The Atlanta Hawks were frustrated by the play of their point guards last season so they decided to fix that in the draft.  The Hawks selected Acie Earl with the 11th pick in the first round of the NBA Draft.  Earl was a shoot first point guard at Texas A&M but that doesn’t bother the Hawks one bit as they just want a starter that can contribute.  Earl is 6′3″, 195 pounds so he should be able to handle defending some of the bigger point guards in the league.  He played in 122 games at Texas A&M and he averaged 13.7 points, 3.1 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.3 steals per game.  He also is a pretty good shooter as he hit 46.6% from the floor, 35.7% from three point range and 76% from the free throw line.  Earl should have very little trouble winning the starting job at the point for the Hawks.

The Atlanta Hawks resisted trade offers for their draft picks and they selected a couple of pretty good players.  Horford was picked #3 in the first round by the Hawks.  Horford is a 6′10″, 245 pound power forward from Florida.  It will be interesting to see what the Hawks do to fix their logjam at the position seeing how they already have Marvin Williams and Shelded Williams there.  Horford will do his best to make their decision a tough one and he definately has the skill to beat those guys out and start from Day #1.  He played in 109 games at Florida and he averaged 10.3 points, 7.9 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 0.9 steals and 1.7 blocks per game.  He doesn’t have much range as a lot of his shots are from close range which explains his 58.6% shooting from the floor and his 62.4% free throw shooting.