joe johnson to atlanta

[TexasAggie2005]

I'm not misinterpreting anything.

Some guys have it, some guys don't. Diaw doesn't.

As for the personal attacks, look in the mirror pal. There was the "you're an idiot" thing, and now you've tried to pull the "Aggie" card twice.

Look, if you can't take a little ribbing when you come in here saying Diaw is anything better than a towel waver, maybe you need to stay off the message boards for a while.

You've misrepresented everything I've said. I never called Diaw the "Chosen One", Baby Jordan, etc. I never said the Hawks didn't need a center, etc. You've tried to take my argument that he's a decent player with potential and make it look like I'm a huge fan of his. If you look at the original post, all I was saying is that he's a decent player they might be able to include in a trade for shooting. That's it.

And then you started insulting me. I don't want to sound like a little kid, but if you're gonna start insulting me.....

As for staying off the boards, that's your call. Tell me to stop posting, and I'll never say another word. School's about to start anyhow and this has turned into a colossal waste of time. Apparently Internet message boards are only for the cool people with 10 thousand gazillion posts, so if you want me off your board, fine (no offense intended for the people with 10 thousand gazillion intelligent posts). Awesomely warm reception I received here, anyhow.

[T Park]

TPark, who are you talking about when you say Crawford? Chris Crawford?

Yeah hes blown his knee out like 5 times or something and keeps coming back and hurting it again.

Im sure he wont be back

If they dont go with Rasho itll be
Collier
probobly like NDyie or some more filler NBDL stiffs
Mikki Moore, along that ilk.


BTW, Ive had my beefs with Rasho Nesterovic, but I've been the lone gunman on his bandwagon from day 1.

Ill reiterate, if getting a small forward, means trading him, do it.

But don't just do it to save money.

Having 2 big shot blockers like Nazr and Rasho is an unreal edge for the team.

[Kori Ellis]

Yeah hes blown his knee out like 5 times or something and keeps coming back and hurting it again.

Im sure he wont be back

Crawford has worked out with five or more NBA teams, trying to get someone to pick him up. I heard that the Nets might.

[TheDude]

Can't blame the guy for trying, hes either got heart, or is in a hole of debt.

[1Parker1]

Pheonix is still a great team. If they didn't have the Spurs as their biggest road blockers...I'd say they would have still had a great chance to win the WCF.

Steve Nash, Marion, and Amare coupled with Bell and Thomas and Diaw is still a pretty good team. Suns had no option here. JJ admitted he wanted to go to the Hawks (God knows why ), why would they spend $70 mil on a guy that doesn't want to be there?

I still think Suns will make a good run for it. Losing JJ isn't what's going to break them.......it's trying to get away from the successful running/passing game they had last year that will. They could still have that with the guys they have now.

[tophy7]

Don't know if this has been posted yet but check this.

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/suns...1suns0801.html

"Johnson told several people that being a third option on the Suns was "unacceptable." He reportedly resented teammates' star treatment and disliked Amaré Stoudemire after a March halftime incident in Miami.

After Dwyane Wade's 19-point half, Stoudemire barked at Johnson in front of the team: "Are you going to play any (expletive) defense?"

Stoudemire got seven shots in the next game and then sat out two with ankle inflammation. Johnson played his best ball after that but told friends he would never re-sign."

[Spurminator]

Juicy!

[BillsCarnage]

Juicy!

Oh yeah, the Phx forums have been a blaze with the whole JoJo fiasco.

[Horry For 3!]

Joe Johnson: Traded for Boris Diaw

RotoWire.com Staff - RotoWire.com
Monday, August 1, 2005
Update: Johnson has been traded to Atlanta for Boris Diaw and two future first-round draft picks, ESPNews reports.

Recommendation: Johnson had said he wanted to join the Hawks after agreeing to a contract, so the two sides worked out a sign-and-trade deal. Full details will follow when NBA teams are allowed to make transactions official on Tuesday.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Methinks Joe Johnson will set an NBA record for threes in a game when Phoenix and Atlanta tangle next year.

[spurschick]

Fans only loser in JJ saga
FanBoy
azcentral.com
Aug. 1, 2005 04:20 PM

Flashback about two months ago when the city was in the grips of Suns fever. The Suns were three games from reaching the NBA Finals, had beaten some tough teams in thrilling fashion in their playoff run and were playing the most entertaining basketball anyone had seen in at least 12 years.

So how did we go from that to where we all find ourselves now: Scratching our heads on how easily this team has been dismantled and trying to figure out who the heck Boris Diaw is.

Over the next couple of days we are going to hear conflicting comments from both the Suns' brass and Joe Johnson. Robert Sarver and company will say how they did everything they could to keep JJ but ultimately it was his choice to leave, while JJ's camp will say that he really wanted to stay with the Suns but he didn't get the respect he deserved from management.

You can believe whomever you want, but ultimately both Sarver and JJ come out winners, while the real losers in this saga are the fans who live and die by what happens with their team.

At the end of the day Sarver can go back to counting his millions or buying yachts or whatever millionaires do with their free time, and JJ can head to the "Dirty South" and pretend he is the man. He can buy himself his new Hummer or Escalade and go about playing on the Clippers East and become an anonymous player on a losing team. I hope JJ finds some joy in his new and improved bank account because he isn't going to get it from what is going to happen on the court. The money better be worth it because the closest he is going to get to the playoffs is as a guest analyst on TNT.

If the reports are true about how JJ was upset about a comment Amare Stoudamire made about him not playing defense, then he is more fragile than everyone thought. Just wait until the Hawks fans start heckling him after the losses start piling up. Or worse yet, don't heckle him since attendance at Phillips Arena is the second worst in the NBA. With money comes responsibility, and if he wants to be the man in Atlanta, he can't fly under the radar like he did here. He will be the first player the press will go to when things start to go wrong and he better be able to deal with that.

It blows my mind how quickly JJ can forget the love and admiration this city and its fans showed him when he fractured his orbital bone. The ovation he received upon his first visit to AWA after surgery was the loudest I heard the arena all season. How can he trade that in for the fickle and indifferent crowds that will surely greet him in Atlanta?

Only JJ can answer that question and he will quickly realize that all the money in the world won't fulfill his goal of getting the respect he deserves. You earn respect by winning les; ask Robert Horry about that.

The only explanation I can come up with is that JJ wasn't all that keen on winning a le. Sure, it'd be nice to put on his resume, but it isn't as nice as a spot on Cribs showing off his 10 new flat screen TVs.

Sarver is just as guilty and comes out just as tainted in this mess. Bob Young brought up a good point on Monday when he said that Sarver never really wanted to keep JJ and was simply looking for an out.

If Sarver was serious about keeping JJ, he would simply sign him and let Mike D'Antoni figure out a way to make it work. Sarver has all the control in the situation and he decided it was better to let JJ go and save his pennies.

For as much as people have made fun of Mark Cuban as an owner, he would never have dismantled his team like this. Cuban decided not to re-sign Nash last season after repeated failed attempts of winning a le. It was probably time to try something new and he took the bitter pill and let Nash walk.

In this case Sarver is taking apart this team after only one season, one in which the Suns exceeded all expectations. All this maneuvering is simply to save money, not to make them more compe ive.

Now the Suns have lost two starters from what was easily the second or third best team in the NBA last season and have changed course midstream. They may insist that the philosophy will not change, but how can they replace 400-plus three pointers? The answer is, they can't. And as much as the Suns made a point of saying their style was predicated on fast breaks and pushing the ball up court, the three-point shot was just as important; now suddenly that arrow is gone from the Suns' quiver.

So I hope JJ and Sarver are happy. They both got what they wanted all along. The only recourse the fans have is to boo JJ every time he touches the ball when he makes his yearly trip out here. Sarver, on the hand, better get ready to see a lot of fingers at AWA next season - and I'm not talking about the purple foam ones.

[boutons]

"The only recourse the fans have is to boo JJ"

huh? only? This is $$AMERICA. All-American JJ went for the money.

Dallas had a great year in 02/03
NJ had 2 great years.
PHX had last season.
Lakers and Wolves had a great year then missed the playoffs.

But the Spurs get their 55+ wins every year, get to the playoffs, win 3 les.

Spurs fans need to realize how lucky we are with repeated, annual success that is rest on the foundation of Greg Popovich and the organization he has built AND MAINTAINED its stability for 8 or 9 years now.

[sickdsm]

I've always been like me.Why ask it in the first place?

Why ask the question that only you were wondering in the first place then also?

[190 Octane]

So I hope JJ and Sarver are happy. They both got what they wanted all along. The only recourse the fans have is to boo JJ every time he touches the ball when he makes his yearly trip out here. Sarver, on the hand, better get ready to see a lot of fingers at AWA next season - and I'm not talking about the purple foam ones.

Awesome!

I don't know how much this Joe Johnson situation has to do with money so much as it has to do with egoes. Johnson's probably bruised last summer when Sarver came in and dumped $43.5 million in Quentin Richardson's lap - what anyone saw in him, I don't know- and another $65 million in Steve Nash's, while never even giving Johnson so much as a mention of extension.

Johnson's ego also took a beating when he was averaging a healthy 17 ppg and 5 rpg while shooting 48% from behind the arch, yet it took a broken cheek in the Playoffs for him to get any publicity. Phoenix media spent more time on 1. Nash 2. Stoudemire 3. Richardson 4. Sarver 5. Marion 6. D'Antoni, in that order, ahead of Johnson, for most of the regular season.

Robert Sarver, meanwhile, seems more concerned with getting face time down at courtside, waving his foam finger and dunking off of trampolines at timeouts, then he does anything else.

Johnson and Sarver are a couple of children, particularly JJ who would rather take his ball and go home than win. It makes me glad I'm a Spurs fan. It's as if San Antonio is the eye of a hurricane - with the rest of the league being the hurricane.

[Extra Stout]

This is a weird feeling.

There are no legitimate rivals to the Spurs in the Western Conference.

The Suns have peaked. Dallas can't beat the Spurs. The Rockets are at least a year away. The Nuggets aren't there. Everybody else is mediocre. The other serious contenders are all in the East.

The entire 2005-06 season and the Western Conference playoffs seem like a mere formality preceding a return to the Finals unless Tim gets hurt, in which case one of the pretenders will get through only to get whacked around by the Eastern champion.

The era of the dominant Western Conference is over.

[190 Octane]

The era of the dominant Western Conference is over.

Seriously. Houston looks like a decent team especially after brining in Swift, but needs some bench support badly. Memphis has made some good moves, like shipping out Bonzi and bringing in Kirk Snyder/Damon Stoudamire/Bobby Jackson, but they have no post presence aside from Pau Gasol. Dallas can't play enough defense or score enough points to even think of contending with the Spurs.

Honestly, there's nothing standing in the Spurs way of a 65-win season, save for injuries.

[TheTruth]

Seriously. Houston looks like a decent team especially after brining in Swift, but needs some bench support badly. Memphis has made some good moves, like shipping out Bonzi and bringing in Kirk Snyder/Damon Stoudamire/Bobby Jackson, but they have no post presence aside from Pau Gasol. Dallas can't play enough defense or score enough points to even think of contending with the Spurs.

Honestly, there's nothing standing in the Spurs way of a 65-win season, save for injuries.

Knock on wood.

The only thing that Swift does for the Rockets is bring their median age down below 35. Phoenix could lose JJ, Dallas is still soft, Memphis still sucks, and SacTown's best post player is Brad Miller. The West sucks now.

[ChumpDumper]

Why ask the question that only you were wondering in the first place then also?

I had already typed and posted the question.

[sickdsm]

How do you edit a post without having the info at the bottom saying you edited it?

Just wondering

[BillsCarnage]

Dallas can't play enough defense or score enough points to even think of contending with the Spurs.

But according to you from another thread that should make them good enough for the #4 spot in the west, correct? Even though they'll be #3 in the division?

Honestly, there's nothing standing in the Spurs way of a 65-win season, save for injuries.

Always one clown willing to jinx their team, but manage to save full mockery if an "injury" occurs.

Homerism at it's best.

[T Park]

Homerism at it's best.

You mean like when you think that Raja Bell can guard Manu Ginobili?!?

[Kori Ellis]

You mean like when you think that Raja Bell can guard Manu Ginobili?!?

Well Manu said that. So, I don't think you guys should keep killing the messenger on that point. Manu, Pop, and the rest of the Spurs think very highly of Raja as a defender (despite the fact that Manu has torched him the past).

[BillsCarnage]

You mean like when you think that Raja Bell can guard Manu Ginobili?!?

I didn't say Bell could guard Manu. Manu said Bell could guard him. He doesn't like playing against Bell which is why he called to whine. Nothing more.

[BillsCarnage]

Well Manu said that. So, I don't think you guys should keep killing the messenger on that point. Manu, Pop, and the rest of the Spurs think very highly of Raja as a defender (despite the fact that Manu has torched him the past).

But Kori, what else are they to do when they're not fighting with each other??

[Kori Ellis]

which is why he called to whine.

I was defending you and you say something stupid.

I don't think Manu called specifically to say that. It was just something he said while he was on the phone with his agent.