Atlanta Hawks should steer clear of Joe Dumars

The Hawks Should Stay Away

That’s just the beginning of Dumars’ reign of terror. He also helped contribute to the demise of Josh Smith, signing him to a lucrative, long-term deal following his tenure here in Atlanta. 

Smith let his game get as bad as he could after leaving the Hawks. He got bloated and puffed up, determined to shoot his way towards oblivion. At one point during his first season as a Piston, his field goal percentage was 33 percent to go along with 17.7 percent on threes.

For Dumars to expect Smith to mesh well in a starting lineup that already consisted of Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond, was yet another bad move. Almost encouraging “Smoove” to navigate the perimeter.

Dumars also felt it would be beneficial to execute a sign and trade with the Milwaukee Bucks to acquire Brandon Jennings. During the summer of 2013, he sent both Brandon Knight and Khris Middleton to the Bucks for the right to sign Jennings, who was a restricted free agent, to a three-year, $25 million contract.

You could recall, Jennings had a history of torching the Hawks with his shoot-first, playground swagger. He had his moments and was impressive at times, but that’s an awful trade.

Nobody wanted to sign Jennings that summer to the big money contract he thought he was worth, then the Pistons swooped in at the back end of free agency to initiate a deal that turned out to be great for the Bucks.

Khris Middleton is now on the edge of stardom, as he is one of the premier shooting guards the league has to offer. Jennings went on to average 14.1 points and 6.6 assists in three years with the Pistons. He shot a woeful 38.1 percent from the field over the course of those three seasons. 

These are merely the highlights of his various troubles as the President of Basketball Operations and General Manager of the Detroit Pistons. It took a lot of hard work for him to consistently keep the Pistons in the basement of the Eastern Conference.

When I heard Hawks principal owner Tony Ressler on the flagship station of the Hawks, 92.9 The Game,proclaim that “a high basketball IQ” was important the first thing I thought was, then why consider Joe Dumars?

The Hawks aren’t going to win a title without getting a superstar talent. So if the reason for the link to Dumars is to try to repeat how the Pistons won their championship, that’s worrisome.

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At least with Griffin, they’ll know they’d have someone that has experience with acquiring superstars. For the Hawks to breakthrough, they have to do what they haven’t done before and get those players however they can.