Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The End of an Era: Mario West Cut By the Hawks

Sekou Smith tweets:
Mario West and Courtney Sims are gone. Cut this morning. Othello Hunter and Garrett Siler are the only two free agents left in Hawks camp.
I've had some fun at the Hawks' expense for carrying West on the roster for the last two seasons and I stand by the underlying premise of that fun--that any NBA team that uses a roster spot on him isn't serious about the end of its bench. I hope that belief doesn't obscure how unlikely an achievement it was for West to spend two full seasons with the Hawks after playing less than half of Georgia Tech's minutes in either his junior or senior seasons.

West wasn't a big man. He wasn't project. He was a guard with no offensive skills who stuck around purely on the basis of effort, effort that held little utility but was generally admirable. Good luck to him in whatever comes next in his life.

5 comments:

M said...

I, like most people I know, have and always will root for Rio. Gave 110% everytime he hit the floor. I wish the Hawks had kept him but I wish him look wherever he may land.

Bronnt said...

Are you at all surprised that the Hawks have 5 guys listed at center and only 6 guys who play 1-3? Or do you see some kind of move in the offing?

I suppose if they suffer an injury, there's always the option of finding a Jeremy Richardson in the D-League. But instead, I'm having horrible visions about Woodson relying on Jamal Crawford's "versatility" to carry a lot of extra guard minutes.

thirdfalcon said...

I'm with you Bronn. We have the depth to survive an injury at the PG, SG, or SF positions, but if 2 players get hurt we are going to have 1 player backing up three positions. Although I guess they feel that they can play Josh minutes at the 3 to make up for it.

Bret LaGree said...

I think keeping just 13 guys allows for flexibility in adding a player should there be an injury serious enough that an extra guy is needed for a non-guaranteed or 10-day contract depending on the time of year such should occur.

Of course, this overlooks the earlier limitation Sund imposed on himself by feeling the need to add Jason Collins even when stuck with a second year of Randolph Morris.

I've long thought that the Hawks are, if not planning then at least willing, to play Bibby, Crawford, and Johnson together and that, if Jeff Teague earns significant playing time (say, over 800 minutes), it will be at the expense of Maurice Evans rather than Bibby or Crawford.

CassavaLeaf.com said...

I actually liked Mario West
He was a pro's pro