Back in 2004, the Atlanta Hawks were a pretty bad team. With a heavy payroll and a team fading out of any playoff chances, the Hawks made the move to deal Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Theo Ratliff to the Portland Trail Blazers for Rasheed Wallace. The move freed up cap space for the Hawks in the future, but the Hawks had bigger plans, dealing Wallace 10 days later to the Detroit Pistons.

I had Michael Lee on the podcast to talk this remarkable moment. Mike covered the Hawks as a beat writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was there when the Hawks made the two trades and saw Wallace’s only game in a Hawks uniform against the New Jersey Nets.

For this podcast, Mike and I discussed the two Wallace trades, those 2003-04 Hawks that committed to tanking, his start in journalism, his passion for art, and some of the interesting cast of characters from that Hawks team. This included Terry Stotts, Jason Terry, Stephen Jackson, Boris Diaw and more. 

Download Episode 52