Now that the draft is over as is the tenure of one Mr. Acie Law IV in Atlanta, it's time to look at the team and assess what kind of off season they've had thus far.
1. They did not extend nor did they fire Mike Woodson. Rick Sund and the gang are content with letting Woody coach this season with no contract. They see it as honoring his contract and giving him a chance to prove his worth. I see it as a disaster waiting to happen. MAKE A DECISION! It is not a good idea to go into this season letting Mike Woodson coach a team that he has already proven he cannot get maximum effort out of night after night without a contract. There are certain players on the team who shall remain nameless (everyone not named Joe Johnson) who have limited respect for Woody. Do we really want to see what their reaction is when there's no guarantee he'll be back next season? Actually, for comical purposes I do want to see it.
2. They traded Acie Law and Craig Claxton's expiring contract for Jamal Crawford. I have absolutely nothing against Jamal Crawford. I can't stress that enough. He's fun to watch and you just know he's going to have a 50 point game or two throughout the season. However, he's a streaky volume shooter who is not a point guard and he's a reluctant defender. If the plan is to have him play point guard and have Joe play shooting guard then I see the Hawks reverting back to the days when they were winning around 30 games. We tried the whole two guard playing point guard thing the first two years with Joe Johnson. It wasn't a good idea then it's not a good idea now. Crawford is supposedly insurance just in case they can't re-sign Mike Bibby, but it's not really an even exchange. Crawford is more interested in shooting than passing. It's just who he is. He's a higher priced Flip Murray. The only way for this to work would be for the Hawks to re-sign Bibby and let Crawford replace Flip. Yes he's going to be a very highly paid bench player, but that's the only way this has even the slightest chance at being successful.
3. Al Horford may never get to shoot again. The way they are going about constructing this team Al's points are going to have to come off of put backs. Oh, so nothing will change.
4. The Hawks drafted another combo guard in Jeff Teague. I don't know much about Teague. I'm not even going to pretend that I do, but from everything I've read he's just like Ben Gordon (not a bad thing). Again, this does not address the team's point guard needs. The chances of Teague getting any real playing time are slim to none anyway. See Law, Acie for examples on how Woody treats young players. If Woody wouldn't develop players when he had a couple of years left on his contract he's certainly not going to start when his job is actually on the line. In this case I can't blame him because if my job were on the line I probably wouldn't put my fate in the hands of a first year intern.
There are still a ton of questions to be answered about this team. They still have to figure out what to do with Marvin, Za Za, Flip and to a lesser degree Josh Childress. I don't know what this team will look like when training camp opens up, but right now consider me uninspired.
