Atlanta Hawks: NBA Draft

Atanta Hawks: 2009 NBA Draft

Matthew Ryter — Thu, 14 May 2009 12:58:18 -0400

2009 NBA DRAFT: NBA Team Needs/Capsules - NBA Mock Draft - Top 100 Prospects

- We’ll update our Team Capsules with more specific info once the lottery is complete.

Atlanta Hawks

2008-09 Record: 47-35; 2^nd Southeast

Draft Picks: 19, 49

Key Free Agents:

C Zaza Pachulia

G Mike Bibby

G Ronald Murray

F Marvin Williams (Restricted)

F Solomon Jones (Restricted)

How They Got Here:

Although this team is young, they have experience. They took the eventual NBA champion Boston Celtics to seven games in the first round of last year’s playoffs. The experience and confidence they gained that series paid off during this year’s regular season. They earned the 4^th seed in the East and home court advantage in the first round, which seemed to be the deciding factor for the Heat series. The Hawks are versatile. Joe Johnson can play the 2 or the 3. Josh Smith can play the 3 or the 4 spot. This allows Mike Woodson to mix and match certain lineups to matchup against other teams. I expect this team to continue to improve. They have now won a playoff series and will continue to mature and get better.

What They Need:

Will Mike Bibby be back? Even if Bibby returns, how long will they keep him? Bibby has been in the league for 10 years and gives this young Hawks team a much needed veteran leader. Even if Bibby returns, they need a solid backup. How much trust do they have in Acie Law? They could use another big man. Al Horford may be better suited playing the power forward spot rather then center. Zaza Pachulia is a great role player and will continue to be their “energy” guy. I don’t see him cracking the starting lineup. Then again I don’t necessarily believe they are looking for a starter. I like the makeup of Bibby, Johnson, Marvin Williams, Smith and Horford. They need more production from their bench. Look for them to add depth.

Who They’ll Take:

Hasheem Thabeet is the only 7-footer in this draft that could potentially come in right away and start. He’ll be off the board by the time the Hawks make their first selection. What other big men may be available? BJ Mullens. I’m not completely sold on Mullens. He showed some life at Ohio State this season, but was projected to have much bigger impact for the Buckeyes. In that case, look for the Hawks to draft another point guard. Two guys that come to mind in the mid-to-late first round are Patrick Mills and Jeff Teague. Both are extremely quick and explosive guards. However, Teague may be more comfortable playing off the ball at this level.

Atlanta Hawks Draft History (since 2000)

2009: ?

2008: No Picks

2007: Al Horford (3), Acie Law (11)

2006: Shelden Williams (5), Solomon Jones (33)

2005: Marvin Williams (2), Salim Stoudamire (31), Cenk Akyol (59)

2004: Josh Childress (6), Josh Smith (17), Donta Smith (35), Royal Ivey (38), Viktor Sanikidze (43)

2003: Boris Diaw (21), Travis Hansen (37)

2002: David Andersen (37)

2001: Jamaal Tinsley (27), Terence Morris (34)

2000: DerMarr Johnson (6), Hanno Mottola (40), Scoonie Penn (57)

2009 NBA DRAFT: NBA Team Needs/Capsules - NBA Mock Draft - Top 100 Prospects

Top Prospects

Stephen Curry - PG/SG - Davidson

Tyreke Evans - PG/SG - Memphis

Blake Griffin - PF - Oklahoma

James Harden - SG - Arizona State

Jordan Hill - PF - Arizona

Ty Lawson - PG - UNC

BJ Mullens - C - Ohio State

Ricky Rubio - PG - DKV Joventut

Brandon Jennings - PG - Arizona

Hasheem Thabeet - C - UCONN

Cheerleader of the Day: Atlanta Hawks

Shawn Siegel — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:19:37 -0500

Cheerleader of the Day

Thanks to our friends over at Icon Sports Media, CHN has access to thousands of great college & NBA basketball photos. Each day, along with our daily Big Picture, we'll be featuring a Cheerleader (or Dancer) of the Day.

ATLANTA HAWKS

- Check out past Cheerleaders of the Day!

- Also check out the Picture of the Day!

- Watch all of CHN's favorite College Basketball Videos!

Unsubstantiated Speculation: Draft Links & Rumors: Tuesday

Jason Tomassini — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:17:39 -0400

Nothing about the NBA Draft makes any sense. GMs intentionally lie about who they want to confuse the rest of the league, agents pull players out of workouts to manipulate their value and the Milwaukee Bucks continue to pretend they are trying to win. Mock drafts are always way off, the rumored trades never go down and the ones that do are always out of left field. There is no rhyme. There is no reason. And that is exactly why it is so great. Sports fans love to speculate, and the NBA Draft is 90 percent speculatastic. So in an exercise of almost certain futility, I bring you Unsubstantiated Speculation, a column containing all the relevant, completely false draft news links from around the Intertubes. Look for this once or twice a week leading up to the draft. Believe nothing.

And if you are a blog that covers the draft and feel you deserve to be on the Links, click the e-mail link on the right sidebar.

Even with the Finals starting (as you might have heard, there are quite a few storylines with the match-up this year), there has been tons of draft links lately. Let's sift!

(I'm holding to my promise to myself of not getting into the OJ Mayo thing. All I will say is there some weird, completely nonsensical double-standard going on here where Beasley is somehow seen as equally or more of a character risk than OJ, whose bad character is overrated in its own right. I hate the media sometimes, hopefully GMs can see through the fog... riigggghhhht.)

Orlando Pre-Draft Camp
- I really can't say this enough, but DraftExpress has really pulled out all the stops this year. They have their usual scouting reports and interviews but this year have added video, player blogs, extensive team need evaluations and even ventured deep into the underground of the Interwebs with podcasts. On the down side, they are making this column mildly irrelevant. Rush the Court has also done a very nice job, albeit without the access.

- This draft notes column by Chad Ford was interesting for a couple reasons. One, Seattle is fending off rumors they will take Jerryd Bayless No. 4 and Phoenix doing the same about Brandon Rush at No. 15 (which I had merely minutes after the draft order was set... toot toot). But the main reason this was interesting was to hear that Lester Hudson played his ass of in Orlando and could be rising up draft boards. I always liked Hudson because he can get to the rim and is a decent shooter. Kind of like a lower middle class man's Rodney Stuckey. One thing that concerns me: Here is Ford's recap of day 2 of the camp. Notice the common connection between all the players featured as "standouts:" Gary Forbes, Wayne Ellington, Malik Hairston, Josh Duncan. All of them are between positions for the NBA. I'd like to think that's a product of the small-ball trends in the NBA but it's probably more of a product of playing against a bunch of other mediocre, second-round tweeners.

- If you want to know everyone that played in Orlando and what it means for them and their respective college teams, Andy Katz obliges. And within this notes column by Katz, my suspicions that Kevin Love would be flying up draft boards due to a lack of girth was correct and sadly, for George Hill, Pride of Ooey Pooey, the dream is over. And finally, this feature by Katz on Jeremy Pargo was great. It's interesting that his brother Jannero, who was less talented than Jeremy coming out of college but is one of the better reserves in the NBA, has advised his brother to consider going back to school (he will oblige if he isn't a first-rounder apparently). I still think Pargo has a decent career.

- Apparently former Iowa State guard Mike Taylor played really well and could be the first D-League player to get drafted. Taylor instead of Rod Benson?! Boom tho?

- Posts like these from the Atlanta-Journal Constitution's Sekou Smith on new Hawks GM Rick Sund are proof that Atlanta should always have a first-round pick so this man has something to cover come draft time. He is a boss.

- Good mini-feature from Michael Lewis (go Blue Hens?) on Keith Brumbaugh, even though it doesn't explain his amazing, troubled story to those who don't know it. This helps, however. I still think he must be better than Ndubi Ebi. Speaking of washed up former HS stars (sorry Keith), whatever happened to Lenny Cooke? Seriously though, hope the guy gets picked.

Michael Beasley is an enigma
- Actually, no he's not. But everyone in the media sure likes to write like he is. There is this, which contains a quote from Beasley that I was thrilled about.

"I just turned 19 years old in January," Beasley said. "How mature do you want me to be? I’m still a kid. I’m not 20 yet. I’m not legal. I can vote, but that’s about it. On the basketball side of things, I’m 30 years old. Off the court, I don’t know how old y’all want me to be. Do you want me to act 25? 30? 40?. I’m 19. I’m a kid. I’m going to live my life. I’m going to mess up. I don’t know as much as you do or him. I’m learning day by day. I hear a lot about character issues. But I’ve yet to hear what those character issues are. Until I hear somebody tell me, I don’t feel the need to change."

I still fail to see what he has done that is so horribly wrong. He went to many high schools and some coaches piggybacked his ability to better themselves. This happens to every single big-time basketball recruit. How is a teenager who knows he will be in the NBA in the near future supposed to just ignore all these people with power showing him how to get there? And how is Rose any different? Ugh. Hopefully the media treats him as the quirky, outspoken Gilbert Arenas-type rather than the Josh Howard-type who gets blasted whenever he's honest about something. He's probably somewhere in between (in both personality and ability). Oh and any Beasley item on the Internet must link to this article in the WashPost, as required by federal Intertubes laws.

- TrueHoop, which is also very outstanding, approached this fairly. Thank you Mr. Abbott.

- Linked in the TrueHoop item, this piece, which in true NBA Draft form, makes insane speculation that Beasley "is not Pat Riley's type of player." (the same guy writes the same thing in another piece here). Suddenly nothing can be written about this man without the words, "immature," "playful," "candid" and the like being bandied around. I think Chad Ford started all this. Seriously people, let's come up with something new....

- ... Not quite, but getting warmer...

- ... OK, this will have to do.

Things of Different Persuasion
- I was none too pleased to see Donte Greene hire an agent. The only logical explanation for this was that he got one of the 16 "physical only" invites to Orlando, which means he thinks he's like, a top 16 player. This is bad news for my Orange and could be worse news for Donte Greene. NBA GMs love tall shooters but the guy didn't show an ability to do much else in college. And I loved Donte Greene. But who can he guard? Who can he beat off the dribble? Who can he box out? Perhaps the more important question is: Who can he fool into taking him in the top 15?

- Every year Andy Katz is good for a few of those, "How is this college coach handling his players testing the draft waters?" features. This one is on Richard Hendrix and Ronald Steele at Alabama. (I wouldn't be losing sleep Coach Gottfried, Steele is already coming back.)

- I really love the Ball Don't Lie blog over at Yahoo!, even if they are a bit light on draft stuff. The incomparable Kelly Dwyer does well with this rant on mock drafts. Couldn't have put it better myself. (This may prompt another mock draft before draft day where I oblige Mr. Dwyer with his dream mock draft. Or something.)

- Gary Parrish, a true college basketball Internet writer, continues to churn out columns in this offseason. This one is a nice look at how batshit insane some North Carolina fans are. Oh and leave it up to Parrish to actually look at the Mayo thing will a tinge of rationality.

- Fran Frischilla speaks, a New York Post writer listens.

- Lang Whitaker over at Slam Online with an entertaining second-person perspective thingy on being John Paxson (not a working screenplay by Charlie Kauffman). I'm not so sure about the Doug Collins hiring but I still think it's better than Avery Johnson. He's just as likely to want Rose as Avery, but at least he won't try to turn him into Anthony Carter.

- Looks like Jamont Gordon is leaning toward staying in the draft, which I pleased about. He should be a late first-rounder as an impact reserve for a playoff contender.

- Way to strike when the iron is hot, Mike DeCourcy. Will your next column be about how great it is that the draft is two rounds now?

Cheerleader of the Day: Atlanta Hawks

Shawn Siegel — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:45:22 -0400

Cheerleader of the Day

Thanks to our friends over at Icon Sports Media, we have access to thousands of great college & NBA basketball photos to use on the site. Each day, along with our Picture of the Day, we'll be featuring a Cheerleader of the Day. In honor of the upcoming NBA Draft, we'll be focusing on NBA dancers until the end of June!

Atlanta Hawks

- Check out past Cheerleaders of the Day!

- Also check out the Picture of the Day!

Poll: When Will Mike Conley Be Picked?

Shawn Siegel — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 15:41:40 -0400

With the Third Pick in the 2007 NBA Draft..

Jeff Fox — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:57:47 -0400

With the Third Pick in the 2007 NBA Draft the Atlanta Hawks select…? When commissioner David Stern utters these words on June 28th it will mark the point when the 2007 draft really gets underway. It is pretty much a foregone conclusion that Portland will take Greg Oden at #1 and Seattle will snatch up Kevin Durant at #2. Pick #3, property of the Hawks, is where things will start getting interesting.

The fact that the order of the remainder of the draft lies in the Atlanta Hawks’ hands must be rather disconcerting for the rest of the league’s GMs*. The Hawks have proven to not be very astute judges of draft talent. There is a reason they haven’t made the playoffs for eight years running. A quick rundown of the team’s past top draft picks illustrates why they haven’t seen the postseason since the 1990s.

2006 - #5 – Shelden Williams – passed on Brandon Roy
2005 - #2 – Marvin Williams – passed on Chris Paul & Deron Williams
2004 - #6 – Josh Childress – passed on Luol Deng
2003 - #21 – Boris Diaw – passed on Leandro Barbosa & Josh Howard

The Hawks actually had the #3 overall pick before, back in 2001. That is also the last time that they made a solid choice with their pick, choosing Pau Gasol. They then promptly traded him to Memphis as part of a deal to get Shareef Abdur-Rahim. That deal didn’t quite work out like the Hawks hoped.

It should be interesting to see what the Hawks will do this year, when they also have the #11 pick in the draft. The team is searching for a point guard, and if they’re lucky Mike Conley Jr. will still be available at the #11 slot. But the Hawks aren’t lucky, so he’ll probably be gone by then. As for pick #3, the consensus seems to be that they should snatch UNC’s Brandan Wright, who outside of Oden & Durant has the most upside in the draft. Florida’s Al Horford would be a safer pick, but he doesn’t have quite as much potential as Wright. If they really want to roll the dice, they could go for Yi Jianlian and wait a few years for him to develop.

Regardless of whom the Hawks pick, if the past continues to repeat itself, it is bound to cause outsiders to scratch their heads. The big winner of all this should be the Phoenix Suns, who owns the Hawks’ pick in next year’s draft as a result of the Joe Johnson-Boris Diaw swap. It’s bound to be a lottery pick - because, hey, it’s not a lottery without the Hawks in it.

* - Or it’s a benefit for the other GM’s because it means the best talent will drop..

NBA Draft Poll: Who Should The Hawks Take at #3?

Shawn Siegel — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:29:33 -0400

Lottery Lowdown: Part One - The Draft's Top Six Picks

Adam Stanco — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:19:18 -0400

Welcome to the Pacific Northwest, Mr. Oden and Mr. Durant. We’re sure you will love the nationally televised games and close proximity to Nike headquarters. Please let us know if you have any issues at all…

Yes, the basketball gods have spoken and they’ve told us Greg Oden will be a Blazer and Kevin Durant is Seattle-bound. But you already knew that. What you may not know is what the entire NBA Draft Lottery really means. So let’s start at the top…

1. Portland Trail Blazers

Oden is the final re-building block for Portland. No longer is their roster comprised of troublesome disappointments (well, aside from Darius Miles). Martell Webster, LaMarcus Aldridge, Travis Outlaw, Jarrett Jack, Sergio Rodriguez, Zach Randolph, and Brandon Roy aren’t just athletic and skilled, they’re also young. None of them is older than 25. Joel Przybilla is older than 25, but his stay in Oregon may be short lived once Oden shows up.

Roy and Oden would give the Blazers an opportunity to receive the rarest of rarities: Back-to-back “Rookie of the Year” awards. Not bad for a franchise famous for choosing Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan.

The Blazers are already calling the news of the top pick “Monumental,” “Historic,” and “Epic” on their web site. And the timing of it all couldn’t be better for Comcast SportsNet, who announced that their new regional sports network – Comcast Sports Northwest – would be covering the team just days before the lottery.

There is some talk of the team trying to grab Oden’s high school and college teammate – Mike Conley – a few slots later in the draft, yet the odds of getting both are slim. However, the Blazers probably will move Randolph at some point this summer.

2. Seattle SuperSonics

The Sonics are going to love having a 6-foot-10, former high school superstar who does it all, including shoot with remarkable range.

In fact, they already know what having one feels like.

Rashard Lewis was Kevin Durant before Durant was Durant. At Alief Elsik High School in Houston, Lewis was such a special, sweet-shooting stud that the league invited him to the green room on draft day. His ensuing slide to the second round is a legendary tale, but he went on to prove oh-so-many teams wrong, averaging over 22 ppg last season.

Just days before the lottery, the Seattle Times reported that Sonics owner Clay Bennett intended to re-sign the unrestricted free agent, but that was before the Sonics laid claim to the second overall pick. With two players so utterly similar in style, Lewis knew the arrival of Durant signaled an end to his tenure. He consequently opted for free agency.

If Lewis had decided to stay, opponents would have had to deal with the league’s strongest axis of offense – Ray Allen, Durant, and Lewis. Now that’s not a possibility.

However, Durant will immediately be a better all-around player than Lewis was and should eclipse Lewis’s scoring output within a few seasons. New Sonics GM Sam Presti will be responsible for surrounding Allen and Durant with some capable teammates and he’s the perfect man for the job. Presti helped San Antonio build around the foundation that is Tim Duncan by helping the Spurs acquire many of the key components to their last three championship squads.

Durant’s dreadful showing at the recent NBA combine didn’t hurt the Sonics chances of drafting him. It probably just scared off some of the other teams that were willing to make ridiculous trade offers to get him. Durant’s inability to bench press 185 pounds is incredible, but just think about how truly special he could become once he starts working with a nutritionist and a professional strength coach.

3. & 11. Atlanta Hawks

The Blazers and Sonics are obviously thrilled over the bounce of the ping pong balls and the Hawks are almost as happy. As part of the Joe Johnson for Boris Diaw deal, Phoenix had the rights to Atlanta’s pick, but that pick was top three protected. The Suns will have to wait until next year to snatch the Hawks’ pick.

But just owning the pick doesn’t guarantee anything. The Hawks haven’t won more than 30 games since 2003 and they haven’t been to the playoffs since the strike-shortened 1999 season.

Atlanta’s been loading up at the wing and forward positions (Johnson, Marvin Williams, Josh Smith, Josh Childress, and Shelden Williams), yet they are desperate for a point guard. Their fan base still hasn’t forgiven the team for taking Marvin Williams in 2005 because the next three picks were Deron Williams, Chris Paul, and Raymond Felton.

The Hawks’ choice could be Brandan Wright, who – much like Marvin Williams – is a highly-touted forward fresh off an impressive freshman season at UNC. However, if they really want to satisfy their fans, they must take a lead guard this year.

Unfortunately for Atlanta, the highest-rated available players – after Oden and Durant – are exactly the type they’ve already invested in. Wright and Florida’s Al Horford are capable of scoring from the low post in the NBA, but the Hawks don’t need them. The team could take Wright and pray viciously that Acie Law will be around for the Hawks at No. 11 (obtained from the Pacers in the Al Harrington trade). Georgia Tech point guard Javaris Crittenton is the draft’s most underrated prospect – by those in the media, not those in the league – and would also be a nice fit in Atlanta.

If the Hawks want Law, they could package their second pick and one of their many forwards in order to move up to guarantee they get him. Otherwise, they may just nab Mike Conley first and take the best available player with their second choice.

4. Memphis Grizzlies

The Grizz are a mess. Despite winning their last three games, Memphis finished with a league-worst 22 wins. Their top player – Pau Gasol – has been the subject of serious trade rumors for over a year now. The team is marketing Mike Miller as if he’s a perennial all-star, but everyone in Memphis realizes that the Grizz’s future depends solely on the development of last year’s stud rookie, Rudy Gay.

Miller and Gay appear to be the base of the franchise and the team drafted point guard Kyle Lowry last season, meaning no one knows for sure who they will take this year. In fact, Memphis is the biggest x-factor in this draft because they could go big (Yi Jianlian?), small (Mike Conley?), or trade Gasol and shake everything up.

5. Boston Celtics

Sorry, Celtics fans, turns out that Oden and Durant won’t be walking through that door either. If Boston did truly tank this past season, it was all for naught.

The team won’t end up with one of this draft’s preordained stars, but they still have a future to think about. Paul Pierce is an all-star and Al Jefferson could be joining him soon. Check out Jefferson’s scoring averages during the last four months of the season:

January – 14.6 ppg
February – 16.1 ppg
March – 19.7 ppg
April – 22.3 ppg

Yi Jianlian is skilled, energetic, and as YouTube followers know, he enjoys dunking on people. The Celtics will have to take a long look at him at No. 5 because his surprisingly smooth style might perfectly balance out Jefferson’s brute nature.

But regardless of who the choice is, that player probably won’t be able to catapult Boston among the East’s elite anytime soon.

6. Milwaukee Bucks

With Andrew Bogut and Charlie Villanueva on the frontline and Michael Redd in the backcourt, the Bucks clearly have talent. The problem is keeping them all healthy. Bogut played in 66 games this past season, Redd played 53 games, and Villanueva played in just 39.

Al Horford would be the perfect complement to Bogut and Villanueva because of the former Gator’s ability to score, rebound, and intimidate. My sources say the Bucks are very interested in Horford, but it’s tough to say if he’ll slide down to them. If Horford is gone, the Bucks could choose another Florida phenom, Joakim Noah, or go with the best available point guard.

This is part One of Adam Stanco's Lottery Lowdown, a Two-part look at what the Draft means for the Top 14 picks.

Unsubstantiated Speculation: The Week in NBA Draft Rumors

Jason Tomassini — Tue, 29 May 2007 21:55:22 -0400

There seems to be a lottery hangover going on in the media that has produced a minimal amount of draft links this week. I guess there must be more important things to talk about like UFC and dog fighting. Nevertheless, the links will be brief this week.

· I think the most newsworthy item from the past week was the Brandon Rush knee injury. His torn ACL means he’s out of the draft (perhaps for the better as Tom Keegan from the Lawrence World Journal writes) and back with a Kansas team that suddenly looks pretty good next year (although some reports have him missing six months). Kurt Caywood of the Topeka Capital-Journal thinks next year’s Jayhawks team will be good but perhaps a tougher task for Bill Self. Our own Shawn Siegel has Rush as the best shooting guard in the draft and while I’m not sure I agree, this will certainly shake up the first round a bit. Guys like Nick Young and Daequan Cook might see their stock rise a bit.

· If you are a fan of Arena League Football or minor league hockey, you are probably interested in the Orlando Pre-Draft Camp which started yesterday. While many of the top prospects will be there, it will be only for what is essentially a glorified gym class fitness test (no word on whether the V-sit will be involved). Here’s a list of who will actually be playing basketball at this thing. A lot of the 64 names will be familiar to college hoops fans, but only ten players from last year’s camp were drafted. I would say Daequan Cook is the top draft prospect playing but I suppose a couple guys could sneak into the mid-20s with a decent showing.

· While all of the screaming idiots on ESPN are clamoring for NBA rule changes, one was actually made recently and got little publicity. That’s probably because it states NBA teams can’t conduct personal workouts until June 5 and not that players on the bench are allowed to beat opponents with aluminum bats during on-court scuffles. Within the linked Sam Amick piece, it’s duly noted that these workouts are generally more misleading than helpful (see: Nikoloz Tskitishvili), but that’s still only three weeks or so to evaluate players. Apparently they did this so better players would play in Orlando and give the event some legitimacy. I agree with that logic. Because if Josh McRoberts isn’t playing well then what’s the point anyway?

· The winner for most grossly contrived and irresponsible comparison for the sake of manipulating a player’s marketability goes to Topps for putting out a trading card featuring Greg Oden and Bill Russell. If you’re scoring at home that’s Bill Russell: 5 MVP awards, 11 championships, great beard, one trading card; Greg Oden, zero games played, great beard, one trading card. Seems about right. In other news, Kevin Durant signed a deal with Upper Deck and Doug Gottlieb is outraged that he isn’t being paired with fellow “gunner” Eddie House.

· While most sportswriters have moved on to other, more important topics like the Spelling Bee or Roger Clemens’ emasculating of minor leaguers, Hawks beat writer Sekou Smith of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is still getting his money’s worth with the NBA Draft in this ~~rant~~ column on the Hawks draft possibilities. The No. 3 pick will be the key to the rest of the lottery and Smith wants Mike Conley. He also wants a big man at No. 11, a trade involving one of their plethora of swingmen and presumably a job that doesn’t involve the Atlanta Hawks.

· In last Tuesday’s Speculation, I linked a story on Paul Hewitt’s uncertainty regarding his roster next season due to the draft. Well, he got one answer this week but it didn’t necessarily put him at ease. Javaris Crittenton announced he will stay in the NBA Draft. I’m assuming he’s been assured he’s at least a top three point guard and top 15 pick overall but I’m not sold on him yet. He’s got the physical skills, but that doesn’t equate to being able to lead an NBA team. Give me Acie Law (please, Billy King) any day.

Atlanta Hawks: NBA Draft Team Needs

Jason Brubaker — Sun, 27 May 2007 02:59:37 -0400

NBA Draft: Atlanta Hawks

2006-07 Record: 30-52

2007 Picks: 3^rd, 11^th

Team needs: Point guard, big man to pair next to Shelden Williams, backcourt depth.

Who to pick: With two lottery picks, the Hawks will look to address their two biggest issues, point guard and center. Mike Conley would be a good fit, although #3 might be too high to reach for him. The Hawks could look to grab a big man like Al Horford at #3, then go with Acie Law or Javaris Crittenton at #11 if Conley is off the board.

Draft History Since 200

2006: Shelden Williams (5), Soloman Jones (33)

2005: Marvin Williams (2), Salim Stoudamire (31), Cenk Aykol (59)

2004: Josh Childress (6), Josh Smith (17), Donta Smith (34), Royal Ivey (37), Viktor Sanikidze (42)

2003: Boris Diaw (21), Travis Hansen (37)

2002: Dan Dickau (28), David Anderson (37)

2001 - Pau Gasol (3), Terence Morris (34)

2000 - DerMarr Johnson (6), Hanno Mottoloa (40), Schoonie Penn (57)

Links: NBA Draft | NBA Teams | Mock Draft | Draft History