Horford and Smith are really good but they’re not 22… I’d guess that any improvement you get from them will be offset by the age-related decline of Johnson and Bibby. Crawford’s 30 – even if they re-sign him, he’s not getting any better. They have no one you can look at and say, “wow, in a few years that guy might be good.” Whereas the Knicks have lots of players you can dream on.

Atlanta looks to be a 45-50 win team the next year or two, then getting worse as Johnson collapses and they still don’t have money to sign anyone. They are totally capped out through 2013 and if they re-sign Smith then (or Crawford, before then) they are capped out through 2015.

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=4m5a9pd

Also Atlanta would send two 1sts and money to Denver.

We trade Amare, Felton and Chandler get Horford, Billups and Lawson. That way we bring our star’s age in line with the rest of our team. Atlanta gets Amare, Melo, and Felton. Denver gets Smith as the centerpiece of the trade plus Chandler and Crawford, plus Bibby as filler, also they would get money and two firsts from Atlanta.

I know it would never happen but in a perfect world every team wins. We get a young team to compete in a couple of years, Atlanta gets a contender now and Denver gets two great young players.

I think option (c) is the most plausible, especially if it nets them the center they seem to lack like Nene. Add that to the continuing maturity of their young players, some well placed draft pick and retaining Crawford and its not hard to see a legitimate challenger.

So while the top dogs in the East today are Boston & Miami, with Chicago, Atlanta and Orlando following, we could be looking at this:

Top dogs in 2011/12 – Miami, Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, New York
Top dogs in 2012/13 – Miami, New York, Atlanta, Chicago

Also, isn’t Dwight Howard originally from Atlanta?

John Kenney: Going to the game tonight. Really hope the crowd doesn’t start the We Want Melo chants.  

See you there. If you’ve been reading any of the quotes from Stat/Horford, it might be more of a hockey match than a basketball game.
Plus, this might be the last time we see Gallo/Ray/Mozgov/Chandler/Fields play in the orange and blue. Oh and it might also be the last time fat Eddy will get such good seats at MSG.

For perspective on what you need to swing a meaningful deal, while we argue over how many of our top prospects we should give the Nuggets, the Hawks have no one on a rookie deal as good as our 7th-best young guy (Gallo, Randolph, Fields, Chandler, Mozgov, Wallker or even Shawne Williams).

Caleb: I can tell you they screwed themselves for good with the Joe Johnson signing.

I don’t think they are in a bad position. They are gonna be good for 4 years or so. If they can pull a good late draft pick, like Ginobili or Parker, or if they find a good deal, they would be legit contenders. They also could find some minor deals and pull a championship like Detroit 2004.

All in all, i don’t think they could turn the financial flexibility of not signing Joe Johnson into something better. You have to wonder if they could have signed him for something less (which would help signing somone else and not reaching the luxury tax), and probably, Joe Johnson’s last two years are gonna be ugly; but i think they are very well worth of 4 years of a 50 win team.

Only 1 team in 30 wins the championship during each year, and it is difficult to hit the jackpot either through trades / draft or FA signings. Building progressively as they have done shouldnt be dismissed, and they have a better prospect to win a championship in the next 4 years than most teams.

John Kenney: Going to the game tonight. Really hope the crowd doesn’t start the We Want Melo chants.  

What would be the counter-chant for that? “3 of Chandler, Gallo, Fields, and Randolph are too much for Melo!” Hard to find a rhythm for that.

the Hawks would be a few games worse this year if they’d just let Johnson walk for nothing, but they’d have a much brighter future. I say this as someone who thinks Joe Johnson is pretty good, and he’s having a good year now that he’s not exhausted from playing 40 minutes per game.

But they have zero flexibility to sign free agents. They’re drafting in the 20s. Smith and Horford will be terrific for years but there are no youngsters in the pipeline.

That leaves trades. The options are a) move Jamal Crawford’s expiring deal to a team like the Bulls – but that has never come up. b) Trade Marvin Williams, except he’s mildly overpaid and no one else really wants him; c) trade Josh Smith for a really good player at a different position, since Williams/Horford could hold down the forward spots; d) find someone idiotic and desperate for a title run, to takeJohnson’s contract in exchange for a shorter deal. Odds – 50:1, and sinking with each year as he gets older. This same roster with Johnson at age 33 won’t be pretty.

IMO, c) is the only potential game-changer and you’d have to swallow hard before you traded your 25-year-old, second-best player… and I don’t know how likely it is they find the right deal. Maybe offer him up for Nene, something like that. Anyway, it’s just pure speculation because the Hawks management has never given an indication that they are willing to make an aggressive move. They’re content to be where they are, which would be frustrating to the avid fan base, if one existed.

Jeff Teague seems like he isn’t going to be the successor to Bibby or if he is the box scores are hiding it,

is the feeling that they need a “true center” so Horford can slide to PF and, if so, is Josh Smith going to be able to handle the 3 w/o suddenly thinking he should have the shot chart of a typical 3?