Joe Johnson staying in Atlanta

[shadowgrin]

Keeping Johnson now gives the Hawks a legitimate shot at winning the Eastern Conference next season.

You may think this is crazy

[Andrew]

So...the article gets off to a pretty bad start by misusing the word "cajoling", unless I'm misunderstanding the context. Then it claims overpaying Johnson was a good idea because other teams would have; in other words, something isn't stupid if others are stupid enough (or would be stupid enough) to do it too. He also refers to Kelly Dwyer as "Ms"; since Dwyer is a man, he's either ignorant or lamely suggesting he's a woman to belittle his take. Yeah, take that KD!

Fair point that it may not be the absolute worst contract in history, but to me that's splitting hairs and still doesn't make it a good move. Just because it's not the worst thing you could do doesn't mean it's a good thing to do. Similarly, he suggests a couple of ideas that probably aren't that much better. Again, a couple of similarly undesirable moves doesn't make the one you did make a good move. By that logic, we could say that the Bulls trading Elton Brand for Tyson Chandler wasn't such a bad move, because they didn't trade him to the Wizards for the first pick and take Kwame Brown.

He then ignores the improvement of other Hawks players like Josh Smith, suggests the Hawks are poised to become the top contender to come out of the East and that the move demonstrates a commitment to winning. All in all, I think benji summed it up quite nicely: least convincing column ever.