Monday, July 17, 2006

Atlanta Hawks: Transactions, News, Notes

The Speedy Claxton signing should make it easier for me to become a Hawks fan. Salim Stoudamire ( "Honestly, there were days when I wanted to come up in here and fight somebody because we were losing so much.") is doing his part. I recommend Salim act on that impulse the next time he sees Tyronn Lue.

If one is willing to assume that Billy Knight gets some non-redundant talent (here's to not finding Troy Murphy in the A) from the Warriors or Pacers for Al Harrington, his next task should be the awesomely easy one of finding someone better than Lue or Royal Ivey to back up Claxton and start the 15-20 games Speedy will miss this year through injury. I nominate the following summer league stars who could be picked up for something approaching free: Travis Diener, Aaron Miles, or (ugh) Little John Lucas. I contend the 05-06 Hawks could have won as many as five more games if they had just signed a half-way decent point guard out of the D-League instead of letting Tyronn Lue shoot the ball every three minutes.

Early summer league reviews haven't been kind to Shelden Williams. My guess is that he's the latest decent-to-good complementary player (Boris Diaw, Jason Terry, Nazr Mohammed, Brevin Knight, Scot Pollard) who proves much more useful once he moves to a team with a plan.

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