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Monday, April 30, 2007
Hawks’ co-owner stays optimistic
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
It’s impossible not to like Michael Gearon Jr. He’s conspicuously clever and relentlessly upbeat. Then again, he’s upbeat about an NBA franchise that has lost 177 games in the three seasons since he has been one of its several owners. When does remaining upbeat about the Hawks stop making sense?
“If we weren’t injured, I think we could have done what [upstart division-winner] Toronto did,” Gearon says. “We started off strong. We’d probably have won between 36 and 46 games. If we’d won 36 games, would you have called that progress?”
Sure. But the cold truth is that the Hawks didn’t win 36 games in the season just completed. They won 30 and finished with the NBA’s fourth-worst record a year after winning 26 games and finishing in a tie for third-worst. The difference between Gearon and those with a less-vested interest is that we apparently have different definitions of progress.
He arrives for lunch Monday at his favorite restaurant with a satchel full of data — a Hawks media guide, computer printouts, a pad full of handwritten notes and a typed sheet bearing the heading “Message Points.” Gearon has volunteered to give his “50,000-foot look at the franchise” because Billy Knight, the general manager who said a year ago he cares nothing for public opinion, declined an offer to make his opinions public.
Inevitably, the two-hour conversation becomes a debate about Knight, who continues to be held in curiously high regard by every part-owner save Steve Belkin. Says Gearon: “My defense of Billy is that there’s not a single GM who clicks on all levels.”
Also this: “”There’s not a good GM around the league who doesn’t think Billy is right on target.”
And this: “A lot of people would pick [Detroit’s Joe] Dumars as a great GM. In a draft with Carmelo Anthony and Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade, he took Darko Milicic. That’s a pretty dumb move looking back.”
And this: “”I think you’re too harsh on [Knight]. Do you want to fire 29 other GMs? … You can micromanage anybody. Nobody has ever batted 1.000.”
At issue is whether Knight is even above .250. In each of the first four drafts he has overseen here, the Hawks have taken a demonstrably lesser player with their first pick when a better one was available. This wouldn’t seem to be micromanaging. This would seem a pattern of failure.
To other people, maybe. Says Gearon: “That’s where I disagree — we’ve had three players [Josh Childress, Josh Smith and Marvin Williams] who were second-team all-NBA [rookies] … There’s not an executive in the NBA who wouldn’t have taken Marvin … Is Josh Smith a good player? Is Josh Childress an NBA player? … [They’re] not Cal Bowdler or [Douglas] Edwards or Ed Gray [three first-round duds taken by Pete Babcock].”
On the Hawks as a whole: “We have 12 [bona fide] NBA players on our roster now; three years ago we had zero.”
So why hasn’t this accumulated talent won more games? Injuries, Gearon says. He refers to his notes. Six Hawks missed at least 18 games, the estimable Joe Johnson chief among them. He notes that Miami and the L.A. Lakers had multiple injuries and finished with lesser records than a year ago.
“When you get hurt, you usually go backwards. We went forward. Should [Pat] Riley be fired? Should Phil Jackson be fired? Because they went backwards.”
On Mike Woodson, who apparently will be retained as coach despite being 108 games under .500: “I’ve told him this: If we have 30 wins next season, Woodson’s not going to be around.”
Gearon insists these owners could, by majority vote, fire Woodson (or Knight) if they so desired, ongoing litigation notwithstanding. When will the court case — Belkin versus everybody else — be resolved? “I hope in my lifetime.”
And maybe, in all of our lifetimes, we’ll see these Hawks actually win. “I don’t believe in setting deadlines,” Gearon says. “It’s unfair to do that. Are we making progress? We had some good things happens this season.”
How much longer are these owners prepared to wait? “I don’t like to lose. I get frustrated as hell. But I don’t get frustrated with the development of young players … You’re beating me up over what the house looks like when we’re only on the first floor. And I think we’re beyond the first floor, by the way.”
Perhaps they are. Perhaps next season will be the one, Gearon says, when “it suddenly clicks.” Then again, there’s a chance the team bearing the NBA’s fourth-worst record could wind up without a first-round pick if the draft lottery goes against them.
“And we could end up with the No. 1 and the No. 11 picks,” says Gearon, accentuating the positive yet again. “And then people will think Billy Knight is a genius.”
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