviously something he’s decided he can live with. And had he turned down my interview request like he has others, it wouldn’t have changed my mind about the way I feel about the job he’s done running the Hawks. I’ve got thicker skin than that. And I give him credit for being consistent and not trying to play nice with the media in order to gain favorable treatment later. I believe the cliché for that is known as “keeping it real,” which is exactly what we should all be striving to do.
That’s why the (malice-free, mind you) failing grade I handed out to Hawks coach Mike Woodson last month for the job he did this past season matches the “F” I’m giving Knight and the front office for their body of work during the 2006-07 season. In my mind, they could have done more to help this team get into the playoff mix. I realize that a playoff bid would have squashed any hope of two possible top 11-picks in next month’s draft (a fate that will be decided Tuesday night in Jersey, but I suspect Hawks fans could live with outcome of the lottery drawing a lot easier if you were still coming off the emotional high of a playoff run).
From my perspective, there were things that this team needed last season to compete at the next level that they just didn’t get. Rather than 10-day contracts for D-Leaguers the Hawks needed to acquire some veteran help to help sustain them earlier in the season. The trade-deadline deal for Anthony Johnson was too little and too late, had they snagged both Johnson and Jeff Foster from Indiana for Al Harrington last summer the entire season might have gone down in a totally different fashion (if that deal was in the works that would have changed the focus of the draft and the pursuit of a veteran point guard during the free agency period). Nothing will change my mind about that. Nothing.
The general feeling from folks affiliated with the franchise is that had they been able to manage their injuries a bit better, this team would have been a able to make a playoff push as presently constructed. I don’t believe that to be true. I thought this team was two or three personnel tweaks away from being playoff-caliber. And after watching the teams that have participated in this postseason, I’m even more convinced. The Hawks, even at full strength, would not have been up to playoff snuff. I’m convinced of that much after watching all these games the past month.
Knight is convinced, too, that all the obsessive banter about what could have been or should have happened is useless now. “It’s counterproductive and a waste of time,” he said. “This is what it is. We have to work on going forward. You always try to improve the situation. Our focus is getting ready for next year, we’re not looking back and lamenting this past season or whatever. We’re looking forward. First is the lottery and then the draft and so on. And you keep building your team and making our team better for the future. That’s what we [assistant GM Gary Fitzsimmons and scout Harold Ellis] are doing everyday. That’s our focus.”
There were only two other areas that we discussed that I really wanted to pass along here.
I asked about the Hawks’ personnel and whether or not it is a good fit for their style of play. Shouldn’t they play at a faster pace with their deficiencies in the paint? And we came back to the one thing that’s plagued the Hawks in each of the three seasons I’ve been around, and that’s the point guard situation. “I think it starts at the point guard spot and with our injuries,” Knight said. “It’s hard to say that we’re capable of playing that way for the entire game. First thing we need to do is get healthy there and in then evaluate if that’s our best style or not. We think have a chance to be that way, the players we have are versatile and skilled. We don’t have a team filled with shooters. Joe [Johnson] and Salim [Stoudamire] are good shooters. Marvin [Williams] is a good shooter from medium range, not necessarily a 3-point shooter. But we’re not a team designed for that. we’re a team designed to have versatile basketball players. In order to dictate the tempo and style you’re talking about, the style that’s more prevalent in the playoffs, those teams have guys like Baron Davis [Golden State] and Steve Nash [Phoenix] and then Toronto has T.J. Ford, and Deron Williams in Utah. Those teams are able to do that because of their point guards. Our situation was a little uneven this year. So we have to rectify that this year. We have to do better.”
I also asked about the opportunities the Hawks have had to circumvent their [my guess is five-year] rebuilding plan for the quick fix to the playoffs, sort of like what the LA Clippers did last season when they snagged Sam Cassell in a trade and made it to the postseason and what the Warriors did this season with the multi-player deal they did with Indiana that sent them to the playoffs for the first time over a decade. Why don’t the Hawks go for broke like that? “That’s always a temptation,” Knight said. “There is always that temptation there. We sift through those offers every year. We talk about them and go over the good and bad of all those deals. We’ve had our share of situations where we could have pursued an opportunity to do something right away. But for the long term good of the franchise it’s hard to take on a big contract like that for a short time because you could stymie the growth of your young guys, and you could also limit any other opportunities you might have because of the [salary] numbers involved. Usually it is such a huge number that it really has to work or else you’re in trouble. And it’s tough to put your organization in that situation.”
Have at it. And fire away with any questions you have and I’ll try and pop back in here and answer them as best as I can throughout the day.
