Hawks Grades and Some Braves off season updates

The Atlanta Hawks have come out of the gates swinging haymakers. New coach Larry Drew has added in his motion offense and the numbers dont lie. In 3/4 games the Hawks have scored 30+ points in the opening quarter including 40 last night against the Cavs. At almost 106 ppg the Hawks are among the league leaders in PPG. Averaging around 22 assists a game we are moving the ball very well and getting a lot of easy baskets. What grade would you give the Hawks early on?

Mike Bibby and Jamal Crawford: A

• Mike Bibby has a 7.5/1 assist to TO ratio thru the first 4 games! That kind of production is impressive regardless of how many games you have played.
• Crawford appears to be just fine as he is averaging around 16 ppg.

Yo No Creo

Joe Johnson, Josh Smith and Marvin Williams: A

• Josh Smith has been an absolute stud right out of the gate. The other night he blocked 3 shots in about a 12 second span with 1 of them just being ridiculous. Josh Smith can make me want to pull my hair out sometimes but when he has his head screwed on right he is easily one of the best overall players in the league
• Everyone knows im not a Joe fan but thus far you cant argue 21, 5 and 5 is not to bad. Is it worth 20 million? No, but it is what it is.
• Marvin Williams will never live up to being the #2 pick in the draft since we passed on CP3 but I will take 10 and 5 from him all day.

Al Horford and ZaZa: A

• Horford is a man child and has been offered a 5 year extension worth 60 million. 15 and 10 will make you some serious cash in the NBA and Horford deserves everything he gets. I have liked Horford from the get go and its no surprise he is the leader of this team. The man comes to play every night and plays hard.
• ZaZa might be my favortie player on the team. Ever since he stared KG down and told him to get the hell out of OUR building I have loved this guy. He only plays about 19 minutes a game but grabs around 6 or 7 boards and chips in 8-10 consistantly.

The Bench: B

• I would like to see Jordan Crawford get some more minutes as I think he could be a real scoring weapon later on in the season. The bench has been good thus far nothing to rave about but solid.

Team Grade: A

• The Hawks have always struggled winning away from the Highlight Factory so winning their first 3 road games is a major plus! We come home to play the crappy Pistons tonight before heading back out to play Minnesota. I fully expect the Hawks to win both games and be 6-0 to start the season. Unfortunately for us we play in the East with teams like the Heat, Celtics and Magic.

The Braves excersized their options on both Alex Gonzalez and Omar Infante yesterday. I like both the moves and this gives the braves some solid defense and hitting on the cheap. I also heard on the radio that some Japanese teams weer interested in getting Kamakazi. This is music to my ears. Hopefully we can dump him and get that waste of money of our books.