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Don Waddell Spoke To Over Twenty Interested Groups, According To AJC

The most insulting thing about this story isn't that Don Waddell is still employed by the Atlanta Spirit Group, but that the individuals who were constantly in the news as expressing interest were never interviewed by the AJC (EDIT: As Vivlamore pointed out to me, they were interviewed. No story highlighting any of these individuals was published to the best of my memory, though i could be wrong), nor was anything ever investigated past what the ASG and Waddell said.

According to the AJC's Chris Vivlamore, Waddell talked to several groups interested in purchasing the team, but fate would not let the Thrashers stay in Atlanta. One was a Midwestern family that was introduced to Tom Glavine. Everything seemed golden until a member of the family became seriously ill and they had to abandon the purchase.

Waddell remains in his job while more than twenty employees were fired Monday, while countless others lost their jobs over this process. While I have never doubted Waddell's dedication to the franchise or the fact that his decisions were made with the team's best interests in mind (and never managed to work out correctly), the fact remains that he is still one of the more incompetent GMs on record, and that his tenure possibly hastened this team's departure from the city.

Waddell promised people that the Thrashers'd be here in September shortly before the Atlanta Hawks began their playoff run. Apparently he only meant himself.

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Photographs by coka_koehler used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.