On drafting and Joe Johnson
Ok, here's the super-secret formula to rejuvenating a crappy franchise, as authored by Arthur Blank.
1. Get an awesome player that the fans love to watch.
2. Surround him with other good players.
3. Watch the money roll in.
The Hawks formula has been, up until this point:
1. Draft some guy who isn't particularly good at anything, and maybe he will get better
2. Sign a free agent who doesn't give a crap about your team, or at least is tall
3. Pretend that fans will want to pay money for that
First of all Marvin Williams is a step in the right direction. (Chris Paul would have been a bigger step). Bogut may be horrible, and he may be decent, but he was inarguably a horrible choice to play for the Hawks. It's tough to get excited about a big white Australian, unless he's wrastlin' crocs. Williams might be all hype, but we need a guy with hype. Paul had hype and he might have backed it up, too. Not to mention he could be an actual NBA POINT GUARD, of which there are about 5, maybe 6. You won't see too many Bogut jerseys out there, and that's what this franchise needs: someone who will sell jerseys. I'm serious.
On the trade... We needed a good free agent, because we have approximately 1 billion dollars in cap space. We could have given Kobe Bryant a max contract, and you never even heard Atlanta's name mentioned in the sweepstakes last year. There isn't enough money in the world to get him here. But Joe actually wants to play here. And on that note, the Hawks should be prepared to overpay whatever he wants. Giving up the draft picks sucked, and maybe we could have gotten away with more, but what good are more picks going to do us? And unless another team actually steps in and makes the picks on our behalf, you know we would screw them up. Nobody seemed to mention that during the period of unrest while the deal was going on, it was either "we are overpaying" or "he's worth it". I don't think Joe Johnson is worth a max contract + 2 picks, but we need to overpay to get anybody worth a damn to play for us right now.
1. Get an awesome player that the fans love to watch.
2. Surround him with other good players.
3. Watch the money roll in.
The Hawks formula has been, up until this point:
1. Draft some guy who isn't particularly good at anything, and maybe he will get better
2. Sign a free agent who doesn't give a crap about your team, or at least is tall
3. Pretend that fans will want to pay money for that
First of all Marvin Williams is a step in the right direction. (Chris Paul would have been a bigger step). Bogut may be horrible, and he may be decent, but he was inarguably a horrible choice to play for the Hawks. It's tough to get excited about a big white Australian, unless he's wrastlin' crocs. Williams might be all hype, but we need a guy with hype. Paul had hype and he might have backed it up, too. Not to mention he could be an actual NBA POINT GUARD, of which there are about 5, maybe 6. You won't see too many Bogut jerseys out there, and that's what this franchise needs: someone who will sell jerseys. I'm serious.
On the trade... We needed a good free agent, because we have approximately 1 billion dollars in cap space. We could have given Kobe Bryant a max contract, and you never even heard Atlanta's name mentioned in the sweepstakes last year. There isn't enough money in the world to get him here. But Joe actually wants to play here. And on that note, the Hawks should be prepared to overpay whatever he wants. Giving up the draft picks sucked, and maybe we could have gotten away with more, but what good are more picks going to do us? And unless another team actually steps in and makes the picks on our behalf, you know we would screw them up. Nobody seemed to mention that during the period of unrest while the deal was going on, it was either "we are overpaying" or "he's worth it". I don't think Joe Johnson is worth a max contract + 2 picks, but we need to overpay to get anybody worth a damn to play for us right now.
posted by Matt at 2:16 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home