Wounded Hawks

New owners face huge challenge in restoring depleted roster

John Hollinger, SI.com

Hawks at a Glance Head coach: Terry Stotts 2002-03: 35-47 2002-03 Stats Key Additions SF Boris Diaw (draft) PG Jacque Vaughn (Magic) Key Losses SF Glenn Robinson (76ers) SF Ira Newble (Cavaliers) SG Dion Glover (free agent) SF Darvin Ham (free agent) Projected Lineup Starters Reserves PG  J. Vaughn D. Dickau SG  J. Terry T. Hansen SF  B. Diaw C. Crawford PF  S. Abdur-Rahim A. Henderson C  T. Ratliff N. Mohammed

Coming off a disappointing 2002-03 season that saw them guarantee a playoff spot and then fail to deliver, the Hawks enter the current campaign in disarray. They are missing several key pieces from a team that wasn't very good to begin with and did nothing to fill in the gaps.

Most notably, the team dumped the salary of last year's leading scorer, Glenn Robinson, to the 76ers in a four-way deal that returned guard Terrell Brandon. Brandon hurt his knee two years ago and will never play again, so the deal wasn't terribly well received by the remaining players.

Meanwhile, the front office was reluctant to pull the trigger on any deals because the impending sale of the franchise dragged on all summer. Their only move was to add point guard Jacque Vaughn, who will fill a need but is hardly an impact free agent. It wasn't like they were chasing down free agents and just having bad luck, either; it was more a concerted lack of effort.

The club finally got some closure when the company formerly known as AOL-Time Warner completed the sale of the team to a group lead by Steve Belkin. That allowed them to pull the trigger on matching an offer sheet for Jason Terry, who otherwise would have been headed to Utah.

In the meantime, Billy Knight was brought back as general manager and Terry Stotts as head coach, but neither is likely to be in it for the long haul. Think of them more as caretakers while the new Hawks owners figure out what direction they want to take in what promises to be a long rebuilding process.

Frontcourt. For such a bad team, Atlanta's frontcourt is potentially good. The starters, Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Theo Ratliff,  both have All-Star appearances on their résumés. It will be virtually impossible for them to get selected this year because the Hawks will be so far down in the standings that they'll need a periscope to see the rest of the league, but they still make one of the league's better tandems.

Ratliff struggled mightily in the first half of last season but came on strong toward the end. His trademark skill is flying in from nowhere to expunge shots on the defensive end, providing about the only defensive resistance Hawks fans will see on most nights. Offensively he's more limited, but he keeps defenses honest with short jumpers.

Abdur-Rahim, meanwhile, has been stuck on awful teams his entire career, but he might be the No. 2 power forward in the East after Jermaine O'Neal. He lacks the brute strength of some other post players but makes up for it with his ballhandling skills and ability to run the floor. He'll be asked to carry the mail on offense for a Hawks team that is almost totally devoid of scorers.

Backing them up are Nazr Mohammed and Alan Henderson. Mohammed was a huge disappointment a year ago before an injury wiped out his season but had two solid campaigns prior to that. Henderson is more limited, but a return to form by Mohammed would benefit him by allowing him to return to his natural power forward spot.

Wingmen. The Hawks are penciling in Terry and first-round draft pick Boris Diaw as their two wing players, but Terry is really a point guard and Diaw is really a backup. The problem is that Atlanta traded Robinson and lost Ira Newble and Dion Glover as free agents, so there's nobody else left.

As if the Terry/Diaw combo wasn't enough of a stretch, their current backups would have trouble getting minutes in the CBA. Second-round draft choice Travis Hansen is the only natural shooting guard on the roster and could see major minutes simply because there's nobody else to play. Chris Crawford projects as the backup small forward, but he's spent most of the past two years on the injured list and wasn't any good even before he got hurt. In reality, Atlanta may end up having to play Abdur-Rahim at small forward for long stretches.

Atlanta is almost certain to sign a free agent to fill in at shooting guard, but all the best players are already signed and they don't have a lot of cap space. While they can pick through the scraps and find a player or two that will make their situation less desperate, this still shapes up as the league's most makeshift arrangement.

Will anyone watch? If the Hawks play a game and nobody watches, does it count? Atlanta has had trouble drawing fans to Philips Arena even in good seasons, let alone the past few years when the team has struggled. The challenge for the new ownership group is to somehow make the Hawks interesting to Atlanta's notoriously apathetic pro sports fans.

Of course, it all starts with the product on the court, and Atlanta is bound to struggle for the next two years. The Hawks have a great arena and a thriving metropolis to draw on; they just need to give people a reason to come to the games. Ownership can look forward to scads of salary cap room in 2005, but nobody buys a ticket to see salary cap space, so that's hardly a marketing gem. Creating some buzz around the team will be a Herculean task, especially since they just traded their top scorer for a corpse, but it's a necessary one if the new owners don't want the arena to be a 20,000-seat mausoleum.

Atlanta's best chance, in all reality, is winning the draft lottery. In the meantime, if the team is as bad as it looks on paper, there could be some depressingly small crowds this season. The few remaining fans can at least take solace in Atlanta's strong corporate base, which is the only thing keeping a team in the city.

Bleak. The Hawks have no superstars. They have no bench. Heck, they have no shooting guards or small forwards. And their salary cap situation doesn't improve until 2005. About the only good news for Hawks fans is that they can look forward to a quick getaway from the parking lot after the game.

John Hollinger covers basketball for SI.com and is the author of Pro Basketball Prospectus. Click here to send him a question or comment.