Hawks 2013 Presser

[WigNosy]

Wig sighs as he looks around the press room after yet another lost season.

So, as many of you are aware, we fell short yet again last season. The Sixers knocked us out of the playoffs for the second year in a row. I'm not happy. Our core is in its prime, and the jump has to made soon or not at all. While we felt our younger players still had the chance to grow, we're past the point of being able to wait for them.

We couldn't participate in RFA due to our core eating up our cap space. At least we came away with Jeff Teague on a long-term cost-controlled deal. He has shown to be a passable backup point guard, and we're ready to move forward with him in that role.

UFA was, of course, what we've been used to most of my tenure here - send out veteran minimums to older players that we think other teams will overlook in the hopes that we can offer something other than money - respect. To our great delight, Nate Robinson decided to throw in with us and Tim Duncan was ready to return to the Hawks fold. I *do* wish I'd reached out to T-Min but I can't get everything right. As UFA progressed we brought back Gee and Gasol on deals that are my kind of money. We look forward to Gee's continued progress and hope Gasol has another 6th man of the year in him. We're glad to have KG back after he started so admirably for us last year.

Then, of course, came training camp. I think our fans and players got complacent after a pretty good TC last year - Bojan Bogdanovic, who we've been grooming for a couple of years, seems to have lost some of his spark. Age hit Gasol and Duncan harder than we'd hoped. Alonzo Gee and Marcus Landry are taking longer than we thought to grow into their potential. Rookie Archie Goodwin took up video games as a hobby, apparently. An unmitigated disaster for everyone outside our core.

So, our core... Gay, Noah, and Carmelo are still in their primes... though we hear the footsteps of Father Time starting to come up behind them. Jeremy Lin and Jeff Adrien continue to improve, though we really hoped they'd make a quantum leap toward their potential this season.

We have high expectations for this squad. Like every year this is championship or bust, but I'm not sold everyone on this team is as intense as I am. We'll look at different lineups than we've tried in the past. If there is a trade to be made, we'll pursue it. If there is a way to get better, we'll look for it. Nobody had better get comfortable. Except Jeff Teague. He knows he's here for at least a year, but only because league rules say I can't trade him.

[garbageman]

Now that the 76ers have reshaped their team completely, are there any teams out there that you're watching out for especially? Teams like the Pistons, Raptors, and Wizards are definitely looking stronger than last season.

[WigNosy]

Now that the 76ers have reshaped their team completely, are there any teams out there that you're watching out for especially? Teams like the Pistons, Raptors, and Wizards are definitely looking stronger than last season.

Any team with Chris Bosh is scary. So the Raptors are definitely on the list. A healthy Cavaliers squad is going to be no cakewalk either. The Pistons' add of K-Mart and the growth of Ish Smith give them a backcourt to go with their frontcourt. The Bucks are loaded with improving young talent. The Bulls don't look like they have a hole in their starting lineup. The Pacers have Deron, who is a one-man wrecking crew. The Hornets have paired some bigs with Lillard. There isn't any team in the Central I'm taking lightly - the whole division is dangerous.

[logpmess]

With an undefeated regular season, what is your realistic expectations for number of losses this year? Are we looking at single digits?

[WigNosy]

With an undefeated regular season, what is your realistic expectations for number of losses this year? Are we looking at single digits?

I don't think we made huge jumps over last year's squad and our division is a LOT better this season. We lost 17 games last season, I could see that climbing into the 20's this year. It better not hit the 30's though.

[78#]

How possible is it for your team to win 80 games?


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[WigNosy]

How possible is it for your team to win 80 games?


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If you count preseason and postseason games, maybe we have a small chance. If you're talking regular season games only, I set the chance at 0.