AJC > Sports > Hawks > Blog > Archives > 2008 > May > 05
Monday, May 5, 2008
Whatever you do, do it now!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
SMYRNA - Now that the Real World Boston is over (no offense Beantown, but I’m good until next season), we can all return to our regularly scheduled program here.
It’s decision time now that the Hawks’ magic carpet ride has ended with a thud. It’s the only remaining question surrounding this team, where do you go from here?
And that includes Josh Smith, Josh Childress, Mike Woodson, Billy Knight, the franchise, the fans and just about anybody else (but in no particular order) connected to this team. I’ll address the status of Smith and Childress later.
(A brief aside - I know you were wondering why I’d abandon ship during the playoffs of all times, but the workload and travel load were so great that I wasn’t able to devote the usual time to this forum that it deserves. Rather than short-arm you with one of those cheap, three-graph joints I wanted to wait until I could do it right, the way I’d want a cat to do it, if was taking my time to come here and read and react. And kudos to Mark Bradley, D. Orlando Ledbetter, Matt Winkeljohn, Curtis Bunn, Steve Hummer, Thomas Stinson and all the other cats who dove in on this Hawks coverage during the playoffs. It was good stuff all around and a fun time trying to bring it all to life).
Much will be made in the coming days about the status of both Knight and Woodson, two men whose relationship has clearly taken a turn toward the darker side. No one I’ve spoken with is sure things between the two of them can be patched up (a peace broker would be ideal right now for the sake of all involved but don’t hold your breath).
Whatever the folks in power plan to do, they need to do it now. And I mean like, NOW! My old man always used a saying on me when he wanted to get me moving, “He who hesitates is lost forever.”
I called him a few minutes ago to find out where he lifted it from and he couldn’t remember if it was from his Army days in Vietnam or from one of the dorm philosophers he cooled out with back in the day (this cat has dropped so much wisdom over the years I’ll forgive him for, as Roger Clemens might say, “misremembering” where that one came from). Either way, the words resonated with me more this afternoon than ever.
Studying the moves and non-moves this franchise has made during the nearly four years I’ve covered this team reinforced that point to me. Indecision in the NBA often leads to bad decisions. I’m not suggesting the Hawks rush into anything. But I want to believe that someone has a detailed plan of action in place long before now as to how the franchise plans to proceed from here.
I’m all for the proper planning and all, but leaving all these folks (players, coaches and especially the main two guys) in limbo about the future only bolsters this franchise’s reputation for not acting decisively.
Whatever’s going to be done needs to be done and done swiftly so the next phase of whatever plan is being scripted and hatched can be put into place (if changes are going to be made, don’t drag it out. And if not, put the people that need to know at ease so they can continue to do their jobs and gear up for a critical offseason. Remember now, he who hesitates is lost forever).
Now, for my quick hit thought on two of the people in the crosshairs mentioned above (the other two will be the subject of a later post). And we can make this quick and easy based on the subject:
— Josh Smith and Josh Childress. I’m combining these two cats since the bottom line is the same. PAY UP! Just go ahead and pay these cats and get it over with. I’ve maintained since last summer that the Hawks should have paid both of these guys and locked them up early when they could set the price instead of playing out a season and allowing the market to do so. One other thing I feel necessary to mention is this, while some folks spend all their time nit-picking what these two can’t do, smart talent evaluators around the league are busy studying what it is they can do (quite a bit for both guys) and realizing that both of these guys have found a way to weather all the Hawks’ mess the past four years and thrive. They also found a way to help this team make the playoff run that kept the basketball world buzzing the past three weeks. But as often happens, teams don’t value their own players properly because they’ve overanalyzed their games and decided they can do better with someone else’s (the Suns are still trying to replace Joe Johnson in their lineup, a dilemma they could have avoided before he became a restricted free agent by paying the man what he was worth).
