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Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Expect a good Knight for Hawks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Call me silly. (Go ahead. I’ll wait.) Call me crazy. (Get it out of your system.) But I believe the Hawks, who have become to the NBA draft what the Buffalo Bills were to the Super Bowl, are about to defy all skeptical expectations. I believe they’re going to have a really big night.
I believe this because I’ve listened to Billy Knight, and I believe the usually inscrutable GM grasps the magnitude of the gift he has been handed. The Hawks entered the lottery not knowing if they’d have a first-round pick; by grace of the ping-pong balls, they exited with two of the first 11. Such luck has rarely kissed this franchise. Such a windfall, at this late date, cannot be squandered.
And this realization, I submit, is why Knight sounds different than in past Junes. In the run-up to previous drafts he worked hard at saying nothing. This week he all but issued a proclamation: “After three years of adding players, we’re in position to make a move.”
That doesn’t mean accumulating more talent without heed to actual positions. That doesn’t mean drafting somebody who won’t contribute until 2009. That means using picks No. 3 and 11 to turn a mismatched roster into a real team. That means using picks No. 3 and 11 to find, either in the draft or via trade, the two commodities Knight hasn’t yet procured — size and steering.
This draft has more good big guys than good little ones. For all the clamor to acquire a point guard (much of it raised in this space), I’m not sure Knight will see his way clear to take Mike Conley Jr. at No. 3. I believe he’ll use that pick to address size. Late speculation holds that they’re enamored with Yi Jianlian, who’s 7-foot and Chinese but who isn’t a true center and who had middling numbers (6.2 points and 5.7 rebounds) in the 2006 world championships. In sum, he’s not Yao Ming.
A better option exists. Al Horford would give the Hawks the heft they lack and would add a touch of championship class to the roster. And then, having filled one need, the Hawks would be able to spend the 11th pick on the other.
Conley probably won’t be around then. (If he is, the Hawks won’t just have gotten lucky; they’ll have broken the bank.) Knight will have to decide between using the pick on a project — Javaris Crittenton isn’t quite ready and Acie Law isn’t quite a point guard — or using it to land someone more established. (Seattle’s Luke Ridnour is a popular name, but I’m not sure averaging 11 points for a team that won one more game than Atlanta stamps him as the answer.) But the key here isn’t that the Hawks are seeking a guard: It’s that Knight admits as much.
“We think we’re going to get a guard in this whole deal,” he said, and by Knight’s lights that amounts to a major concession. The Hawks, as we know, gave every possible excuse — Marvin Williams was too good to pass up, Marcus Williams wasn’t good enough to take at No. 5 — to keep from drafting a point guard the past two drafts, but now they’re saying what we’ve all known all along. They need a point guard above and beyond Speedy Claxton.
For as much as we all have ridiculed this team and this GM, the Hawks aren’t far away. With the probable exception of Shelden Williams, Knight hasn’t yet made a truly rotten Round 1 pick. His sin has been in not taking the right guy at the right time. Tonight he gets the chance — two chances, actually — to get it right at last.
I like the way he’s approaching this draft. (I wouldn’t have said the same last year or the year before.) I like that Knight, who has often seemed maddeningly indifferent to the passage of time, appears to have developed a sense of urgency. Come midnight, I don’t think we’re going to saying, “See? Same old Hawks.” I think we’ll be saying, “Nice job, Billy.”
And if the night ends with Amare Stoudemire coming here, we’ll be calling Billy Knight a magician.
Permalink | Comments (102) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Mark Bradley
Hawks thinking wrong on draft
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Uh-oh.
The more you listen, the more it sounds like the Hawks are infatuated with Yi Jianlian, a projected first-round pick in Thursday’s NBA draft not named Mike Conley Jr.
Can Jianlian’s wonderful play against Chinese competition translate into a productive NBA career?
Maybe.
Does Conley’s three state titles as a prolific point guard in high school before leading Ohio State to the NCAA title game last season mean he can prosper with the big boys of the pros?
Definitely.
So why mess around with a “maybe” instead of a “definitely?” The answer: We’re talking about the Hawks here.
Yi is another one of those “long and athletic” types that Hawks general manager Billy Knight craves. In other words, here’s what Knight and his lieutenants likely are thinking: At 7 feet and 247 pounds, Yi would give them the big guy they need. He also would create a buzz for a boring franchise as the Hawks’ Yao Ming with a heavy dash of Dirk Nowitzki.
The Hawks do need a big guy, but they really, really need a point guard. So, with that No. 3 pick in the overall draft, they can’t afford to do what they have done in these situations: Blow it by passing on another “definitely” at point guard.
Hello, Chris Paul and Deron Williams.
Could Conley be available when the Hawks pick again at No. 11 overall?
Maybe. There’s that word again.
Permalink | Comments (149) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Quick Hit
