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| Kirk Hinrich: He's a solid pro, not a savior. (AJC photo by Curtis Compton) |
Kirk Hinrich
nba trades
The Hawks make a trade, but it’s not the trade they needed
Hawks needed to make a trade in the worst way, and the trade they made was not the worst ever. That's OK. Not great, not terrible. Just OK.
They sent Mike Bibby, who was too old and not really a point guard again and imported Kirk Hinrich, who's a good player but that is not exclusively his own point guard. They shed Mo Evans, who disposed of, and Jordan Crawford, about the promises they just raved last summer, and acquired Hilton Armstrong, who is an average of 1.9 points and 2.8 rebounds.
Best-case scenario: Hinrich does his hybrid-guard act — he used to be quite good at it, but his numbers haven’t been anything special the past four seasons — and puts the other Hawks in the right position and this team manages to win a first-round series.
Worst-case scenario: Hinrich fails to mesh with Joe Johnson — say what you want about Bibby, but he and Johnson made a nice tandem — and the Hawks, who have bombed out in Round 2 the past two seasons, bomb out in Round 1 this spring.
Either way, the addition of Hinrich and Armstrong is no cause for re-calibration of this team’s ceiling. The Hawks aren’t much different today than they’ve been for the past three years. They’re a pretty good team in an Eastern Conference that keeps getting more competitive at the top.
If the notion was to find a galvanizing talent at this deadline, they failed. The man that would have remade the local club just got traded to New Jersey, and he was, fittingly enough, one of the two famous men on whom general manager Billy Knight passed to draft Marvin Williams in 2005. Utah moved to trade Deron Williams, and the Hawks apparently weren’t in the bidding. (Deron Williams was picked one spot ahead of Chris Paul, and the two have long ranked, to the Hawks’ lasting chagrin, among the NBA’s five best point guards.)
Instead the Hawks landed Hinrich, who’s a solid pro but not an All-Star, and Armstrong, who’s a younger Jason Collins. And it’s clear the Hawks were the desperate party here: Why else trade three players for two and throw in a first-round pick to boot? That’s a high price to pay for a hybrid guard who was made superfluous in Chicago by Derrick Rose and who isn’t needed in Washington because of John Wall.
Say this, though, for Rick Sund: At least he did something. At least he acknowledged what had become blatant: This team as constituted had reached its peak and was on the descent. It hasn’t fallen to pieces yet — it’s still fifth in the East — and it’s surely too talent to collapse utterly, but the talent that had been compiled and nurtured by both Knight and Sund has topped out. It needs something else, even if the something else is little more than change for change’s sake.
Two NBA teams had had the same starting lineup since February 2008: One is the Celtics, who’ve won a title and graced another NBA final; the other was the Hawks, who hadn’t managed to win a game beyond the first round. Bibby was the last of that starting five to arrive — he came by way of a February deal with Sacramento — and he wasn’t the Bibby of old at any time in his Atlanta stay. But he was a solid pro who knew how to play, and without him these Hawks might never have made the playoffs at all.
Now he’s gone, and it was past time for him to leave. This trade is probably enough to keep the Hawks ahead of the Knicks in the East, probably not enough to elevate them above Orlando for fourth place. It gives them hope in the sense that something has been done, but the right something again eluded this franchise. Deron Williams, the guy they needed back in 2005 and needed today, got traded on Wednesday, and it wasn’t to the Hawks.
NBA Trade Deadline: Kirk Hinrich traded to Hawks for Mike Bibby, Jordan Crawford, first-round pick
It looks like Kirk Hinrich is indeed on his way out the door. The Wizards' guard has been in trade rumors all season, and now it looks like he's heading to the Atlanta Hawks.
Michael Lee says that it's Jordan Crawford, not Jamal Crawford, that is coming back to the Wizards.
Kirk Hinrich not playing tonight. #wizards in talks with ATL (for Jordan Crawford), but no deal yet. Could happen soon, according to source ...
A lot of players would obviously have to be involved because of salaries, but I heard Jordan, not Jamal Crawford. #wizards
Meanwhile, David Aldridge of NBA.com has the specific trade.
Wiz trading Hinrich/Hilton Armstrong 2 ATL 4 Jordan Crawford, Bibby, Mo Evans, first
If this is the Hawks' pick this year, it will likely be in the early- to mid-20s. The Wizards only save about $500,000 next season, as Bibby and Crawford combine to make about $7.5 million in 2012, whereas Hinrich makes $8 million.
My first reaction is that I don't really like this trade, though the first-round pick is kind of nice.
Tags: gerald wallace, nba trades, chauncey billups, nba trade rumors, portland trail blazers
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