1999 Hawks Presser

[WigNosy]

Wig ambles into the Hawks' media room. No long, drawn out Dr. Seuss odes this off-season... he's all business. He takes a seat behind the media table and begins.

Well, folks, it's been an eventful off-season, so let me start by trying to take care of some of the questions I think are likely to come our way. First of all, I would like to let everyone know that after last season's parade of injuries, the whole of our training staff was sacked. I am hopeful that our new team doctors will do a better job of keeping our team healthy this season. I mean, I could have understood this if we were a veteran team, but our young guys should be quick to heal and plenty healthy. Last season was supposed to be a season where everyone got to know their roles and started fitting things together going forward. Instead, we spent nearly every other week with a new starting lineup and never really got the camaraderie I had hoped, culminating in not having enough time to incorporate Donyell Marshall properly into our lineup and getting knocked our of the playoffs by the Bucks.

While I liked our team, even we had to bow to salary cap realities this season and say goodbye to the man who has been our rock in the backcourt the past four years in Eric Snow. We knew both Eric and Antonio McDyess were coming up for RFA this year and we made them what we thought were fair offers that would allow us to keep both. However, we also made it clear to them that it was their right to go out and try to find the best available offer, and both of them did so. When they let us know what they had negotiated with other teams, there was never any animosity, but we knew at that point we couldn't keep both of them.

We have long made it no secret that we were prepared to match any offer McDyess received, and we honored that commitment. We are pleased to have McDyess back in the fold and anticipate he will be our team leader again this year. We have high hopes for him and see him as an all-star caliber talent. He has been the focal point of our offense the last couple of years and nothing's going to change this year. We expect another stellar season from him.

Keeping Antonio, though, meant keeping Snow was not really an option. We wish him well in his new home with the defending champion Warriors and hope to meet him in the playoffs. Fortunately for us, I think his departure was prepared for as we plucked promising point guard Andre Miller with the #8 pick in the draft this season. Miller has already shown us a lot in training camp, and we really like his affinity for passing the basketball. We fully expect Andre to prove himself to be a great floor general for us. While Snow's defense will be missed, we hope Andre will someday grow to be a similar defensive beast as well, while providing us the offense and passing from the point guard spot that Eric was just never able to provide.

We also picked up another young player that we have high hopes for in the draft, Corey Maggette. He probably won't start for us right away due to our depth on the wing; however, should he continue to grow as much as he had in training camp this year, we'll have a hard time keeping him off the court, and that's a great problem to have. We're also hoping some of his work ethic rubs off on last year's rookie standout for us, Ricky Davis, who seems to have matured quite a bit, as his training camp this year looked a lot more professional than last year's.

Speaking of Ricky, he was pressed into service a bit prematurely last season due to injuries to our starting forwards; we're looking forward to allowing him to step back his role a little bit this year now that Marshall and McDyess are healthy. We're planning to ask him to improve his fundamentals and giving him coaching to improve before he has to be thrown back to the sharks in a season or two.

We were also pleased by the training camp work of last season's trade deadline acquisition, Jeff McInnis. When we traded for him, we gave up a pick that turned out to be the 15th pick because we felt McInnis would be better than anything we might find with our pick. I think his improvement proves that. He'll probably be asked to back up both our guard spots but due to our overcrowded backcourt, we may have to consider moving him to a team that will be able to give his talents a proper showcase.

Our last big off-season acquisition was center Derrick Coleman. We feel he gives us the depth in the pivot that we lacked last season, and he is a nice insurance policy to have in our frontcourt. He's shown he can score and rebound with anyone, and should give us high quality play off the bench. We plucked Rex Walters off the waiver pile on the theory you can never have enough depth, and he impressed enough in preseason that we may have to try to find a way to get him minutes.

As you're probably noticing, we've got a ton of depth this season, and no true megastar. At present, the plan is to simply wear teams out with waves of bodies - we like our starters, but I don't think there's a unit from 6 through 10 that can compare with our bench, so we're looking for our bench to win us a lot of games this year.

Naturally, there won't be enough minutes to keep everyone happy. So I would definitely expect us to be extremely active on the trade front this year, as I think it's an obligation we owe our players to try to find them places where they can showcase their talents, provided the trade works for us, too. We're still looking for a young backcourt star to complement our frontcourt. I think we have the trade assets and the motivation to get such a move done, the trick is of course finding a willing partner.

So, I think that just about covers everything. If there's anything I missed, please ask away.

[Soundwave]

Clark Kent, Daily Planet

Are the Hawks prepared for the incoming winter? We all remember how Atlanta handled the last snow storm that came through town......

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[WigNosy]

Clark Kent, Daily Planet

Are the Hawks prepared for the incoming winter? We all remember how Atlanta handled the last snow storm that came through town......

phpBB [video]

We did our best to make sure Snow will only make one appearance in Atlanta this year. If he is back more than that, we will be pleased with the results of the season.

[IamQuailman]

Do you feel with the lack of competitive teams in the East that your team could be in the top 4 this season or do you think your young squad could take a couple more seasons to progress?

[WigNosy]

Do you feel with the lack of competitive teams in the East that your team could be in the top 4 this season or do you think your young squad could take a couple more seasons to progress?

While I hope we are ready to make the jump this year, I have to be realistic. We are still one of the youngest squads in the East and our floor general will be a rookie. Let's just say I hope we can make the top 4 this year but as long as I see improvement I will be happy. I think our best days are still ahead of us.

[Conroy]

Sports Guy Bill Simmons here, it seems depth is great for a number of reasons. And can really win games during the regular season. But when rotations tighten in the playoffs, do you see it as a big advantage still? Aside from having someone step up in case of injury.

[WigNosy]

Sports Guy Bill Simmons here, it seems depth is great for a number of reasons. And can really win games during the regular season. But when rotations tighten in the playoffs, do you see it as a big advantage still? Aside from having someone step up in case of injury.

I think it definitely can work to our advantage if we play high octane basketball. Getting other teams tired or in foul trouble would be a way to allow our depth to come into play. To that end, we are encouraging all of our point guards to force tempo when we have the rock.

[JNR]

Generic Wolves Reporter: Whose team is this? Like when the cards are down, the team needs to step up, what player will you look to as being THE GUY?

[WigNosy]

Generic Wolves Reporter: Whose team is this? Like when the cards are down, the team needs to step up, what player will you look to as being THE GUY?

If we need Two points, McDyess.
If we need threee points, Marshall.
If we need a defensive stop, Big Ben.