Atlanta Hawks: Erick Dampier signed; Josh Smith snubbed?

Here is my AJC story on the Hawks signing Erick Dampier to a 10-day contract. Here is my other AJC story on Joe Johnson making the All-Star team and Josh Smith being left off. AJC wise guy weighed in on the Smoove Snub. Now I will take a stab at figuring out if ‘Damp’ can help the Hawks. Dampier is a big dude. Maybe he’s too big. He was last listed at 265 but, based on what I saw today, I’d say he’s at least 20 pounds north of that. (Sorry for the lack of visual evidence. I hate my phone.) I know the pool of free-agent centers is dreadfully shallow but Dampier never was the fleetest guy so now I wonder how effective he can be with the added weight. The biggest red flags for Dampier last season were drastic declines in his scoring and rebounding rates. The two are related because Dampier didn’t grab as many offensive boards and so didn’t have as many putbacks. But Dampier still was effective when he managed to collect misses: His 1.1 points s...