In these columns, I have taken over as the owner/GM of your NBA franchise.  Herein I suggest personnel (player, coach, and management) and coaching changes that will take your franchise to the next level, moving from losing to winning and winning to winning big.  I have taken all salary and free agency information from HoopsHype.com, draft information from foxsports.com, and basketball statistics from ESPN.com.  Where applicable, I used the trade checker on RealGM.com.

I'll be as generous as possible in describing this team: they are a pathetic abomination.  Record-wise, they were worst in the NBA this season.  Statistically speaking, they were even worse - dead last in points, point differential, 3point defense, free throw percentage, rebounding percentage, opponent's offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds, and total rebounds.  In every other statistical category, they were average or usually much worse. 

Zack Randolph and Darius Miles both expressed desires to play elsewhere.  Owner Paul Allen is finally realizing what a colossal waste of money his expenditures have been heavily investing in unworthy players (isn't Shawn Kemp still on their payroll?) and has relinquished ownership of the arena so he doesn't have to pay the penalties for the losses (that's money he needs to buy the rest of the Pacific Northwest.   Ask me some time about his damn streetcar he wants Seattle to build for him.)  They fired a sub-par GM with no apparent successor.  Nate McMillan coaching this team bereft of talent is like Francis Ford Coppola directing the Jackass sequel.  Portland fans, once the most loyal and loudest in the NBA for many years, have left, alienated by the bumbling management of their once-beloved team.  How do you fix a team with no GM and the owner and players looking to hit the eject button?

Solutions

Follow the Nuggets' pattern.  This pattern can be boiled down to a few parts: trade everybody who makes more than the coach and get draft picks, followed by signing reasonably-priced free agents.  In the Blazers' case, trade everybody who makes more than the assistant coaches (Nate is well-paid) except Randolph - I'll make the case for my exception later.  The Blazers have no money this summer for free agents - you have no idea what a good thing this is.  They shouldn't use the mid-level exception either, especially since it probably puts them into luxury-tax territory.  But in summer 2007 they become players in free agency as far as the cap is concerned, so they must not only make moves to not stifle that, but to enhance that.  The Blazers would be wise to read on.

Do like the Raptors and shove a pile of money in front of a proven GM.  Stealing Bryan Colangelo was a fantastic move for the Canadians.  The only GMs I'd open the vault for are R.C. Buford, Joe Dumars, Rod Thorn, Jerry West, and Geoff Petrie.  Dumars is a Piston for life or until the owner decides he hates winning and his fans and fires him.  Buford is leading a relatively pressure-free life out of the spotlight with a perennial championship contender with arguably the best player and coach in the league.  Jerry West is about to sail off into the sunset with his gazillion trophies and there's ample evidence he's lost it a little bit.  That leaves the Blazers with Petrie and Thorn.  Both have limited resources to work with but both took terrible teams to conference finals.  Neither GM has historical or familial ties to their respective teams.  And who the hell wants to work out of Sacramento or New Jersey?  See if either one is attainable.  If not, hire a disciple of one of the guys listed above.  If Kevin Pritchard was the guy, why haven't they hired him?  Is his handling of the draft a final exam? 

Get rid of Darius Miles and Travis Outlaw.  "Addition by subtraction" comes to mind.  Assuming these guys aren't in jail, trade them as soon as possible.  Are you still waiting for Miles to blossom?  How about his six years in the league with his rebounding average declining every year of his career?  Perhaps you're impressed by his career shooting percentages from three-point line (16.8%) or the free throw line (58.6%)?  Maybe you dig his high turnover rate and low assist and rebounding numbers.  What do you call the #3 overall pick in the draft who can't shoot, can't pass, can't defend, can't rebound, and is a black hole of good feelings on his team?  Hint: it starts with "B" and ends with "ust".  I don't even want to list Outlaw's stats lest he find out where I live.

To solve this problem, Portland must capitalize on the stupidity of other teams; in this case, I'll use the Knicks, the dumbest team in the NBA.  It's almost too easy, especially given Isaiah's alleged coveting of Miles.  Given that Isaiah loves big men and loves Miles, I've concocted a megatrade that will give him what he wants and for the Blazers clears cap space and brings in players the fans will love.  Portland sends Theo Ratliff, Darius Miles, Travis Outlaw, and Brian Skinner for Jalen Rose, Malik Rose, and Nate Robinson.  Here's why Portland makes this trade:

Ratliff: He's finished.  As a former owner of Theo in fantasyland, I can attest his game is blocking shots and some rebounds with pretty much nothing else.  His shot-blocking attempts often come at the expense of proper rebounding position, thus reducing his defensive impact.  Miles and Outlaw: Bad seeds and in the case of Miles, vastly overrated potential.  If references to leaping ability were MVP votes, Miles would have matched Jordan by now.  But he plays basketball, which unfortunately for him includes elements other than trying to dunk.  Skinner: Completely replaceable game and he'll want bigger dollars when his contract is up.   Jalen Rose: He might as well change his name to "Cap Space."  Jalen gives you some versatility position-wise and he wears great suits.  Malik Rose: Malik is a very good defender who can guard several positions.  He's a little overpaid, but his work ethic, energy, and professionalism will have a positive impact on teammates and endear him to fans.  Nate Robinson:  You bring him in to change the pace of the game and keep defenses guessing.  However, the real reason you bring him in: he will put butts in seats.  He won the dunk contest and he already has a following in the Pacific Northwest, so he will bring in desperately needed dollars.  Factor in that he's on his rookie contract, he's not making much money on a short deal, Robinson is a small risk to take.

If the megatrade doesn't work out, just offer Miles for Malik Rose and Nate Robinson.  Malik brings championship experience and would instantly become one of the team's better free throw shooters while Robinson brings flair and excitement to an otherwise dead Rose Garden.

Let Voshon Lenard go.  Resign Przybilla, but don't go nuts.  Lenard has apparently employs the trainer hired by Marcus Camby, Ken Griffey Jr., and Fred Taylor.  At this point all he brings is his waning three-point shot and a guarantee he'll miss a good chunk of the season.  Przybilla is a good defender with excellent per 40 minute numbers in rebounding and shotblocking, but he's not one you open the vault for.  He's a terrible free-throw shooter but at least has good shot selection on the floor at 54.8%.  But he seems to have hired Lenard's trainer too: six years into the league and he has yet to play more than 76 games, appearing in 58% of a possible 492 games.  Big men tend to get overpaid (Kwame Brown, Rasho Nesterovic, Jerome James - hell, even Macej Lampe) so the Blazers must be careful not to jeopardize the future for a guy they can't build a team around.

Bring in John Lucas.  This is one addition to the coaching staff I would open the wallet big-time for.  Not only does half the league train with him in Houston in the offseason, he has revolutionized rehabilitation in the NBA.  He helps players overcome physical ailments, but Lucas has a gift in helping people heal emotionally and psychologically.  Steve Francis was an All-Star starter under John's tutelage whereas now he is an overpaid pariah.  The main reason I bring Lucas in is to mentor Zach Randolph, not just because he's pretty much untradeable, but because I seriously believe Randolph can be a star in this league.  He's nearly a 20-10 guy and he has flashes of dominance, first evidenced by the way he destroyed the competition during summer league as a rookie and sophomore.  Zach is a troubled man and with the guidance of Lucas in things basketball and life, he would be an all-star.  Lucas would be a nice counter to McMillan's hard-driving personality, giving the players someone on the coaching staff who could act as a sounding board.  Hiring a big-man specialist like Patrick Ewing or Hakeem Olajuwon would be beneficial, but John Lucas would have a therapeutic effect on that fractured team.

Regarding Martell Webster: get him lifting weights, play him in the summer leagues as the #1 option on offense, and tell him to go to the hole.  I am a big fan of Webster.  Still young, he needs meat on those bones, probably fifteen pounds or so.  While admittedly is was in less than 20 minutes per game, he only took 71 free throws last year, a waste for a guy so athletic and who shoots at 86% from the charity stripe.  Go to the hole, Martell.  With some experience in the summer leagues being The Guy, that confidence can translate to the regular season.  Webster starting getting pretty good over the course of the season - check his pre- and post- All-Star numbers and his per 48 minute numbers.  Within a few years, he'll more than justify his high draft pick.

If you can, draft Lamarcus Aldridge or Brandon Roy.  If you can't, settle for Adam Morrison.  More than anything, Portland should draft somebody the alpha player from a program that wins big.  All three of my recommendations come from schools that have had some success in the NCAAs and have won their conferences.  Experienced players from winning environments do all they can to win.  I'll use the Chicago Bulls as a template: drafting the two high-schoolers Chandler and Curry, the Bulls floundered and now Chandler comes off the bench and Curry is a Knick; they bring in Hinrich (Kansas), Deng (Duke), Gordon (UConn), Duhon (Duke), and Nocioni (gold-medal winning Argentina national team).  With tons of cap room and loads of young, talented, and winning-oriented players, the Bulls are already a playoff team with a very bright future.  In the meantime, the Blazers have drafted three high-schoolers and brought in/resigned grossly overpriced players with no leadership skills (Ratliff, Miles).  Start stocking up on winners.  Roy is probably the most complete player in the draft and is a McMillan-type of player.  He would bring size to that small backcourt and could even play some point.  Morrison will bring some much-needed offense and would put butts in seats; both Morrison and Roy already have a following in the region.  Aldridge would bring low-post and mid-range offense and plenty of rebounding with solid defense.

Conclusion

There isn't one move or even a couple moves that will make the Blazers a playoff team in the next couple years, so they have to accomplish three things: get rid of the losers, bring in players who play to win, and bring back the fans by putting on the court hardworking guys who are respectful and fun.  To do this, they must shed albatross contracts and personalities (Ratliff, Miles, Outlaw) and make every move with an eye toward winning and flexibility.

What will it take to get the average sports fan to give Tim Duncan his due?  What does it take to be considered one of the all-time greats? 

Would he need multiple championships?  What about averaging 20-10-2.5 plus for his career?  All-NBA first team for an unprecedented 8 times in the 8 first years of his career?  Could Duncan get some respect if he made an all-defensive team for nearly a decade consecutive?  Start in the All-Star game for many years in a row?  Or if he was among league leaders in scoring, shooting percentage, rebounding, getting to the free throw line, and blocking shots for that same time period?  What if he showed the heart to score 41 points and 15 rebounds in a game 7 as his team is eliminated in one of the closest and most grueling playoff series of all time?

Would Duncan be spoken of in the same breath as Kareem and Magic if he had tremendous playoff performances such as shutting down Jason Kidd in the 1998 playoffs with Pop playing his Triple Towers (Perdue, Robinson, and Duncan), shutting Shaq down and lighting him up in 2003 in a decisive game 6 in the second round versus the Lakers, and singlehandedly destroying the Nets in the deciding game of the championship series by going for the near quadruple-double of  21 points, 20 rebounds, 10 assists, and 8 blocked shots?  Do 3 finals MVPs and 2 regular season MVPs strike you?

Given the numbers, the awards, the signature performances, and the entire body of work, Tim Duncan is an NBA legend in the making.  He should have the same one-name recognition as Michael, Larry, Magic, Wilt, and Oscar.  If O'Neal is this generation's Chamberlain, Duncan is the new Bill Russell - a suffocating defender who controls the game by frightening the entire opposing offense, all the while dominating but showing the utmost humility and lacking self-aggrandizement.  He's Bill Russell but a better scorer.

We get a steady stream from the media talking about Lebron James "building his legend" but he just won his first playoff series.  While James is awesome, let's wait to anoint the new king until he claims the crown, or at least until the guy can guard his own shadow.  Others wish to vaunt Nash or Bryant or other players to the most respected names in basketball lore.  Why not reserve that acclaim for the only two current NBA players whose body of work simply exude legendary greatness: Shaquille O'Neal and Tim Duncan?

Can you really not consider Duncan great because he whines too much to the officials or that he is a slightly-below-average free throw shooter?  More MVPs and legends have much bigger holes in their character or game: Jordan was a philanderer and constantly ripped his teammates - he even drove out his coach; Nash couldn't guard Dick Bavetta; Bird couldn't guard Red Auerbach; Magic was an average shooter; according to Karl Malone, Karl Malone never committed a foul; Cousy and Iverson have shooting percentages approaching the Mendoza line; Kobe turns the ball over far too often and is a sub-par three-point shooter; and the list goes on.  Duncan's flaws, while he should make every effort to improve on them, are far outweighed by his overall greatness.

One might argue that the MVPs, the All-NBAs, and rings are all the recognition Duncan could want; he'd probably agree with you.  But does Duncan not get the recognition as one of the all-time greats from the casual fan because he plays in San Antonio?  Or because he doesn't flex his muscles after blocks, doesn't get his name in the police blotter, doesn't wave his arms to the crowd, doesn't create controversy?  How can an NBA fan not revere a man with so many basketball accomplishments, but also is a role model in the community, generously donates his time and money to myriad causes, embodies professionalism and work ethic, supports his teammates on and off the court, respects authority, treats others with courtesy, treats his opponents and the media with respect and dignity, recognizes his personal accomplishments as a function of team success, and is by most measures everything we expect and hope a professional athlete would be?

Duncan's accomplishments dwarf those of Walton, Wilkins, Thomas, Ewing, Olajuwon, Barkley, Miller, Payton, Kidd, Iverson, Bryant, King, Gervin, Robinson, Robertson, and most everybody on the NBA's 50 Greatest Players list - and he still has plenty of mind-blowing basketball left in him.  It's time the casual NBA fan realizes that Duncan is not only great, but one of the best ever to play the game of basketball.

In these columns, I have taken over as the owner/GM of your NBA franchise.  Herein I suggest personnel (player, coach, and management) and coaching changes that will take your franchise to the next level, moving from losing to winning and winning to winning big.  I have taken all salary and free agency information from HoopsHype.com, draft information from foxsports.com, and basketball statistics from ESPN.com.  Where applicable, I used the trade checker on RealGM.com.

As a current Seattle resident, I feel a compulsion to help out the local team.  Back to the lottery after Mr. Sonic Nate McMillan's departure, gameplay obviously needs improvement,  necessitating change in player personnel and some coaching additions.  An added bonus: I'll even throw in suggestions for the "we want a new arena" drama.

On offense - The Sonics as presently constituted are a very good offensive team: this season their NBA rankings included 2nd in points, 9th in field goal percentage, 10th in 3 point percentage, and 4th in free throw percentage.  From a passing perspective, they are below average in the assist and assist/turnover ration categories.  They rank 21st in turnovers.  The Sonics have solid but unspectacular point guard play; their misfortune is that both Ridnour and Watson are excellent backups, but neither really a starter.  Ridnour's assist stats are inflated by accurate-shooting teammates.  Ray Allen's passing skills seem to have eroded or been forgotten, leaving this team bereft of any real playmakers.  The big men have hands of stone and are even worse at passing than catching.

On defense - ESPN's John Hollinger makes a solid case for this season's Sonics being the worst defensive teams ever in terms of defensive efficiency per possession.  They steal the ball at a high rate (6th in the NBA) but have the ball stolen back at a similar clip (20th).  Stealing usually involves defensive gambling (good defensive teams like the Bulls, Spurs, and Pistons rank in the bottom half of the league in steals) which in the absence of shotblocking, where the Sonics ranked 25th, results in a clear path to the basket.  Nobody gave up more points per game.

What do you do with a team that can shoot the lights out but can't pass or guard their own shadows?

Possible Solutions

Hire a young assistant coach who can relate to the players and get them to buy into the coaching staff.  The Sonics have invested another year in Bob Hill, which is good news for Seattle's young big men.  Hill might have a tougher time selling his program to the veterans.  For his security and the sake of team chemistry (which is always at risk when you lose) Hill should bring in recently retired player with a winning resume to help build the bridge between players and coaches.

Resign Wilcox at a reasonable price.  No doubt his agent will want Rashard Lewis money, but an invigorating half-season is no reason to kill your future cap.  Wilcox will be a valuable asset, but he'll never be an all-star.

Make a bid for Joel Przybilla.  This guy can block shots and rebound.  While the Sonics are an okay rebounding team, they need to greatly improve to compensate for their terrible defense.  Teamed with Swift, the Sonics would substantially improve interior defense and by reducing the minutes of Fortson, Petro, and Collison, take three of the most foul-prone players in the league off the floor.  I recommend Przybilla because they're not going to get Nazr Mohammed or Alonzo Mourning.

Get a new scouting department and get a new GM.  Johan Petro?  Granted, it wasn't a lottery pick, but the year after drafting a teenage big man, you just can't draft another teen big who wasn't even all that good in his home country.  Leave your project foreign guy overseas and let him develop (e.g. half the Argentine national team).  In three lottery picks of 2001 and 2003 you get Ridnour, Collison, and Radmanovic?  Walker did get Rashard to back off the max a few years ago, but then again, who was going to pay him that kind of cash?  Good trades, bad drafts, and poor performance in free agent signings; all signs of GM who can't build a team.

Do something, anything about the way the point guards shoot.  Watson needs a little work on shot selection, but is there any reason Ridnour's percentage is so terrible?  He's an excellent free throw shooter, but his field goals are poor and his threes are horrendous.  He doesn't take an extraordinary amount of threes, but maybe he should take a page out of Tony Parker's book and quit shooting them altogether.  Take it to the hole, Luke; work off of screens and hire a shooting coach.

Trade up in the draft to get Lamarcus Aldridge.  If it's not possible to trade up, draft Shelden Williams.  Everybody but Allen on the roster is completely expendable - even Lewis.  He'll probably look to bolt or ask for too much money when he exercises his player option at the end of next season.  Actually, just about any of the top big men at the top of the draft will be a marked improvement over their current forwards.  Aldridge is the most polished low-post scorer in the draft, a gaping hole in the Sonics' perimeter-based offense.  Aldridge's defense and rebounding are not lacking, making him a complete player with all-star potential.  Shelden Williams would be a stellar pick at their current 10th spot; he rebounds, blocks shots, and patrols the paint as well as anybody in the draft, plus the guy can score.  As an alternative, they might nab the best point guard in the draft, Marcus Williams, who has more potential than Ridnour or Watson.  There are tons of capable swingmen in the draft that would be appropriate at the 10th spot where they'll likely be.  The drop-off in quality when Lewis or Allen go to the bench is like the Grand Canyon.  As for now, the Emerald City has a bunch of 9th and 10th men on their bench, but not a legitimate 6th or 7th (though Ridnour would be a nice7th).  In other words, it's hard for the Sonics to really go wrong in this draft, which could be said about only a few teams.

Bonus Section: the Arena Deal 

Sonics owner Howard Schultz has gone about the Key Arena renovations completely wrong.  You can't complain about your arena deal when your team is terrible with slim prospects for improvement (unless they follow my plans), especially when you're a billionaire employing millionaires who play a child's game.  Promoting the fact that the Mariners and Seahawks got new arenas with lucrative deals reminds the state and local government how much they infuriated the public by doing so and of the huge amount of money they've just laid out in the past half-decade.  And bullying the already over-taxing city of Seattle while they're about to close several public schools to save money is asinine. 

Nevertheless, the Sonics, unlike the Knicks, are in business to make money.  Instead of just threatening to leave Seattle, plan to leave Seattle.  The metro area - Everett, Issaquah, Bellevue - would likely welcome you with open arms, and you wouldn't have to change the name; ever hear of the Auburn Hills Pistons or New Jersey Jets and Giants?  If you stay in the area, you don't have to pay the exorbitant relocation fees assessed by the NBA.  Moving out to the periphery and maybe even striking a deal for a privately financed arena would have many advantages.  First, you don't have to deal with all of the nonsense of being in a congested and overtaxed city.  King County's East Side has a strong corporate presence and would love to rub in Seattle's face that they had an NBA team.  A new arena could be built to your specifications and be a new gathering place for East Side events. 

Whether or not the Sonics move, they should make the games more of a party atmosphere.  While Squatch running around flanked by scantily-clad women is entertaining, better promotions will get butts in seats and help some of the money issues.  Letting in fans free for painting faces, dollar seat nights, and focusing the event on the fans has helped the Mavericks fill nightly a once-empty arena.  Sometimes you just need to get fans in a couple times for discount and then they'll be willing to pay more for quality entertainment. 

If nothing else, the Sonics having plans in hand to move might just compel Seattle try harder to keep them.  But for now, the Sonics can less afford the negative feelings about griping about a bad arena deal than they can to live with that deal a few more years.

Conclusion

With no defensive stoppers available in free agency or the draft at the position they're picking, the Sonics can either hope to sucker a team into a bad trade or just play smarter and work harder on defense.  The free agents after next season are much better, as is the draft, so they should not mortgage the future for a slightly better present.  Nor am I suggesting they tank so they can draft Greg Oden.  The best thing the Sonics can do is learn to play more intelligently, play defense with pride, and save their resources for the 2007 offseason.  Leaving Seattle for the hinterland could reinvigorate the team financially.  In the meantime, make sure the players on the court are people the fans like and will pay to watch.  Management should make themselves invisible, make a stronger effort to have the games be more fun for the fans, and bring in smarter people to put a quality product on the floor.

Permit a baseball outsider's perspective on Barry's chase for the home run record.  I am a casual baseball fan.  A consistent viewer of sports television, I have seen much more commentary on the state of baseball than actual baseball gameplay.  Peter Gammons, Harold Reynolds, et al tell me more or less what I want to know:  who's winning, which players are doing well, which teams/players are surprises/disappointments.  The only other thing I care at all about is records getting broken.  Which is why I like Barry Bonds.

I find the response to his pursuit of the home record troubling.  Despite what Stephen A. and Scoop might say, race probably is not the driving force behind the anti-Bonds vitriol.  Sports media members typically hate Bonds for two reasons: he violated the "sanctity of the game" by allegedly cheating and he's a jerk.

Sports media judging athletes on a moral basis is at best comical.  Michael Jordan is worshipped - Michael Jordan the philanderer, gambling addict, and hypercritical teammate.  Jordan slammed his teammates at every opportunity and even ran his coach off.  Ray Lewis was involved in murder.  Jason Kidd slapped his wife around.  ESPN employee Michael Irvin was involved in the use and trafficking of illegal drugs.  Ty Cobb, by all accounts, was a terrible human being.  Bobby Jones was a racist.  Even the great Babe Ruth, whose legacy so many fear will be tarnished if evil Bonds is not subdued, was a drunken womanizer.  Why is Bonds hammered when no definitive proof has been brought forth (remember innocent before proven guilty?) and Jason Giambi admits to steroid use and skates?  Nobody is calling for Giambi's 2000 AL MVP award to be revoked, but all of Bonds's records are up for recall.  Ruth's records are not considered illegitimate because he never played against African-American players.  If Bonds actually did steroids, it wasn't against the rules when he did.  On what basis would you erase his records?

As for the "sanctity of the game," sports media types live in a delusional world.  The vast majority of society, even ardent sports fans, just enjoy the game without ascribing any holiness to it.  Most of us above the age of 12 don't live under any illusions that athletes are anything but guys like the rest of us who have great athletic gifts.  It was the sports media who told us after the terrorist attacks of September 11th that thousands of people losing their lives "puts sports in perspective" and reminded us that things like family, religion, and the pursuit of happiness are more important than grown men playing with balls.  Do you know anybody who really needed thousands slaughtered to remember that raising a good family is more significant than watching the Knicks or Padres?

It seems that all of the anti-Bonds rhetoric stems from sports media getting their feelings hurt.  Perhaps they feel personally betrayed that Bonds cheated them, that Bonds betrayed the sanctity of the game where grown men run around and hit balls.  If you don't want to rescind the records of drunks, wife beaters, murderers, drug dealers, and thieves, why rail against the record pursuit of a player who didn't even break his sport's existing rules?  The answers to that question lie somewhere in the areas of hypocrisy and overindulgence in a pasttime.   

In these columns, I have taken over as the owner/GM of your NBA franchise.  Herein I suggest personnel (player, coach, and management) and coaching changes that will take your franchise to the next level, moving from losing to winning and winning to winning big.  I have taken all salary and free agency information from HoopsHype.com, draft information from foxsports.com, and basketball statistics from ESPN.com.  Where applicable, I used the trade checker on RealGM.com.

If I were to take any NBA squad to Rucker Park with me for some playground action, I'd probably take the Atlanta Hawks.  This team has an absurd collection of athletes, but few basketball players.  For all the critics of players who jumped to the NBA fresh out of high school or didn't spend enough time in college, the Hawks are your case in point.

A quick glance at the roster and a stroll through their offensive statistics tells you, "Hey this team isn't half bad."  Actually, the problem is they are half bad.  Offensively, they're 16th in scoring, 12th in John Hollinger's offensive efficiency rating, 17th in FG%, 11th in 3pt%, and 18th in points per shot; in other words, an average offensive team.  Where things get ugly is in the more mature basketball aspects of the game: 28th in turnovers and assist/turnover ratio, 20th in assists, 24th in opponents' blocked shots, 26th in points allowed, and 27th in opponent FG%.         

The stats tell the Hawks have a potentially good offense with horrible decision making and a defense with all the intensity of an episode of Wild on E.  What to do with a team in desperate need of leadership and basketball smarts?

Solutions

Get a starting point guard.  This is a position I would definitely not fill via the draft.  The last thing this time needs is another player feeling his way through the NBA.  Joe Johnson is not a point guard, he's a 2 with passing skill.  With Johnson playing off the ball more, it would cut down his hideous turnover rate.  I would call up the Bobcats to see what it would take to bring in Brevin Knight.  Offer Josh Childress and maybe a second-rounder.  Knight comes in #3 in the NBA in assists and #2 in steals and assist/turnover ratio, glaring weaknesses for the Hawks.  Tyronn Lue is an excellent backup point guard and Royal Ivey is a good third point, especially for defensive purposes.

Let Al Harrington go.  He'll definitely want more money than he's worth - he's looking for all-star pay based on "potential,"   Truth is he's 26, at the beginning of most players' prime, and in this season as one of the two best players on his team, he shot a bad percentage for forwards, took too many threes, turned the ball over at a hideous rate, shoots free throws poorly, led the league in fouls per game, and isn't clutch or a leader. The best part: his shot blocking numbers are the same as Jalen Rose at .18 per game, just ahead of Steve Nash's .15.  Not the part of the MVP's game you want to emulate. 

With Harrington gone, draft a big man.  At the top of the draft, they have options: Lamarcus Aldridge, Tyrus Thomas, and Andrea Bargnani would all be fine selections.  Aldrige would provide low-post scoring and rebounding, Thomas plenty of defense and rebounding, and Bargnani scoring and excellent all-around shooting.  Considering the Hawks' needs in all of these areas, they really can't go wrong with any of them, but with Bargnani probably the worst choice for his defensive liabilities.  If they're feeling adventurous, they could trade down and draft Shelden Williams, but I'm nervous about all non-Elton Brand Duke players in the NBA.  (Danny Ferry, anybody?  Laettner? Dunleavy?  Is Coach K really the guy to coach NBA players in the Olympics?  That's another blog.)

Fire Billy Knight and fire Mike Woodson if you can get Rick Adelman.  Knight would be the worst GM in the league if it weren't for Isaiah Thomas.  Mike Bradley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution quotes Knight as saying "I always take talent. ... I like good basketball players, and there are a lot of 6-foot-8 players in the draft. And 6-8 is the ideal size."  Knight dealt away Boris Diaw, the NBA's most improved player, and draft picks (which you can't do when you're a bad team) to vastly overpay a player in Joe Johnson whose skills were already duplicated and triplicated  on the team.  And as Mike Bradley points out, none of the draftees in three seasons under Knight has gotten so much as one third-place vote for Rookie of the Year.  We're minutes away from him pulling a Bob Whitsitt and saying "hey, I didn't major in chemistry."

I don't really know anything about Woodson, but all the markers of bad coaching are there: high turnovers, bad shooting, poor defense, and pouting players.  Throw some dollars at Rick Adelman, a proven winner with the creativity to maximize your team's talent.  He doesn't fight with his players through the media and he deals with problems.  Adelman is a master of offensive efficiency and could turn the Hawks into the offensive juggernaut they could be.  Defensively he creates strategies to minimize the exposure of your flaws.  He uses the 3 pointer as a weapon; the Hawks are an accurate shooting team that is in the lower third of teams as far as attempts.  With some low-post scoring to attract double teams and some ball-movement, Salim Stoudamire and Joe Johnson could become shooting sensations.

Spend the majority of practice time on defense and ballhandling.  Defense is mostly about effort; the Memphis Grizzlies are a team that by NBA standards is athletically challenged, but they're not afraid to get in your face.  This reflects on the coaching more than anything; example A is the Tomjanovich/Hamblen Lakers versus the Phil Jackson Lakers the next season.  Intelligent shot selection, good ball movement, and not turning it over will help the inexperienced defence.  Bringing in a real starting point guard and improved coaching will help. 

Conclusion

The Atlanta Hawks are actually in a pretty good position for the future: lots of cap room, high draft picks, only one large salary clogging the cap, and underdeveloped but skilled players.  They should save their money for next year when the free agency market really picks up.  Since it doesn't count against the cap, don't worry about overpaying to bring in a proven coach like Adelman.  And for GM, Spurs assistant GM Sam Presti or trainees of Rod Thorn, Geoff Petrie, and Joe Dumars would be wise choises to give the team the right combination of building for the future, bringing in veteran leadership, and cap management that make teams successful in the long run.