Sorry, I know this is not a recruiting site, but I am not a member with any of the "services" and was just curious about the opinions on Zach Walker from Johnson County. For those who have seen him play, why the lack of offers? I watched his highlights and was astonished by his ability to catch the ball. I guess that his height/speed are not world class?
If this is not an appropriate place to post this, I apologize.

I thought that this season Josh had finally become a man, but through the playoffs, he has proven that he is still just a child, and always will be. He has no championship heart, basketball IQ or toughness.

What he does have is incredible talent and the ability to put butts in seats and help a franchise out during the regular season. He also has a relatively cheap contract for a guy who consistently fills up 5 stat lines.

Therefore, what can we reasonably get for him? Would Minnesota trade Jefferson straight up for Josh? Could Sund put together a package with Josh as the focal point, fix Billy Kn*ght's egregious mistake and bring Chris Paul to town?

The fallout from the pathetic playoff showing of the team this year is going to negatively affect any potential momentum the franchise had heading into next year. It is clear that Joe is not a money player, and I firmly believe that ASG should let him walk unless he is willing to be paid what he is  ACTUALLY WORTH, which is well short of max.

Mike Woodson clearly should not be back, as he is just not a good enough tactician or spiritual leader to get his teams to play hard or smart.

Al Horford should be the centerpiece of this team and franchise, as he is the only player out there with toughness, talent and heart. Unfortunately, he is also out of position. It is time to move him to PF and build the team around him. Josh just does not fit in anymore. He cannot shoot (but God knows he still does, so lazy, sickening), so he cannot play SF, so it is time to ship him.

Childress is likely to come back as the country he is currently living in is falling in around him. He would be an ok SF. That would give the opportunity to move him or Marvin or use one of them for bench depth.

The team will need a true center to play alongside Al. Do we move Josh to accomplish that? Just curious what everyone thinks we could get for Josh, as he simply has no place in Atlanta anymore to me.

(Editors Note: Promoting this because I think it is an interesting conversation. Mario West was in to end the game so a timeout would have been nice to get an actual offensive player out there, but I agree with Fred Pen that chaos often gets more comfortable shots than planned sets. Does coaching matter on those last second plays? It must. But can it hurt? I know it does on occasion.)

In the aftermath of last night's game, I started thinking about how awesome it was to see the Hawks come down after Vince's 3 without calling a timeout. You could see the Orlando players sort of walking back down the court, because it is so ingrained into everyone that a timeout will be called there. Orlando was only able to set up their defense because Marvin shrugged his shoulders and half-assed getting the ball inbounds.

Throughout March Madness, most of the great buzzer-beaters occur when a team does not call timeout, and NBA players are infinitely more skilled offensively than college kids, so it makes sense that in a scramble situation, an NBA player should be able to get a pretty good shot off 9 of 10 times, and, as we saw last night, the defense may not be in position to get rebounds off the scramble.

In end-of-game situations going forward, I think the Hawks would be wise to make sure Crawford and Joe are on the court and just scramble. The odds are much better than Woody calling a timeout to set  up Joe isolation from a half-court throw in.

I went to the old ESPN Trade Machine to see what the Hawks could do. I love Joe and Josh, have enjoyed the heck out of them for the last few years, but wonder if we are at the ceiling with them. I read that Minnesota was shopping Al Jefferson, and that they have salary cap room to go after someone next year.

AL Horford should be the centerpiece of the Hawks. He goes hard every, single night, something that cannot be said for all of his teammates. When he gets the ball on offense, good things happen. I would love to see Al Jefferson at center so that Horford could move to his rightful power forward position.

A trade of Joe Johnson for Al Jefferson and Ryan Gomes works. I threw in the Victory Cigar so Minnesota could have a couple of expiring contracts. McHale is no longer there, so there is no way that a real human would do this deal. But, what about Joe for Al Jefferson straight up? Obviously, we would have a log jam at the forward postitions, which leads to my next move.

Iguodala for Josh Smith. I have really gotten sick of constant Bad Josh the last few games. He simply does not play well on the road. I do not know what it is, but he is just two different players at home and on the road. He started out the season wonderfully, and it seemed he had really matured. But the last few games have seen defenses leaving him alone around the perimeter, and he has rewarded them with lazy jumpshots, and he has really started complaining to the officials a lot more than he was earlier in the season.

So, I know it is just computers, and that no humans(outside of Isiah and McHale) would ever do these deals, but the results would leave the Hawks with a lineup of Bibby, Iguodala, Marvin, Horford, Jefferson and a bench of Teague, Jamal, Gomes, Joe Smith and Zaza. Nobody to really get their own shot, outside of Crawford, but perhaps Woody could actually learn an offense where we feed the post every time down court?

Jefferson, Gomes and Iguodala are locked down for the next 3-4 years. We would not have to worry about re-signing Joe and the franchise could build around the phenomenal frontline of the AL's.

Sorry for this hypothetical garbage, but I was so sickened by last night's performance and the seeming "lack of effort" that the Hawks have produced multiple times in the last couple of weeks, that I want a change. Perhaps the only change that is really needed is on the end of the bench, but I do not think that is going to happen.

Meet Joe Whitt, Jr.

Erk. Dooley. Dye.

The kid is only 31, but already has an unbelievable resume. Here is an excerpt from an article about him from last month:

But Whitt Jr. would eventually like to see his name on a gold plate across the head coaching door of Auburn.

The highest his father climbed at Auburn was assistant head coach, although he was retained on the staff through four head coaches.

"Auburn is where I want to be a head coach at one day. I love Auburn, now let's not get that wrong," said Whitt Jr. "But what he means to that university - he should have had the opportunity to be the defensive coordinator and the head coach."

When Whitt Sr. was offered a chance to be an assistant coach in the NFL in 1992 in Dallas and Chicago, he turned it down because he did not want to move his high school-aged son and daughter. He's now retired from coaching but serves as the school's associate athletic director.

"I learned from my dad. He's somebody I'm trying to be exactly like. He's a perfect role model," said Whitt Jr.

Here is some reading on him:

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/packers/79371887.html

My personal fave:

In one 2007 game against Carolina, Hall committed three big penalties in a single drive, then got in a heated exchange with Petrino and assistant coach Joe Whitt Jr.

The kid is only 31, and is probably destined to be an NFL lifer, but everything that you read about him just screams that he has "it." As good as the AU/UGA coaching pipeline has been, it is hard to resist thinking about what a kid with his drive and ambition could do in Athens for 3 or 4 years.

I am going crazy researching names, so I hope we hire someone soon.

It is really, really hard to put a positive spin on the Billy Knight era, but Aldridge does his best.

I notice that he conveniently forgets to mention the garbage, backup center that Boston had playing on Friday night.

This is my favorite part of the article:

"It's wonderful if you can get a great young player, like Shaq in his prime, or a Dwight Howard, or LeBron," Knight says. "But if you can't get one of those kinds of guys, or even then, you have to have a good player at every position. And that's what I tried to do. I wanted good players who could be multi-dimensional at every position."

So that is his defense for taking Marvin over CP3? Hmm, he had the chance to get a guy like "Shaq in his prime, Dwight Howard, or LeBron," but took Marvin instead, because he was a good, multi-dimensional player? Huh?

Josh Smith has turned into a great pick, but as he went 17th, that has pick can be considered pure luck as much as anything.

The Joe Johnson deal was a homerun, except that we gave up more than we had to and started the Spirit on a 5 year lawsuit spree.

I would go as far as to say "thanks" to Billy for putting a couple of pieces in place, but he had taken the program as far as it would go under his stewardship. It is hard to stomach a piece making a martyr of a guy who took 8 years to do a job that could have taken 3-4 with better picks.

last night. Pretty cool that they got to play at Fenway.  As you can see, the SEC was well represented. Looks like it is going to be just as tough next year to wade through the conference. I could not find the box score, but it looks like they did not play too much.

Here are the roster and the game recap:

http://www.capecodbaseball.org/archives/Arc2009/AllStar/CCBL_W_all_stars2009.htm

http://www.boston.com/sports/colleges/baseball/articles/2009/07/23/college_all_stars_take_over_fenway_park/