10 Players the Atlanta Hawks held onto for too long
By Eric Fritts
Mike Bibby
In 2008 Atlanta sent four players to the Sacramento Kings in exchange for point guard Mike Bibby. BIbby was a big name at the time, well known for his time as the point guard of the team that nearly beat the Lakers in the Conference Championships in 2001.
By the time he got to the Hawks, though he wasn’t done, he was past his prime. Despite this, he put up decent numbers his first couple of years with the Hawks, until being traded in 2011. He hit the point guard wall and retired in 2012. This begs the question: why trade for him in the first place?
The idea was to build around the pieces the Hawks already had, and acquiring Bibby was a risk. But with Bibby, the team was perennially average, and for him to be traded when he was, makes one think that they would have been better off moving him the year before, or avoiding the initial trade altogether.