Atlanta Hawks - Crossroads

[Soft]

My name is Emmanuel Harrison. I'm from Atlanta, Georgia. Went to Georgia Tech and played some basketball there. Went overseas to search a professional career but ended up in Germany playing in a minor league. I retired when I was 26 and went back to ATL. A friend of mine worked for the Hawks in customer relations and - god bless him - he got me a job. That was 1994. Basketball was always my life so I worked my way up the ladder and was promoted to assistant to the general manager. My boss call it quits because of personal reasons two years after that and here I am: interim general manager of my hometown Atlanta Hawks. I have a one year contract for the position and when it appears to the owner that I'm capable I will get an extension.

And I couldn't pick a better date for starting off! The busy summer of 2010 with all the free agents and a draft with solid players. The problem of the Hawks is that they are a middle of the pack playoff team. Maybe second round but never higher. And I'm here to change that.

Our roster looks like this on the 20th of June 2010:

Mike Bibby
Jeff Teague
Jamal Crawford
Maurice Evans
Marvin Williams
Josh Smith
Al Horford
Zaza Pachulia

I really like our frontcourt. Smith and Horford will be the cornerstones of the franchise and maybe we get something special out of Marv Williams down the line.
My first major move will be in fact a no-move. I will not resign Joe Johnson. He demands too much even though he's a nice player but never a max-deal player. It's the start in a brighter future!

I fire the entire coaching staff and sign Mike Fratello as head coach while Steve Patterson, Jim Todd and T.R. Dunn are the assistans.
Before the draft I had an idea and it seemed the Hornets liked my idea:

Hawks get:

Peja Stojakovic
2010 1st round pick (#11)

Hornets get:

Jamal Crawford
Mike Bibby
2010 1st round pick (#24)

Winner: Hornets by a bit.
Crawford is still a player who is capable of putting 18+ ppg on the board. Stojakovic is probably just a above average three point shooter at this point in his career but his big contract gets off board next year and while I want to be more quiet this offseason, I'm targeting Tony Parker in the free agency 2011. The draft is not star-studded but still a 11th pick can be very useful in this semi-rebuild. And probably the biggest point for me: I don't have to pay Bibby 6.5 mio $ next season.

The draft:

I'm really not so sure who I'm going to pick. There are many guys who could slip a bit and this draft has besides Wall and Turner the real gems in Favors, Cousins, Monroe etc. Jordan Crawford is projected as 11th pick but I'm waiting for the workouts.

1 Washington Wizards select C DeMarcus Cousins
2 Philadelphia 76ers select SG Evan Turner
3 New Jersey Nets select SF Wesley Johnson
4 Minnesota Timberwolves select PG John Wall

Wow, I'm really surprised that Wall slipped that far!

5 Kings select Al-Farouq Aminu
6 Warriors select Cole Aldrich
7 Pistons select Derrick Favors
8 Clippers select Paul George
9 Knicks select Xavier Henry
10 Pacers select Avery Bradley
11 Hawks select Da'Sean Butler

Ok, there maybe are some boos. But this guy really impressed me in the workouts, getting A's from my coaching staff in defense and stealing. Offensively he won't be a big threat but a spot-up shooter can do some damage, too.

12 Grizzlies select Greg Monroe
13 Raptors select Ekpe Udoh

Round 2, pick 23 the Atlanta Hawks select Landry Fields
As bad as they blasted me for drafting Butler, they praise my scouting skills for finding Landry that late. Great pickup!

Spurs get: Anthony Morrow

Warriors get: George Hill

Winner: Spurs.
I don't know why the Warriors did this? Morrow is an excellent three point shooter perfectly fitting into their system. George Hill will be just another combo guard behind Ellis and Curry.

Cavaliers get: DeMar DeRozan

Raptors get: J.J. Hickson, Leon Powe

Winner: Raptors. Hickson is a great prospect and I think DeRozan is too inconsistent.

In the summer league our starting line up looked like this:

PG Jeff Teague
SG Landry Fields
SF Da'Sean Butler
PF Jeff Adrien
C Al Horford

So I'm really excited what they can do!

In the first game Da'Sean Butler is topscorer with 16 pts with 7 of 11 shooting. Landry scored ten and Al Horford adds 12 along with 9 boards.
We lose but my young guys really shined. I'm very happy that Butler had a good showing. In the second game Butler scores 20 and Horford adds 22.
In the next game Butler explodes for 26 pts with 6 out of 9 from downtown!
Then Horford proves his value and has 28 and 11.
And with that the summer league is over.


Well, going into the free agency we have 9 players on the roster. I renounced every contract because they were either bad players or demanded too much (J.Johnson). We are 9 mio $ under the cap. I'm looking to sign a player for our backcourt but only for 8 mio $ not more.

I'm trying to sign Wesley Matthews, Tony Allen and Jon Scheyer. You see I'm going all for defense. Hopefully I'm lucky! When all three would join us we still would be 5.5 mio $ under the salary cap what would give us great flexibility.

Here is what happened in free agency:


New Jersey Nets sign Dwyane Wade to a 5-year contract worth $95,755,680

New York Knicks re-sign David Lee to a 6-year contract worth $100,217,250

Boston Celtics re-sign Ray Allen to a 3-year contract with a player option worth $26,188,500

Los Angeles Clippers sign Lebron James to a 5-year contract worth $95,323,000


Dallas Mavericks re-sign Dirk Nowitzki to a 6-year contract with a player option worth $115,859,604

Miami Heat sign Chris Bosh to a 5-year contract worth $71,630,000

Utah Jazz re-sign Carlos Boozer to a 6-year contract worth $88,627,500

New Jersey Nets sign Amare Stoudemire to a 5-year contract worth $72,818,390

Atlanta Hawks sign Hakim Warrick to a 1-year contract worth $4,600,000

Warrick isn't really worth that much but we needed a backup for J-Smoove and Warrick fills that role for this year just perfectly. This team really is going to proud itself about its defense thats for sure.

Phoenix Suns sign Luis Scola to a 4-year contract worth $32,972,800

San Antonio Spurs sign Ben Wallace to a 1-year contract worth $5,900,000

That's pretty much all what happened. It will be interesting how the Nets will compete in the East and the Clippers with LeBron, Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon, Chris Kaman and Baron Davis as their starting five.

Our starting five at opening night:

PG Jeff Teague
SG Wesley Matthews
SF Peja Stojakovic
PF Josh Smith
C Al Horford

[Myles Nelson]

Drafting Da'Sean was a risky move, especially considering you traded up 13 picks to get him. You could have easily sat on the 24th pick and drafted Butler anyway.

Also, interesting move to target Allen and Scheyer... those guys usually never get signed. It will be quite the season in Atlanta this year.

[Soft]

off* Yeah, to be honest I regret that afterwards a bit. But I did the old mistake that I went for the biggest need, not the best player. Thanks for your comment and BTW I'm sorry for any mistakes, I'm not a native-english speaker so there might be some!

on*


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[SIZE="5"]NBA Season 2010 - 2011[/SIZE]

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We start off the season against the Miami Heat. After the departure of Dwyane Wade Chris Bosh becomes their new franchise player.

Their starting lineup looks like this:

PG Will Bynum
SG Rasual Butler
SF Al Harrington
PF Chris Bosh
C Jermaine O'Neal

Before the game I really thought that this should be a game we could win. And we did! Horford came out big with 25 pts, 8 boards, 2 blocks and 3 steals. What I also liked was the aggressiveness of Stojakovic. He shot only 6 out of 20 but scored 18 pts. Coach Fratello knows that we need his scoring and is trying to get 15 - 18 pts out of him every night. Wesley Matthews added 10 pts in 18 minutes and Tony Allen 12 in 21. I really like how Czar is giving minutes to Tony and Wesley. Our rookie Da'Sean Butler only played 3 minutes. Miami Heat 80 @ Atlanta Hawks 105

In the first road game of the year we faced off against Houston. After a very defensive 3rd quarter where both teams combined for 23 pts, the 4th quarter was all about offense. Aaron Brooks really went off with 28 pts and it was clear to see that Teague had problems with his speed. Peja with a 23 point effort with 10 out of 21 shooting. J-Smoove with 14 pts and 13 boards and Horford with 14 and 14. Hawks (1-0) 94 @ Rockets (1-0) 99

In our third game of the season we got our first look at the new star studded LA Clippers led by LeBron James. Even though we played at home I knew they would try to shoot us into the ground and unfortunately they were successful. With 47 % from downtown the Clippers killed us by a 20-point margin. But there have been some bright sides of the loss: I loved Landry Fields and Jon Scheyer off the bench. They combined for 24 points in 27 minutes! Stojakovic with 15 points and Smith also added 15. Chris Kaman had a big game with 20 and 12 and they had 6 players in double digits scoring-wise. Clippers (1-1) 121 @ Hawks (1-1) 96

In our next home game we squared off with the Pistons. The Pistons really suck this year and their record is 0 - 3 at that point. We had to get the W in that game. But we didn't. Rip Hamilton showed why he has a championship ring with 17 pts, 5 rebs, 5 assists and 5 steals. Stojakovic with 14 and Smith with 20. Pistons (0-3) 100 @ Hawks (1-2) 89

The Raptors came to town and they were really confident. Before that game they just beat Boston and the hyped Clippers. But especially Josh Smith had a big game with 21 pts, 17 rebounds and 3 blocks. Ekpe Udoh seems to be an awesome fit for Toronto: he grabbed 22 boards (!), ten on the offensive end! But we overcame the domination of the boards and beat the Raptors.
Raptors (3-2) 98 @ Hawks (1-3) 106

[Tim Moungey]

I'm surprised you passed on Monroe over Butler, but we'll see how it pans out. Crossroads is indeed a good name for the Hawks. Seems like they've been that way for years.