Mr. Pelton, take it away:

Forty percent of the way through the schedule, I think I've come to a little bit better understanding of how the Hawks could take a dramatic step forward after a net loss of talent during the offseason. Explaining it starts with knowing that the difference is virtually all at the offensive end of the floor. Atlanta has improved just slightly in terms of Defensive Rating and continues to hover right around league average. On per-possession offense, however, the Hawks have gone from 16th in the NBA to sixth (not including Tuesday's game).

Let's take a look at the league's most improved offenses along with a mystery stat that has seemed to mirror their overall improvement.

 

                OFFENSIVE RATING         MYSTERY STAT
Team          0708    0809   Diff     0708    0809   Diff

Cleveland    107.5   115.1   +7.6     .190    .256   +.066
Portland     108.5   115.6   +7.1     .218    .258   +.040
Miami        102.2   107.7   +5.5     .217    .244   +.027
New Jersey   105.6   111.0   +5.4     .222    .253   +.031
Atlanta      108.3   111.2   +2.9     .165    .279   +.114
New York     105.6   107.6   +2.0     .215    .344   +.129

Any guesses as to what the mystery stat might be? Here's a hint--and what makes this so interesting. The mystery stat is not an "outcome" stat like a shooting percentage or offensive rebounding. Instead, it's a tendency stat, and one that in theory should not necessarily have anything to do with the performance of an offense. Got it? Maybe the enormous leap by the Knicks tipped you off that the mystery stat has to do with three-point shooting. It is, in fact, the percentage of the team's field-goal attempts that have come from beyond the arc.

...

The Hawks present an interesting case study in the value of the three. Their increased number of attempts can be traced to three factors: a full season of prolific bomber Mike Bibby, newfound three-point range for forward Marvin Williams and replacing reluctant outside shooter Childress with trigger-happy Evans and Murray.

How have the changes affected the holdover Atlanta starters?

 

                 2P%            3P%            TS%            TO%
Player       0708   0809    0708   0809    0708   0809    0708   0809

Bibby        .438   .486    .373   .437    .515   .580    15.5    9.5
Johnson      .453   .499    .381   .364    .534   .553    11.8   11.1
Williams     .466   .509    .100   .382    .540   .583    10.4    8.0
Smith        .477   .474    .253   .278    .520   .513    15.5   15.7
Horford      .503   .511      -      -     .540   .559    15.3   13.5

With the notable exception of Smith, the other Hawks starters have improved virtually across the board. I suspect we are seeing the benefit of a well-spaced floor and the need for defenses to respect four of the five players beyond the arc. The improvement in turnover rates is especially striking, while Bibby is hitting a career-high percentage of his two-point shots and Williams too has made major strides inside the three-point line as well as outside it. Johnson's two-point improvement is not actually as impressive as it looks; he hit 50.4 percent of his twos in 2006-07 before suffering through a fluky 2007-08 campaign.

Add it up, and the starting five has improved by more than enough to offset swapping Childress' hyper-efficient 64.7 True Shooting Percentage for Murray's woeful 50.0 percent mark.

Boxscore

Gameflow

A question for the forum: How can the same team that looks completely incapable of getting the ball to Joe Johnson in the post when he's guarded by either Raymond Felton or Matt Carroll for almost an entire quarter also be able to get wide open three-point shots at will for the final eight-and-a-half minutes of the game?

I'm thoroughly flummoxed. Any insight would be appreciated.

Some things I do know...

• I won't be going out of my way to watch the Bobcats/Wizards game on December 23rd.
• Marvin Williams is a significantly better player than he was at the end of last season.
• Maurice Evans* is rock solid.
• The Hawks' difficulty guarding opposing point guards will continue unabated. Last night further demonstrated that neither Mike Bibby nor Acie Law IV can stay with NBA point guards and that Flip Murray cannot both pressure the ball and stay in front of his man.
• Raymond Felton is thoroughly discombobulated. I don't know if he's lost all confidence in his game or just isn't very good. He needs a new team. I'm not as sure as I was yesterday that I'm interested in the Hawks being that team.
• Neither Al Horford nor Zaza Pachulia are completely healthy.
• I hope Dominique Wilkins' (wonderful) title, Vice President of Basketball, caries no real player personnel decision responsibilities. During last night's broadcast he expressed serious dismay regarding the Knicks decision to trade Jamal Crawford because Crawford is "a great young point guard." I say the following as someone who likes Jamal Crawford and believe him to be a useful player: neither of those adjectives nor that noun are descriptive of him. Best not to get into 'Nique's assertion that Joe Johnson doesn't shoot that many free throws because he's "so efficient."

*Am I the only one indulging in fantasies of the Hawks not screwing up Josh Childress's restricted free agency and signing Maurice Evans. That's the foundation of a 50-win team's bench.

(This is where I'd normally include any and all interesting post-game quotes.)

Quick links...

• Queen City Hoops has a typically thorough recap of the game from Charlotte's perspective.
• Micah Hart looks back at the first 10 games and ahead to the next 10.

Back at it tonight in Cleveland.

There's some video accompanying the article but the full feature won't be shown until Outside the Lines airs at 9am this Sunday.

Josh on Athens:

"They're a little bit more passionate about their sports here. You see tons of people in the street who just love you just because you play for their team."

On his role for Olympiacos:

"I can tell you they don't want me to score 30. They don't want me to score 25. Probably don't want me to score 20. They want me to be well-rounded."

On how his decision will influence other American players:

"Some people say 'groundbreaker.' Some say 'trailblazer.' I say I'm the test dummy. I'm the guy who's gonna test it out for everyone else. See if I enjoy it. Then obviously I think a lot of other guys will maybe make the transition."

The debut of Kevin Pelton's SCHOENE projection system continues with a look at the Southeast Division. Pelton's (very cagey) projection for the Hawks? 34 wins.

Having returned to the playoffs and taken Boston to seven games in the first round, the Atlanta Hawks entered the offseason with plenty of reason for optimism. Things were going along fine until Josh Childress grew tired of restricted free agency and decided to exercise his own unique form of unrestricted free agency by signing to play in Greece with Olympiakos. Suddenly, the Hawks lost their top reserve (and calling Childress a reserve understates his value to Atlanta) with few options to replace him.

New GM Rick Sund made a pretty good save to replace Childress with Maurice Evans at a bargain price. Still, Childress' absence will hurt the Hawks dearly. Running the same "what if?" scenario I described earlier takes Atlanta from 34 wins to 40--and a strong shot at the postseason--with Childress. Even that 40-win total might seem a little low, but three close wins against the Celtics at home should not overshadow a 37-win regular season for the Hawks.

With Childress, Atlanta would still have major depth issues. I have projections for just nine players because Mario West was the only other player on the roster to play 250 minutes last year. An injury to any of the Hawks' frontline players could spell doom. Backup point guard is a question mark, with Acie Law needing to take a giant step forward to be a regular contributor and Flip Murray too erratic to be counted on at the position. Based on all of that, Atlanta is likely to return to the lottery after last year's exciting playoff run.

The Joe Johnson projection is, I think, a reason for optimism were one looking for ways the Hawks players might outperform their cumulative projection. Another Would be to (continue to) hope that Acie Law and Zaza Pachulia provided limited production entirely due to injury rather than lack of ability last season. I certainly hope that's true. Otherwise, that bench is going to be even less useful than my most pessimistic fears.

*Pelton does acknowledge that the Joe Johnson prediction is on the low side likely being undully influenced by Johnson's uncharacteristically low 2PTFG% last season.

Semi-anonymous blogger provides commentary on an anonymous scout's off-the-cuff description (as published at SI.com) of the Atlanta Hawks? This should prove a busy day for the upper right portion of the ultimately pointless/ironic blog post characteristics graph.

An opposing team's scout sizes up the Hawks

Expectations have risen by making the playoffs and having a great showing against Boston. Yet they only won 37 games last year. Keeping things in perspective, they've got to find a way to improve, because winning 37 is not going to make the playoffs in the improved East.

I concur.

Who is their lead player? Joe Johnson tends to not take the last shot as much as you'd expect from a franchise player. You can tell a lot about him from his decision to go to a losing team by leaving a team that could've paid him good money and helped him win a championship. He hasn't done much in recent years to change that opinion. I've watched them play a lot, and he's a talented kid. But I'm not a fan. He's a good third player on a contending team. But he's not the guy you build around.

Micah Hart beat me to taking this bit of nonsense to task. I added the following comment to Micah's fine post:

 

That scout obviously doesn't watch the Hawks that often if he thinks "Joe Johnson tends to not take (sic) the last shot."

As to his other point, hey, Joe Johnson was the fourth-best player on a contending team when the Hawks chose to build around him. One could give the scout the benefit of the doubt and assume that he's very obliquely implying the obvious fact that Joe Johnson is a better player now, in Atlanta, than he ever was in Phoenix.

In fact, the predictability with which (and the predictability with how) Joe Johnson takes the last shot lead me to be extraordinarily (and, arguably, counter-productively) contrary in answering the Daily Dime's 9.2 seconds left question.

Al Horford was great. He would have been my vote for Rookie of the Year. Last year you did what you could to keep him off the boards. This year people have seen him, and they're not going to let him get as many free looks. People know he can shoot mid-range jump shots. He's a little jerky in his stroke, but he can make them. I think he's a Buck Williams-type guy in a lot of ways. Every time I've seen Horford, he has played hard the whole game. When he took out T.J. Ford on that layup [after which Ford missed 24 games with neck and back injuries], he didn't do it maliciously, but he made a hard foul. Some of his histrionics you can do without, like when he pounds his chest and waves his arms too much after he makes a play early. But that's not bad for this team because they don't have a lot of guys with that intensity.

If you don't think Al Horford is great, you don't like basketball. If you're bothered by his histrionics you're probably older than me and I can make fun of you for that. Go to bed, old man!

For them ever to be a championship team -- not just a playoff team -- Horford needs to play the 4, and they find a 5 who can really play up front alongside him.

Okay. A list of 5's who can really play: Yao Ming, Dwight Howard, Tim Duncan (oh, right, he's officially a power forward), Marcus Camby, Chris Kaman, probably Greg Oden. That's it. I don't think any of those guys are realistically available for the Hawks to acquire.

You shift Josh Smith to small forward and bring Marvin Williams off the bench. But until they go in that direction, they'll be the best 6-foot-8 team in the league with too many forwards on the roster.

Forwards on the roster: Josh Smith, Marvin Williams, partial credit for Al Horford, Othello Hunter. Three of them a couple inches north of 6-foot-8 and one one of them a full inch (at least) shorter. This scout does know that Josh Childress left, right?

When Smith played well last year, it was mainly because he quit shooting threes.

Josh Smith attempted 99 threes last year.

He seemed to say, OK, I'm going to have a great mismatch at the 4, I'm going to just run the floor and let the game come to me.

I wish I had gotten to watch the Josh Smith this guy watched last year. It sounds like the exact opposite of the player that frustrated me so often.

He can be a dominant player who can change the game, and when he's focused he is very good and a tough matchup. But he also goes through games where he seems lost, and if he makes a couple of mistakes and coach Mike Woodson starts yelling at him, then he's gone. The whole key to whether they're a 35- or 45-win team depends on him being able to figure it out every night. We see him and his team get keyed up to play Detroit or Boston, but they don't get up against teams like Charlotte. Smith can have a big influence on his team by not settling for jumpers and instead becoming more of an attacker.

But he should be moved to small forward (giving up the above referenced "great mismatch at the 4") for a hypothetically available center who can really play.

Mike Bibby has issues: Can he stay injury-free, be consistent and also be committed to playing defense like Woodson wants him to play?

No. Maybe (which I guess is a "no" if you're asking about consistency). No.

As a defender, he plays the passing lanes. But Woodson wants his players to be solid defenders rather than steals defenders, and the coach knows it all starts with the point guard.

Really? Then why has the team planned to use Mike Bibby, Anthony Johnson, Tyronn Lue, and Acie Law IV at the point for the last two years? They were a far better defensive team before Bibby arrived but that didn't have much to do with quality point guard defense.

Bibby enjoys having the ball in his hands, yet sometimes I think he shoots the ball a little quickly. Bibby knows his contract is coming up [he's a free agent after the season], so he'll want to have a good year and get some points up.

It's phrased like a criticism, but I'm struggling to figure out the downside of Mike Bibby having a good year and getting some points up. Impure motives? I'll forgive him that in exchange for above-average offensive production.

Backup point guard is another issue. Acie Law didn't produce like they would want as a high draft pick last season. But there were games where he did enough. He beat his man shooting off the dribble, he was good in all kinds of pick-and-roll situations, he got into the paint and he had late-game ability. But Woodson is more of a half-court guy who likes to call every play, and that works against Law, who is a good but not great shooter from the three-point line.

Again, I don't see the complication here (and didn't last year, either). Mike Woodson (in my opinion, mistakenly) wants the Hawks to play half-court basketball. He wants to call plays. Acie Law, in a fairly comprehensively disappointing rookie season, showed some ability, despite inconsistent health and playing time, to run the pick-and-roll effectively. I know the Hawks have pick-and-roll sets in the half-court. I've seen them run them. Why is this not a significant part of the offense when Acie Law is on the court leading the second unit? In a couple of weeks, I fear we'll learn that the answer, this year, has a lot to do with Flip Murray dribbling.

Marvin Williams improved his jump shot last year and became more of a threat. He needs to use his size to post up small forwards more often and not just be a tall, big body on the perimeter.

Amen. However, this should be less of a priority for the team than getting the ball to Smith and Horford in the post more often..

Flip Murray is going to be an open-court guy who will put the ball on the floor, but if he has to be backup point or run plays, then he's not as good. There's a reason he's played for so many different teams.

That reason: missing almost 60% of the shots he takes. Flip Murray is not a good player full stop.

I don't think they get any value from Maurice Evans coming off the bench. He isn't a tough-minded kid, which is why he's bounced around. He was a starter for a winning team last year [in Orlando], but I wonder if he has the makeup to go from starter to backup.

Maurice Evans has started 69 of the 306 NBA games he has played and came off the bench 62 times for a 42-win Lakers team the year before last.

I wonder if they might be better bringing Williams off the bench where he can play both forward spots. Then they won't miss Josh Childress as much.

I'm going to need a much more detailed explanation of how starting the guy who isn't tough-minded and has bounced around so you can then bring the better player off the bench is going to keep the Hawks from missing Josh Childress as much. I am not going to get that explanation, am I?

The problem with losing Childress is that they have a lot of guys who need the ball. He didn't. He just played. He was a stable personality and he could be effective playing without the ball.

Nothing I can take issue with there but it's a rather indirect way of saying the problem with losing Childress is he was a better basketball player than almost everyone else on the team then and now.

I'm a Woodson fan. But he gets too frustrated at times, and it's too long a year with too many possessions in each game -- especially with all of his young players -- for him to be on them all the time. That can wear on a team. The main thing is that he has a great up-and-down team, but he's so conscious of them not turning the ball over and making sure the right guy gets the right shot that he calls plays like a half-court team. If they played looser, they might turn it over once or twice more, but their guys would stay more focused and be more involved at both ends of the court.

That's the best description of Mike Woodson's coaching style that I have ever read. I'm jealous I never formulated a description that precise in the (digital) reams of Mike Woodson criticism I've written.

But look at the other side of it: They're not a very good team yet he had them in most games last year and gave them chances to be successful.

I think the inability to let the players play the style of basketball to which they're best suited rather than the style of basketball that makes the coach most comfortable limited their chances to be successful (and that's the difference of opinion that explains why this scout says he's a Mike Woodson fan and I do not) but one should never forget that Mike Woodson has, for four years, coached teams constructed by Billy Knight.

He's a good defensive coach who tries to get the guys to respect the game, and when they don't, he gets frustrated. I'd really like to see him coaching a veteran team.

The Hawks were a good defensive team last year until they acquired the veteran Mike Bibby. I think the Hawks are a mediocre defensive team because they have mostly mediocre defensive players. Josh Smith's really the only clearly above-average defensive player on the team and, were we to follow this scout's lead and move Smith to the 3, that would disappear as Smith would get beat off the dribble constantly.

If you know GM Rick Sund and you look at Bibby's [$14.5 million] contract, I think you'll see a trade from them as the year goes on. I bet they try to trade for an impact player, probably to get either a point guard or center. I think they have to make a trade in order to get back to the playoffs.

I would hope Rick Sund, should he decide to trade Mike Bibby, would try to acquire an "impact player." However, the last time Mike Bibby was traded, he was worth Anthony Johnson, Tyronn Lue, Shelden Williams, Lorenzen Wright, and a 2nd-round pick. Somebody will have to value an expiring contract a whole hell of a lot to bridge the gap between the value of that collection of assets and an "impact player."

WHO: Atlanta (4-3) at Detroit (6-1)

WHEN: 7:30pm

WHERE: No TV, Hawks Radio Network (should any station preempt coverage of the pre-season game I suggest NBA Audio League Pass)

Injury/Rest Report: Marvin Williams and Maurice Evans should return for the Hawks. Kwame Brown is expected to miss tonight's game while Michael Curry plans to rest Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace, and Antonio McDyess during the second half.

• The Hawks have announced 24 games which will be broadcast in HD this season.
• The NBA conducted it's annual GM survey. Marvin Williams was voted (tied for) third most likely to have a breakout season. Maurice Evans and Josh Childress (Who's the smart-aleck?) both received a vote for most underrated player acquisition. Childress also got a vote for most surprising move of the off-season. Josh Smith was voted the second most athletic player in the league and received votes for both best finisher and best interior defender.
• Also, the NBA has prepared a document explaining the new instant replay rules.
• New SBNBA blog: The Dream Shake. About the Rockets, natch.
• Basketball Prospectus continues it's season preview with a look at the Pacific Division. I need to take another look at the Warriors, apparently.
• EconomPic Data shows how much less Josh Childress's contract is worth now than when he signed it due to the fall of the Euro vs. the dollar. I'm a Josh Childress fan, but still, shouldn't the post be titled "Don't let your NBA agent double as your currency trader"?
• SI.com has posted their NBA previews. (Direct link to the Hawks preview.) Elsewhere on that site Marty Burns' obviously independent pre-season power rankings put the Hawks 17th in the NBA.
• Mike Kahn picks the Hawks to repeat as the eighth-seed in the East. He has no real reason for doing so, though:

Conventional wisdom says the Hawks will ride the crest of taking the Celtics to seven games in the first round back to the playoffs. With Joe Johnson and Josh Smith, maturing Marvin Williams and Al Horford, plus a training camp with Mike Bibby, they should get there. Let's see if the two-year extension signed by coach Mike Woodson helps them gain consistency.

• Finally, some sad news to report: Salim Stoudamire was waived by the Spurs. I still believe in him. Value of my belief in him to Salim? Approximately nil.
  

Still open... Poll #1 (How many games will the Hawks win?) and Poll #2 (How many games will Mike Woodson coach?)

Today, Poll #3 or, How do you come up with a half-decent poll question about a player as consistent as Joe Johnson? There will not be a poll to determine whether or not I have succeeded in doing that.

Team Name: Atlanta Hawks
Last Year's Record: 37-45
Key Losses: Josh Childress, the opportunity to hire a new head coach
Key Additions: Maurice Evans, possibly Othello Hunter or Randolph Morris, almost certainly not in a positive way Flip Murray, Rick Sund?

1. What significant moves were made during the off-season?

General Manager Billy Knight resigned after being informed he would not be offered a contract extension. Rick Sund was hired to replace Knight after several other candidates declined the opportunity to work for Atlanta Spirit LLC. It says something of Knight's tenure that hiring the man who spent consecutive first-round picks on Robert Swift, Johan Petro, and Saer Sene was generally assumed to mark a step in the right direction. Any warm, fuzzy feelings engendered by Sund's arrival did not last long as (possibly as a pre-condition to his hiring) he inaugurated his term as GM by signing Mike Woodson to a new two-year contract in the hopes that Woodson's first four futile years as head coach of the team were a fluke of some sort.

Re-upping  Woodson (career record: 106-222) was quite dispiriting to serious Hawks (By which I mean those who watched the team play prior to April 26th) fans who witnessed him come far closer to coaching a decent team (especially by the standards of the 2007-08 Eastern Conference) out of the playoffs entirely than winning their first round playoff series.* Management and ownership conspired to put that mistake in some sort of sick perspective five weeks later by managing to lose the services of restricted free agent Josh Childress without compensation when Childress signed with Olympiacos rather than play another game for the Hawks. Soon thereafter the Memphis Grizzlies signed Josh Smith (also a restricted free agent) to an offer sheet which finally prompted the Hawks to get a deal done with the franchise's best player.

*Seriously, the Hawks were never within 13 points (and got that close just once, with 7:01 left in Game 5) of the Celtics in the fourth quarter of any of the four games played in Boston.

Sund added free agents Maurice Evans, Randolph Morris, and Flip Murray to the second unit with Othello Hunter (likely) and Thomas Gardner (meh) candidates to make the roster. It's not an inspiring collection of acquisitions but anything that helps push Solomon Jones and Mario West down the depth chart or off the roster entirely has some value.

2. What is the team's biggest strength?

The front-line talent isn't bad. One could build a decent NBA team around Josh Smith, Joe Johnson, and Al Horford. I'm skeptical that the Hawks have done that. Which leads us to...

3. What is the team's biggest weakness?

Lack of depth. After Smith, Johnson, and Horford the Hawks have two starters who, at best, can be expected to be league-average in Mike Bibby and Marvin Williams. Bibby certainly helped the team's offense after arriving from Sacramento in February, but the team's defense declined just as much as the offense improved so his acquisition failed to make the team appreciably better.

Beyond the starting five, this season's the bench should provide greater quantity in terms of legitimate, NBA-quality reserve players than last year's squad, but no one can be expected to play as well as Josh Childress would have. Maurice Evans and Zaza Pachulia (if healthy) should be average reserves. It's not unreasonable to hope that Acie Law IV (again, if healthy) could improve significantly in his sophomore campaign. If Law struggles again, expect Flip Murray (career 3PTFG%: 27.9) to get enough playing time to challenge Josh Smith (career 3PTFG%: 26.3) for the team lead in ill-advised three-point attempts. Randolph Morris has played just 7 minutes and 16 seconds 24 minutes and 23 seconds (updated early Tuesday morning) of the pre-season, so the second big man off the bench could be either Solomon Jones or Othello Hunter. If Smith, Johnson, or Horford miss any significant time this will quickly become a profoundly poor basketball team.

4. What are the goals for this team?

The franchise's goal is to make the playoffs. I wish I could say the franchise's goal was to make the playoffs and win a series (or even a road game) but I don't think their off-season activity suggests they're trying to accomplish anything grander than to finish within a handful of games of .500 and hope that that again is good enough for a playoff spot in the East. As they finished eight games below .500 last year, earned the eighth-seed in the East last year by a one (1) game margin, and are trying to replace Josh Childress's outstanding (and unique among Hawks players) offensive efficiency (in part) with Flip Murray's profligate shooting, I put their chances of accomplishing this goal at less than 50%. If they don't make the playoffs, I believe the franchise would be far better off were the season to fall apart completely causing them to decide to end the Mike Woodson/Joe Johnson era and take on a long-term rebuilding project centered around Josh Smith and Al Horford.

5. You seem to be profoundly pessimistic regarding the 2008-09 season. What would have to happen to prove you embarrassingly* wrong?

• Josh Smith becomes the focal point of the half-court offense and flourishes with the increased responsibility.
• In turn, Joe Johnson shoulders less of the offensive burden and becomes a more efficient scorer.
• Marvin Williams fulfills the legitimate potential that led him to get drafted ahead of Chris Paul and Deron Williams.
• Acie Law IV gets regular playing time backing up Bibby and proves capable of being a league-average point guard.
• Everyone stays healthy.
• No player or coach has cause to use any variation on "I don't know why but we just came out flat to start the (game, half, quarter, overtime period)" even one time this season.

*I would like nothing more than to be embarrassingly, extravagantly wrong about the 2008-09 Atlanta Hawks.

Predicted Record: 34-48

Augmenting the story Ben linked to in this FanShot, Pete Thamel conducts the lengthiest interview with Childress I've yet seen published.

A taste...

WHAT’S YOUR CONTRACTUAL SITUATION WITH THE HAWKS?

The interesting thing is that I’m on their books for like $10 million. It makes it tough on them to keep my rights. Even though they’re not paying me, I’m on their cap.

If I stay all three years, I don’t think I’d be Hawks property. But by then, they would probably have to waive me or trade my rights. They have a lot of guys that they have to sign. They have to sign Joe Johnson, Marvin Williams, Al Horford, Acie Law. They’re going to need that money; they’re going to have to trade me or waive me. And once that happens, it makes the process so much easier.

DO YOU FEEL YOU OUTSMARTED THE SYSTEM?

[Laughs.] I wouldn’t say I outsmarted the system, but I found a little loophole. I can’t take all the credit. Olympiacos made the initial contact. I think it’s something that’s going to force a change in the collective bargaining agreement. It’s going to be difficult for some teams to match teams in Europe.

Nick Friedell interviews Hawks VP of Basketball Dominique Wilkins.

Q: What do you expect to see from the Hawks this season?

Dominique Wilkins: I think this year they're a more experienced team because they've been through a playoff and got a taste of winning. So I think they're going to come in more focused ... I think we've got some better pieces to this team than we had last year. Hopefully, they can create some chemistry, kind of get (in) a flow early, because when you get new guys on a team, even though they're talented they don't have that chemistry with guys who have been there for a while. I think with this group of guys we've got some veteran people that can come in and kind of mesh, hopefully start winning games early in the season, because we've got to come out of the box early.

Q: Josh Childress went over to Greece, you actually played overseas, did you talk to him before he left?

DW: I didn't get the chance to talk to him. I don't think his people wanted him to talk to me. I would have told him, you might want to re-think that decision this early in your career. This early in your career you don't want to take risky moves. I played in Greece, basketball is great over there, but when you're talking about guaranteed contracts it don't mean nothing over there, it means absolutely nothing ... I just think when you're away from the NBA, it's that whole "out of sight, out of mind" (thinking)." So, I wish him luck but that's a risky move.

Q: Do you think it was the wrong move?

DW: I do, I do. Again a young guy coming in the league, who's been in the league 3-4 years and you get a nice offer from your (NBA) team but you take a chance on a few more dollars to go to Europe, I don't think it's a good move.

If this is a taste of what we're going to get on Hawks broadcasts this season, I'll miss Steve Smith even more than I expected.

Media Day takes place today. The first practice takes place tomorrow. Thus, some proper news trickles out and a bit of local media attention shines on the Hawks.

• Despite the various news feeds and google alerts I have set up, the Hawks somehow managed to make an official announcement of their training camp roster on Friday without me knowing about it. The usual suspects are present plus Olumide Oyejedi, Marcus Hubbard (2007-08 stats), and Frank Robinson (2007-08 stats). More on those three coming later this week.
• Sekou Smith asks and answers five questions about the upcoming season. I'm on board with four of his answers but continue to insist that while expecting Maurice Evans and Flip Murray to replace the volume of Josh Childress's production is reasonable they will not be able to do so anywhere near as efficiently as Childress did.
• Mike Woodson gets a short profile in the paper which highlights his "resiliency." Certainly makes for a better headline than "organizational inertia." If the head coach continues making published remarks such as this:

"It’s going to take me and my staff and the players to make this thing work. Because we came full circle last season from where we started. Now it’s up to us to extend this circle."

I'm going to need to demonstrate some resiliency myself.

• Finally, in the latest in my informal series of highlighting worthwhile team previews from around the web, Dime posits the Hawks' best-case scenario as culminating with a trip to the second-round of the playoffs and their worst-case scenario as a return to the lottery. A pretty unassailable assessment but better to be correct than provocative, I contend.