Atlantaholic

10 hours ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Sigh.

This.is.not.it! 

Timing matters.

And returns

On 12/13/2023 at 1:58 PM, AHF said:

I am because refs consistently reward coaches and players that are very vocal about their displeasure.  That is why Phil Jackson used to strategically and extremely publicly call things out about the refs.  That is why Coach K loudly cussed up a blue streak screaming at the refs.  The vast majority of the guys getting tons of calls complain a lot about the refs.  Why would star players and coaches do that unless it worked?  They aren't all just stupid and emotional.  LeBron, for example, is someone who is notorious for flopping and complaining to the refs when he doesn't get calls and the primary reason he does all that is to get more calls.

Yup, it puts preassure on the refs. Despite what some may think refs don't want to be in the limelight outside of maybe a few exceptions. Majority of refs especially the younger ones, the last thing they want is to draw attention. 

1 hour ago, terrell said:

Kings would probably give us Huerter and his 11 points 3 assists on 43%shooting for their pick back.. lol

He'd really help our Defense.. smh

Justin Holiday had a -1.3 WAR last year. He was a bottom five player in the NBA, and played 6th man/starter minutes for us for over a month. This year we have Garrison Mathews and Wesley Mathews averaging over 20 combined minutes a game the last several games. They are in the bottom 15-10 in the NBA. Huerter had a 3.5 WAR last year. That's the same amount of WAR as Dejaunte Murray. Yes, we could use Huerter, and yes, he'll be better than any player we are going to be pickingat 20th or whatever. 

3 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

 

Yeah, I think you're right -- that is what I'm arguing.  The DJ move was splashy but never made a ton of sense to me.  I am on the @NBASupes side of pairing an elite front court player with Trae, and a borderline all-star PG never made sense to me, which is why I don't want to start a timer on this team until we fix the construction.  That trade felt relatively fair value at the time, even thought the fit was very questionable, but with having hindsight of the new CBA, it looks pretty bad.  Picks are more valuable than they were 2 summers ago.  

99% of us hate the DJM move now in hindisght, but you can't shit on the front office and give the owner a pass on that strategy. If the front office and ownership are not on the same page, that is a massive issue. Fact is the DJM move was made to make us a contending team, and instead of buying in to this notion our front office made moves to slash the payroll. We BADLY needed Huerter early on in the year. Playing Justing Holiday's corpse heavy minutes instead of having Huerter for over a month cost us at least 3-4 games in the standings. And you say, well who cares, well, the Hawks played great against Boston in the playoffs, if they had finished 6th or 5th maybe we make another run. The team that made the finals last year was the 8th place Heat. Margins are thin in the east, 2-3 wins makes a difference.

5 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

So we want Ressler to go into the tax for a double PG backcourt lol... I mean, to each his own but that is not what I personally want.  I wouldn't make that call myself, and it doesn't have anything to do with penny pinching, it would just be a bad GM move that would cripple our future.  Going into the tax isn't just punitiuve to owners' wallets -- there are real penalties to constructing a contending roster. 

If you guys don't like our depth now, you would really hate it when we're in the tax for a Murray/Trae backcourt and Collins/Capela frontcourt, with tighter trade requirements, no SnTs, can't sign waived players, etc.  Try to keep another medicore guy like Heurter and we'd hit the second apron and basically have zero roster flexibility. 

So I keep asking if you guys really think Heurter and/or Collins on this roster is changing anything and the answer is: "we might win a few more games" or "we should try to win every game possible" which I find to be very short term thinking, at best.  It's very clear to me that Ressler wants to win, and he wants to pay the tax to do so, but he hasn't had an opportunity to do it yet.  I am very convinced he wanted to trade for Siakam/KAT/star player as the trigger to go into the tax and start contending -- but we haven't had that opportunity yet.

Ressler is not Sarver or Dolan or some unmotivated owner that just shows up to board meetings every year about the team and checks the latest valuation.  He and Jamie go to every single game and it's very clear to me that he cares.  Jamie herself is in the running for biggest Hawks fan in Atlanta.  Looking at the facts of the situation, it seems like he is not kidding that he wants to pay the tax.  Everyone here takes their frustration out on Ressler as the scapegoat but imo it's misplaced frustration; it's very en vogue to shit on billionaires so feels like an easy trap to fall into.  Do you guys think there are 20 other teams in the league that are also victims of their billionaire owners?  Would you guys suggest that Toronto would be contenders if their mean billionaire owner paid the tax for Vanvleet?

You are making ZERO sense my dude. We are worse without those guys the last two years no doubt about it. No one is saying we are good enough to win a championship, but the move to bring Murray in was definitely a win now move, we gave up a shit ton of assets for him. Several first round picks. What is the long term thinking of losing games when we don't have our first round picks?

5 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

Maybe but that's beside the point.  Certianly the org thought he was a big acquisition. 

Yup I know

Just now, macdaddy said:

This is just misleading at best.  We had a chance to go into the tax for Murray.  We chose to dump these 'mediocre' players instead.  

Little did we know Murray is a mediocre player himself 

1 hour ago, bleachkit said:

Hawks need a dominant wing or big. I know, good luck finding one of those. But I still think ideally, Trae would our number 2 to dominant big or wing.

In a championship team with the current state of the league? Yes, you are probably right. Maybe tanking for Wemby instead of trading for DJM would have been the smarter long tem move.

2 hours ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

They won 3 straight directly after the trade, then went into a complete nosedive afterwards.

This season they're playing well, even better without Kyrie.

But let's check on Dallas in about a month, when their schedule tightens up.

They've played the 2nd easiest schedule in the league so far.

They've had a sugerpuff schedule. They aren't elite or as good as their record atm. They've been completely healthy too. They rank 4th in ortg and 22nd in drt, vs the Hawks 5th ortg and 28th drtg, and with an easy schedule. They won't finish with a much better record when it's all said and done. Luka is one of the most overrated players atm. He isn't transformatively better than Trae Young, he isn't Giannis, or Jokic or even Embiid. He's around Jason Tatum-tier, Trae is just below it, though if he continues to shoot north of 45% for the rest of the season like he has the last month he's right there too. 

Just now, terrell said:

9 minutes ago, benhillboy said:

Trae has played 374 regular season games amassing 35 Win Shares.  27 playoff games, 1.2 Win Share.

Luka has played 352 regular season games totaling 43 Win Shares.  28 playoff games with 3.1 Win Shares.

I’m not even a Luka guy but his rebounding alone places him in a whole different level of winning impact, most clearly shown in the playoffs.  The draft slots of the players picked to surround Trae over the years has also been head and shoulders above Dallas’.  All Luka needs is a real wing defender, true pure shooter, and a young rim protect/ lob Big and he and his team will eat.  Luka could take last year’s bench with Jalen and absolutely demolish last year's starting unit with John.

 

Jalen was ass last year, and the notion Luka maximizes anyone is funny to me. Have you watched him play?

11 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

If we had Luka, we would have been in 1st till JJ got hurt. We just don't have the depth but maybe with Luka, we would be willing to pay the LT since we aren't with Trae. 

Nah, how does that make sense? No way we pay the luxury with or without Luka. We brought in DJM at the cost of an insane amount of assets to pair with Trae... and immediately made moves to stay under the LT. After making it to the ECF we made no effort whatsoever to bring anyone impactful and didn't pay the LT. 

Never thought that this thread would signal the end of the Hawks season. In the absolutely loaded East this team simply doesn't stack up. We could certainly use some of the guys we gave away for peanuts. 

3 hours ago, benhillboy said:

Tony has made it clear many times through actions he isn’t concerned with the on floor product.  That’s totally fine with me, he can pussyfoot around with media and casual fans all he wants.  

He’s likely had multiple face to face meetings with his HR and demographics people who told him Trae over Luka was the right move (for him it definitely was). He wouldn’t send his assistant to sit in on analytics meetings if the Hawks actually have them, I’m not sure.

I need to learn how to get in with the shareholders, dude brought back $2.6 billion off a $730 million purchase.  Quiet as kept actually winning isn't even remotely comparable to maximizing profit in any sports owner’s eyes.  

In defense of that specific move, we could trade Trae for Luka straight up and there wouldn't be much of a change on the record of this team, maybe 1 more win 2 tops. 

Haven't been watching the games in a while and won't be doing so until some changes are made. 

40 minutes ago, txsting said:

I'm pretty convinced that winning in the NBA comes down to having real difference makers in talent at 2 to 3 positions.  Guys who can get done what they want to get done in the pivotal moments of a game, the "winning time".

Guys like Huerter and Collins are good players, and great to have on your team while they are more valuable than their contract.  However, the NBA is full of guys like them:  solid player, on second contract, who is now paid solid player vet money (or more).   We have a bunch of those guys on contract already (Capela, Hunter, Bogdan, Murray, Kong).  What Huerter and Collins can bring to a basketball team is more than replicated by the mid-level players we continue to employ.  You need some guys like that for depth, but you don't need 7 of them.

Stockpiling those mid dudes makes little difference in winning or losing, IMO.  Get what you can for them when the situation dictates that you need to move them along.

We have 1, maybe 2 DUDES on this team.  We need another.  Almost any trade in any combination of replaceable level players that returns a "dude" should and must be considered.  Otherwise we are stuck on the treadmill.

I don't know, all I know is we need defense, have had a bunch of assets and picks that could have helped us get help on that end and have failed to improve the roster at all. 

36 minutes ago, terrell said:

Your're overestimating our "talent"...

Common Atlanta sports fan mistake.

I'm actually a little surprised we didn't get this post a few weeks ago.

1 hour ago, Sothron said:

Our FC has been an issue for years. We get nothing out of them on a dependable basis outside of Clint's rebounding and defense. JJ has definite promise so excuse him from my criticisms while reading this.

We have not one guy in the FC that can get a bucket. I thought OO would step up this season but he's not.

The biggest reason to trade for Siakam is that he does in fact give you 20 a game. It isn't pretty at times and I have concerns about his age but regardless he'll get you a bucket. 

We put way too much blame on Trae and DJM about this team. They aren't the problems. We have the worst FC situation in the entire NBA. They simply do not score. Only Clint is good enough on defense and rebounding to get away with that. Our two forwards HAVE TO produce more. And they are not.

Again, excuse JJ from the above. I've been high on that kid since we drafted him. But he's not enough in out FC.

Mugsy Bogues: 5'3'': 3.4 RP36m

Hunter: 6'8'': 4.8 RP36m

Make this make sense please. 

59 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

What does Bogi get us in a trade?  This dude has got to be a hot commodity right now.

I don't want to deal Bogi. He looks healthy isn't old and is a bargain. He's the one guy on the team who we've locked in and is outproducing his contract.

48 minutes ago, Mikey said:

Gotta assume if they make that move it’s cause ownership is ready to pay. If not then I agree it’s a risk 

I'm sure they would be willing to pay him. Issue is, they probably won't pay anyone else and nickle and dime to do anyhthing in their power to stay under the tax and we are never going to build a winner like that. 

12 minutes ago, Mikey said:

It’s still pretty early in szn the hawks can make moves in any direction. 

Quin has a lot of power in the organization and if he really wants Siakam I’m not sure why fans would be opposed to it especially at the price Shams reported and I shared back in the summer. Think of it as just swapping hunter out for siakam since from a rotational standpoint that is what it is. Adding an elite two way player makes every team better. They would still need other moves tho 

I don't think anyone would be opposeed to it except for two pretty big facts:

1) Siakam is a pending free agent rumored to be seeking a massive contract

2) ownership is cheap af. 

41 minutes ago, AHF said:

Does anyone think Siakam will be worth $50M per year on his next contract?  This part of what makes finding the right price to pay for him so difficult.  I see him as a very good piece but not max worthy but if you trade for him you are probably pot committed to maxing him.  Which means you really shouldn’t be giving up a lot in that trade because you aren’t getting a great value asset and he is going to make life difficult from a cap management perspective unless you are willing to not just pay the tax but to pay a lot.

He should be valued at the same ballpark as DJM, IMO I would prefer to pay him a little less because of his age.

On 12/7/2023 at 4:11 PM, benhillboy said:

The Magic City Malaise affecting the home team now?

I wouldn’t read too much into the disparity though.  Fact is this is a poor defensive team, coaching staff, and scouting department, home or road.

I usually like to evaluate after 20 games but honestly the metrics profile of the Hawks’ isn’t ever worth it.

It's really just a product of small samples at this stage. Pretty sure that number will even out as the season matures. 

6 minutes ago, theheroatl said:

I mean if we could just get 2 defensive studs via trade this team would perform drastically better. 
 

think about it, we have the lead late, put in the defensive studs with Trae to close out the game

 

its not f’n rocket science landry

Easier said than done. Half the teams in the NBA are looking for the same thing, those that have the guys don't want to give them up

We have had our chances in the draft and have seemingly blown it.