Month: April 2008 (Page 3 of 30)

      What would it take to make the Hawks a contender?

      April 29, 2008 /

      As I watched the young Atlanta Hawks win two home games against the far more experienced Celtics, I wondered – what would it take to turn Atlanta into a serious contender?

      My first thought would be to build a time machine and go back to the ’05 draft and take Chris Paul instead of Marvin Williams. This team is in desperate need of a playmaking point guard and Paul would be a perfect fit. The Mike Bibby trade gave the team some experience at the position, but his poor shooting after he came to Atlanta (41%) coupled with his horrible accuracy in the playoffs (35%) leads me to believe that his 19-point, seven-assist seasons are long gone. He is a 14/6 guy now (at best) and for that, the Hawks will pay him $15.2 million next season. Yeesh.

      The time machine theory is fine, but had they drafted Paul they probably wouldn’t have Al Horford on the roster and that would be a setback. Let’s move on to more real-world possibilities…

      Josh Smith and Josh Childress are both restricted free agents this offseason. Will they pay them both? They should. Smith is a star on the rise, and as soon as he figures out to limit his outside jumpers (or learns to shoot them), he’s going to be extremely difficult to stop. Childress is a do-it-all role player that shoots a great percentage and plays defense. The problem is that there aren’t enough minutes for him with Williams on the roster.

      So I say sign both Smith and Childress to long-term deals and try to move the less-efficient Marvin Williams for a point guard. Certainly there is some team out there who wants a relatively inexpensive, athletic, 21 year-old forward that regularly puts up 15/6, right? The Hawks should target the Raptors, who have two good point guards in Jose Calderon and T.J. Ford. Toronto is going to keep Calderon, so Ford seems like a logical fit for the Hawks.

      If the Hawks re-sign Smith and Childress, they’re not going to have the salary cap flexibility to sign a free agent point guard for the foreseeable future. I like the idea of a sign-and-trade with Washington for Gilbert Arenas, but Agent Zero could ruin the team’s budding chemistry.

      Either way, the team will eventually have to choose two of their three forwards – Williams, Smith and Childress – as it doesn’t pay to have that much money locked up in three guys that basically play the same position. Considering that Childress (9.4) gets more fourth quarter minutes than Williams (8.4), it appears that head coach Mike Woodson has made his choice.

      Fantasy Basketball, NBA, NBA Finals

      Larry Brown will coach the Bobcats

      April 29, 2008 /

      Michael Jordan hired fellow ex-Tar Heel Larry Brown to a four-year contract to coach the Charlotte Bobcats.

      “How are you going to say no to Michael?” Brown said. “I’ve known him a long time. The things he stands for have made our game better. There’s no way I could say no to him. It was a pretty easy decision once my wife said yes.”

      Brown’s nine NBA teams are three more than any other coach — Kevin Loughery and Lenny Wilkens each coached six.

      “I think I’ve coached almost everybody in the NBA, but I’m going to challenge everybody to do their best,” Brown said. “That’s what Michael is about and that’s what I’m about.”

      The Bobcats are in their fourth year, and Brown gives the struggling franchise instant credibility. He’s one of only five NBA coaches with more than 1,000 wins and the only coach to lead teams to NBA and NCAA titles.

      Counting the ABA’s Carolina Cougars, the Bobcats will be Brown’s 10th job as a professional basketball coach. He’s a turnaround specialist in that he likes to take teams with losing records and make them winners. He has a career winning percentage of 0.577. Here is a list of his team’s records before and after his arrival:

      Denver Nuggets: 37-47 –> 65-19
      New Jersey Nets: 24-58 –> 44-38
      San Antonio Spurs: 31-51 –> 21-61 –> 56-26
      Los Angeles Clippers: took over a 22-25 team and went 23-12 down the stretch, 41-41 the next season
      Indiana Pacers: 41-41 –> 47-35
      Philadelphia 76ers: 22-60 –> 31-51 –> 28-22 –> 49-33
      Detroit Pistons: 50-32 –> 54-28 (NBA Champions)
      New York Knicks: 33-49 –> 23-59

      As with the Spurs and the Sixers, it sometimes takes Brown two or more seasons to turn his team into a winner. The only team that Brown left as a loser without at least one 52+ win season was the Knicks, and if he hadn’t clashed with management, he probably would have eventually turned that team around as well. (To be fair, when he took over the Knicks, the roster was even worse than it is now.)

      So what does this mean for the Bobcats?

      Well, it’s good news if the players buy in to Brown’s plan and don’t get miffed by his sometimes-abrasive coaching style. The Bobcats don’t have any superstars that can put themselves above the team, so everyone is expendable. Emeka Okafor is a restricted free agent, so barring a surprise, he’ll have a year to decide if he likes playing for Brown before he has to sign a long-term deal. Brown has a history of improving the play of his point guards, but those relationships are often tenuous, so it will be interesting to see how Ray Felton responds to Brown’s style. Expect a big improvement on the defensive end, where the Bobcats were 23rd in the league in defensive efficiency.

      Brown talks about his return to coaching:

      Fantasy Basketball, NBA

      Father-son bonding: Dad accidentally gives 7-year old son alcohol at Tiger game

      April 29, 2008 /

      Sure it’s tough when your favorite team jumps out to an 11-15 start when they were considered heavy World Series contenders. But it’s no excuse to give your 7-year old son a Mike’s Hard Lemonade in efforts to numb the pain.

      47 year old Tigers fan, Christopher Ratte lost custody of his son for a week because his 7 year old son was caught drinking a bottle of Mikes Hard Lemonade in the stands. Ratte’s son was thirsty towards the end of a game and asked for a bottle of lemonade and Ratte obliged but he unknowingly purchased his son a bottle of “hard lemonade”, not knowing that it contained any alcohol.

      “I’d never drunk it, never purchased it, never heard of it,” Ratte of Ann Arbor told [the reporter] sheepishly last week. “And it’s certainly not what I expected when I ordered a lemonade for my 7-year-old.”

      A security guard saw the boy drinking it, took the bottle away from the kid, scolded the parent, called the police over and took Ratte in for questioning for an hour while his son was taken to a hospital for observation. The child was then kept from Ratte and his wife for two days in foster care, then once released, it was another week before Ratte could go back to his house and be around his son.

      This seemed like an honest mistake, but what’s truly appalling is that the father attempted to get the kid sauced at a Tiger game. At least do it at a Lions game – where people really need to be sauced to enjoy the action.

      General Sports, MLB

      SI.com 2009 NFL Mock Draft

      April 29, 2008 /

      The college football season isn’t even close to kicking off, but hey, it’s never too early to put together a NFL mock draft right? SI.com put together its mock for the 2009 NFL Draft.

      1. Chiefs (via trade with Falcons) — Matthew Stafford, QB, Georgia * — A quarterback has gone No. 1 overall six out of the past eight years, and Stafford looks like the most likely candidate to develop into that kind of elite QB. His numbers were mediocre last year, but he had no line or receivers. The Falcons will have the worst record, but be able to field trade offers because they don’t need a QB.

      2. Raiders — Michael Crabtree, WR, Texas Tech * — Plays in a big numbers system, but his size and speed still make him an elite receiver. And he will fit into the “Al Davis kind of player” category.

      3. Lions — Chris Wells, RB, Ohio State * — Wells said he wants to stay four years at Ohio State, but an elite running back trying to save wear and tear on his body would be foolish not to go pro as soon as possible.

      4. Falcons (via trade with Chiefs) — Andre Smith, OT, Alabama * — Smith doesn’t get the publicity of Ole Miss offensive tackle Michael Oher, but we’ll take a shot on a player many considered the top prospect in his high school class.

      5. Rams — James Laurinaitis, LB, Ohio State — Could have been a top-15 pick this year. Goes higher than usual for an inside linebacker because of athleticism.

      A year from now at least two of these five prospects probably won’t go higher than the fifth round. Happens every year.

      Photo Courtesy of Flickr

      College Football, NFL, NFL Draft

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