Atlantaholic

21 minutes ago, BrazilianHawk said:

My goodness, what size are Bey's shoes???

Has KD length on those toes. 

Trae's finally in a heater hope it lasts for the rest of the season.

2 minutes ago, terrell said:

Trae found his shot..

How can you go from absolutely horrible to the past 2 games? 

You should be familiar with Trae's game by now fam.

50 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

If OO is only playing 22 mpg, then fouls be damned. Just let him play. He's got 3 fouls per half, might as well let him use them. 30 minutes, 5 fouls...let's go.

I agree, but I also think it's not the only factor. There are some matchups where we need Clint because OO is simply too small. 

1 minute ago, kg01 said:

Come on over to the Darkseid, Aholic.  You know they're all trassh.  I could come up with a defensive metric that makes any player a "good defender", just by manipulating what stats and weights I decide to put in the calculation. 

I don't think they are all trash, but none are perfect that's for sure. It's possible to look at a constellation of different measures to get an idea about a player's defensive ability and value. Especially when you have large sample sizes (several seasons) available and you see the same trends time and time again. 

1 minute ago, AHF said:

On the fouling, OO is sitting at 5 personal fouls per 36 right now which is right on par with last year (4.9) and close to his career average (5.2).

Feel like we need squirrely vet big man to help teach him some tricks of the trade to avoid drawing fouls.  (Not to avoid fouling but to avoid being called for fouls.  Preferably with techniques other than "put on a Heat jersey.")

Yea, it's extremely frustrating how he can't stay on the floor. He's valueable when he's out there. 

1 minute ago, AHF said:

I'm not big on using those numbers to compare players across teams either.  You get stuff like "Steve Kerr is a much better defender and player than Joe Dumars because Kerr has a 104 DRTG and +17 net rating while Dumars is a much worse 115 DRTG and -5 net rating."  (See 1993-94 numbers).  DRTG isn't really meant for comparison purposes like that.

Even comparing within teams isn't particularly useful.  Hunter and Trae have very similar DRTGs for their career even though Hunter is clearly the better defensive player.  It is just because DRTG isn't really intended to be a measure of the quality of a player's defense.

Exactly, even within the same team it's flawed for sure. It's still dependant on the other four guys who are playing alongside the player. Like if we look at Brunson, he is at 114 DRTG when the Knicks as a team are at 110. So he's -4 compared to his team average. Trae is at 121 vs 119 team average so he is -2. Is Trae a much better defender than Brunson? 

Just a stat that says nothing,

Just now, kg01 said:

True but that's partly because he can't stop fouling.  Out there defending like a human windmill, just a-swingin' at everything.  

Don't get me wrong, I'm just venting.  I'm still a fan. 

Oh of course, yea a lot of it is the foul issues, not sure why he can't solve that. 

Just now, kg01 said:

We needed OO to make a jump, desperately.  I still like him but I'm getting some Taj Gibson vibes and I don't like it. 

I don't know. Biggest issue is he barely plays. He's at 22mpg.

21 minutes ago, kg01 said:

Notably, Trae was just as good (bad) then that he is now.  The difference is nobody else is picking up the slack.

He was significantly worse on defense for sure. But terrible or decent Trae's defense isn't the needle mover on that end. 

7 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

He's not the best defender on the squad anymore. That's Hunter. That said, Capela was the clear #2 behind legendary ATG defensive player, Gobert. Both got worse on defense but Capela while still a good defender ain't what he used to be. He just don't have the athleticism he used to have. 

Yea man, he wasn't blowing open dunks back then that's for sure. 

Just now, JayBirdHawk said:

Noted GM pet peeve - freethrows

21 point differential in 3s

I Keep asking who is the Yang on defense to Trae's Ying on offense?

When the Hawks made their run in 2020-2021 Clint had a DPOY type of season, and the Hawks were actually playing defense under Nate. Can't find the number but I'm pretty sure they showed it in one of the late season telecasts that the Hawks under Nate that year after the LP firing were 1st in Ortg, and around 12th in Drtg. That's kind of where you need to be to make a run. Clint isn't horrible now or anything, he's still clearly the best defender on the team, but he isn't anywhere near that level anymore, probably around top 15 or 20 on defense rather than top 3. 

1 minute ago, Atlantaholic said:

My bro we get swept by New York without Trae Young. 

I mean not to mention the Hawks don't sniff the playoffs.

1 minute ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

Time to lower your expectations.

 

I'm now wondering if he's on the full Quin buy in as @thecampster indicated he wasn't when Q first arrived.

HIs ceiling is his floor. He's put up the same season every season he's been in the league. 

8 minutes ago, benhillboy said:

Today marks the first time Trae has had a 120 offensive rating on the season in his career.  Unfortunately like the rest of his career it’s trumped by his career worst defensive rating of 121.  Both values are inflated due to his FT shooting for the former and Clint’s drop off for the latter but still in line with his historically underwater impact.

Haliburton (139 to 122), SGA (124 to 105), and Brunson (121 to 114) are simply in a different class of mapping and controlling a game.  Always have been and will be seeing how they play alongside younger and/ or less talented players as floor raisers.  Fox, Morant, and Ball are his impact peers for the future: great individual stats but no real force-multiplying ability.  He’s clearly superior to Garland.

Trae's defensive rating is along the lines of everyone else on the team. Drtg is a stat he shares with the people that are in the lineup when he plays. 

11 minutes ago, benhillboy said:

Have I been under a rock or something?  The Hawks have averaged a 24th ranked defense over the last 5+ seasons.  Who in their right mind would expect a fix is possible?  It’s an organizational blind spot, top to bottom.

Trae used to be the scapegoat, but his defense has been pretty decent last half season and to start this year and the Hawks are still terrible. 

1 minute ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

DJ really can't defend at PG either.  He's great in the passing lanes though and getting deflections at times.  His defensive stance is poor at best, and he doesn't get physical with people, like most good defenders do.

Trae is getting a lot better in playing passing lanes, which increases his defensive value.  Loved the charge he took last night. He may have to look to do more of that vs bigger players to prevent giving up easy baskets to them.  Use smarts to get those fouls, ala how Chris Paul used to do.

Hunter is good at on ball defense, but poor everywhere else, which diminishes his defensive value.  He is just not an impact defender, and it shows in just about every way you look at his defense.

JJ loses his man at times ball watching ( which the entire team does ).  He contests a lot of shots, but mainly because he's scrambling to get back to his man, or cover for someone else at the rim who got beat off the dribble.

Clint and OO are still solid around the rim, but defending out in space is definitely not their strong suit.

Scheme is definitely the issue.  The scheme has enhanced their ability to produce turnovers, but also has enhanced the amount of open 3s and back cuts that the opponents are getting.

They provided the exact same terrible defense last year in a different scheme.

2 hours ago, BrazilianHawk said:

We can't even beat the Knicks... 

A few more games like this and we'll be competing against CHA/DET/WAs for top picks in next draft. 

 

The Knicks are really good this year. They will be fighting for a 4th/5th seed with Indy. If Trae has finally turned the corner we may be in that mix for the 4th/5th, but if Trae is going to shoot around or under 43% this season we are probably fighting for a play in spot once again.

Just now, NBASupes said:

Bro, no one cares about those numbers when he's a turnover machine with horrendous shot selection and woat defense. Bro was a chucking machine and got exposed viciously by Miami. 

This verison is easily better. Trae shot selection is actually decent now. He's not a turnover machine anymore. He's giving effort on defense. Come on man, ya'll live and die on stats that mean nothing. 

1 minute ago, NBASupes said:

Bro, no one cares about those numbers when he's a turnover machine with horrendous shot selection and woat defense. Bro was a chucking machine and got exposed viciously by Miami. 

This verison is easily better. Trae shot selection is actually decent now. He's not a turnover machine anymore. He's giving effort on defense. Come on man, ya'll live and die on stats that mean nothing. 

Shooting 46%/38% isn't meaningless lmao. How many conference finals did John Wall make? Trae had an awful series against Miami, doesn't negate his fantastic regular season. Butler had an even worse series the year before, doesn't mean he is a bum. It's a five game sample. I'm not saying Trae Young was perfect, but he was a top 10 player that year, and better than John Wall ever has been. 

1 minute ago, NBASupes said:

This is peak Trae Young. I haven't seen a verison better than this

Trae Young averaged 29ppg 9apg while shooting 46%/38% (60%TS) leading the Hawks to the #2 offensive rating in the NBA on a team where John Collins was the second leading scorer at 16ppg. He ranked second in the NBA in offensive Raptor and 12th in WAR that season. John Wall never did anything like that.

1 minute ago, NBASupes said:

He's was better. I watched a lot of both. Believe me on this one. Sadly Wall prime last long. 

He was better than the current version of Trae for sure, but nowhere near as good as peak Trae. 

Just now, Diesel said:

I don't disagree. 

I believe that coaching has a lot to do with it. 

Under Nate.. the your turn, my turn offense showed no creativity and was a hindrance for both of them.  DJ never found his place and the ball stayed glued to Trae.  We haven't had that under Quin.   We're learning Quin's system but... we look much better in his system than in the Nate System. 

I mean, I agree the offense will be better, but Nate's offense, for the record, wasn't bad. It was 7th in the NBA. (right now we are 6th). Assuming Trae returns at least to last year's form we should probably be top 5 maybe top 3 if he gets back to his peak form. But the issue isn't offense. We can't stop anyone. We haven't been able to stop anyone for around 170 games now.