Hawks’ Billy Knight shouldn’t be fired
May 2nd, 2008 by Ken Edelstein in NewsAtlanta Hawks’ GM Billy Knight gets a lot of grief for the team’s eight-year absence from playoffs. On the eve of the sixth game in the Hawks-Celtics surprisingly competitive playoff series, however, the question really is: How’d such a talented group of players end up with just a 37-45 regular season record?
Head Coach Mike Woodson is accountable for that under-performance, as he showed again Wednesday with poor coaching decisions, a pre-game press conference that lay blame for a loss on his players before the game even happened, and an embarrassing “pep” talk (in which he depressingly quoted Phil Jackson instead of coming up with his own inspiration).
I’m thinking now that Knight’s gotten a bad rap. First, he had to dig the franchise out from Pete Babcock’s truly horrible roster moves. Then, this year he tried to do the right thing — fire Woodson — but ownership wouldn’t let him.
Just rate Knight’s major roster moves after the fact, and he looks pretty good. Here’s what I came up with when I rated his No. 1 picks, major trades and major free agent signs on a zero-to-10 scale (”5″ being an average, fair deal for the team):
Josh Childress, 7th pick: 5
Josh Smith, 17th pick: 8
Joe Johnson trade: 9
Marvin Williams, 2nd pick: 3
Zaza Pachulia signing: 6 (not saying he’s great, but all-in-all he’s turned out to be a savvy addition)
Speedy Claxton signing: 2 (he didn’t know Claxton would be injured but could’ve guessed)
Sheldon Williams, 5th pick: 1
Al Horford, 3rd pick: 7
Acie Law, 11th pick: 4?
Mike Bibby trade: 6
That’s a respectable 5.1 average. Yeah, yeah. He missed drafting a point guard for two straight years, but balance that out with Johnson, Smith and Horford — and with undoing Babcock’s incredible mess. Winning two (at least) against the Celtics ought to let Knight keep his job. Am I missing something?
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May 2nd, 2008 at 11:24 am
How does a 37-45 team make the playoffs? I don’t follow the NBA, do they have a wild card or something?
They just felt sorry for the Hawks? Conspiracy to get the Celtics to the Finals?
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:10 pm
I think Josh Childress and especially Al Horford are rated low on this list. Horford has turned out to be a stud, a strong presence in the paint and a buding team leader. He ranks at least an 8.
But Knight also passed on Chris Paul in the 2005 draft in order to select Marvin Williams, who has never played up to a No. 2 pick in the draft. And point guard has been Atlanta’s biggest need during the entire Knight era.
The following year, he selected Sheldon Williams and the less said about that, the better. The top point guard in that draft might be familiar to Hawks’ fans. It was Rajon Rondo, who has spent several games in this year’s playoffs out-playing Mike Bibby.
The distressing thing is that no matter how bad Knight has been (what was it, 20 straight 1st round draft picks of forwards who were 6-9?), his record in the draft is certainly better than Pete Babcock’s.
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Scott: I don’t disagree on your ratings of Shelden, Marvin, Horford and Childress. My point, though, is to rate Knight’s JUDGMENT and MOVES, not the flat-out quality of the various players: I LOVE Al Horford, but one could argue that he was the no-brainer pick, so Knight only gets a “7″ there. I like Childress, too, but he’s not at all a steal as the number 7 pick in the draft. And the Williamses both turned out to be poor choices (and lower-than-expectation players), even if Marvin can make it as a starter in the league.
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Watching Marvin Williams “play” makes me want to rip both of my arms out of their sockets
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:25 pm
At least Knight hasn’t drafted any slow white guys named Jon Koncak.
The players the Hawks passed over to draft Koncak at No. 5 in the 1985 draft:
Karl Malone
Chris Mullin
Detlef Schrempf
Charles Oakley
Joe Dumars
Terry Porter
A.C. Green
May 5th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Mike Woodson should be on that list as a 0- he still does not seem to have a good game plan, and does not do a good job of reaching the young players on this team.
The Marvin Williams pick should be a -10. Chris Paul is one of the best players in the league AND would have filled a position need for the team.
You could also include the fact that we don’t have a 2008 draft pick (3) or the Anthony Johnson trade (5) that cost us the draft pick that could have been Big Baby (moderately effective against the Hawks in their series).
All that aside, on what planet is 5.1 on a scale of 0 to 10 “respectable”? I’d say that anything below 7 should warrant being replaced.
May 5th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Harsh but true, Matt: Hiring Woodson was a bad move and apparently it was Billy Knight’s decision (on the other hand, he did try to fire him).
Knight gave Dallas a 2nd round pick for Anthony Johnson but he had to because of Claxton’s injury — a reasonable price for a desperation move; nobody knew Glen Davis would available a year later at that point in the draft, so it’s just not fair to dis Knight because of that.
The 2008 draft pick was part of the Joe Johnson trade, wasn’t it? You gotta give him credit for the good along with the bad, and the Johnson deal was definitely good for the franchise. OK, I’ll knock Johnson down to an 8 — but maybe Josh Smith ought to be a 9? He was a steal at No. 17 in the draft. Give the man credit, Matt.
Marvin was a bad pick (both because he’s not a No. 2 pick player and because Knight missed both Chris Paul AND Deron Williams). But Marvin is a legit NBA starter — so there’s some value there. That’s why I placed him higher than Shelden, who was a terrible pick.