RedDawg#8

Quinn needs to change out his red glasses, similar to how Arthur Smith cut his beard. Something to get rid of this funk.

This isn’t about remaking history. Those moves worked, heralded or not. We can improve in FA is my point.

I been preaching this death lineup for a minute. Bey works in there as well in place of DJ/Bogi

AJ wasn’t getting much time even when he was available. There’s something bigger going on with him.

My retort to the DJM is playing out of position conversation. 1) Trae and DJ knew they both played PG when they fought to play together last summer. DJ was well aware that Trae was a small PG at that he was forcing his way out of SA to play next to him. Frustrated or not, he ASKED for this arrangement. 2) When the trade happened, DJ and Trae both told the media that they could make the pairing work due to Trae’s ability to shoot and play off ball “because he was originally SG growing up” according to him. They were confident in this backcourt even when pressed about it before the season. 3) DJ gets 12 mins a night at PG. That’s 1/3 of his total court time spent at his “natural” position. He is not a full time SG here. He starts and closes each half at SG, but he gets ample court time running the offense with Trae on the bench. He has to take advantage of these minutes but often times these are the minutes we lose leads, when he is the PG on offense and guarding PGs on defense. 4) There were no complaints when we were a somewhat winning team. Two things have changed this season. A) Trae has been tasked to guard his position instead of hiding on weaker players, which took DJ away from the primary assignment of POA defender. Trae’s improvement actually hurts DJ because it puts him on bigger players when that used to be Trae’s mismatch assignment. B) Due to injuries we have gotten significantly smaller on the back line and have had to start an even worse defender in Bey. This puts even more defensive pressure on a guy like Murray. Summary: Playing out of position is real, but it was a choice that an adult professional man made in his career so he could play with his buddy. Nobody put a gun to DJ’s head to come here. We literally bent over to San Antonio to make his request happen. It is a scapegoat excuse for anything if I ever heard one and yet another example why you cannot let players play GM. I want these two to follow through on THEIR word regarding this backcourt. I want us to address the real problem regarding size and defense throughout the roster, not just DJ.

I’m not looking at anyone else but the Hawks. The last (2) times we had any money to spend in FA we knocked it out of the park. When we brought in Gallo, Bogi, Snell, etc… And the offseason we signed Milsap, DMC, etc…. Those were two examples of completely changing our fortunes overnight and it happened because we had cash to do so.

I don’t care about trading for rentals, especially if we use it as leverage to lower the asking price for said player. If we can get off some contracts in a trade and the acquired player decides to bolt in the offseason, awesome. More money to spend elsewhere, since we know cash is king for not only our owner, but FA’s as well. The trade game is for the birds.

For the Trae-tors:

Nothing’s going to happen. We are wasting our time talking about hypotheticals.

For the anti-Trae, he’s too little to win crowd: Remember, it took a veteran Joe Johnson until his 3rd season with the Hawks to lead us to the playoffs. It took him until his 4th season to have a winning record with the Hawks. He had size. He played smart. He played defense. He was our best player. He still only won 26, 30, then 37 games. It takes a lot to win. We have to build this thing the right way and we do not have time to piss around with a bunch of guys that can’t win together. Everyone’s value is low. We aren’t getting a star. Just try to clear cap space at this point and give yourself room to add in the offseason.

We ain’t been the same since Sir Foster decided to hang it up this offseason. 16 years strong. That spans from the end of the previous bad Hawks era; pre playoff Joe, Smoove, Horford era, up until now. This team hasn’t been this bad since we were intentionally trying to tank. We lost a part of our heart and soul. I miss Sir Foster.

Either add size or play size, but dammit we need size. We are dangerously close to losing team morale. We’re not a good team and it’s becoming apparent to everyone in the building with each loss.

Both teams haven’t made it back to their peak, but PHX has added elite players to underachieve, Atlanta has added Murray and dodged the tax. We were only going to go so far. Our ceiling and their ceiling are (2) completely different levels. People always predicted Trae and the Hawks were overrated, but PHX is supposed to win a chip. PHX is 2 games better than us now, and were only 4 games better than us last season. Compared to expectations, I say it’s equal.

Agree. They went up another level the next season and have been descending ever since. The biggest causes being any combination of: 1) Ayton’s disgruntled behavior and eventual departure. 2) KD trade which lost them Bridges and Johnson. 3) CP3 departure, the smartest player Booker ever ran next to. No matter how you slice it, Booker’s impact has not been good enough to offset any of these events. The hype from the outside doesn’t match the results on the court. Trae gets dinged for this, Booker (and others) do not for some reason.

We made a jump that same season, led by a guy in his 3rd year (compared to Booker’s 6th) How has PHX looked since then? 47-35 last year, hovering around .500 this year. They screwed up their own “rebuild” by emptying the cupboard to acquire KD and now Beal.

We made a jump that same season, led by a guy in his 3rd year (compared to Booker’s 6th) How has PHX looked since then? 47-35 last year, hovering around .500 this year. They screwed up their own “rebuild” by emptying the cupboard to acquire KD and now Beal.

It’s not even much of debate. The cost of the trade is irrelevant. The same roster jumped up 17 wins and the only difference was CP3. Bookers stats went down from the pre CP3 season, but the team won more games. The goalpost is NOT that Booker was the best player. You said he CARRIED that team, and that is not true. CP3 was the leader in the locker room that the Suns had been missing for 5 years under Booker and are currently missing now. All evidence suggests that Booker, like Trae, can put up numbers, but lacks something intangible that helps his team win consistently. The Suns have (3) all NBA players and are the worse they have been since going to the finals. Is Booker better than Trae, sure, that’s not the point. Can Booker carry this exact same roster to higher heights? There is nothing to suggest he can other than it lets Murray play PG again. But if he cannot win with KD, Beal and Nurk, news flash buddy, he ain’t doing jack with this lineup.

Basketball is simple, man. For the love of God just give Trae a strong low post presence to generate easy offense. We went to the ECF with Gallo as our best post scorer. He was savvy and efficient, and could stretch the floor. JC was not as savvy or great of a shooter but offered you SOME of that same inside out game. Our cupboard is BARE of inside scoring. We have too many 6-5/6-6 guys that can’t shoot consistently or get offensive rebounds. Our centers have to be spoon fed the ball at the rim and even then it’s a coin flip if they can finish. I understand our offense is humming so people are not going to agree, but late games, close games, got to have it possessions, we cannot rely on magic from Trae to get a whistle or hit contested outside shots. We need a throw it in option that can get it consistently. Chase skill, not names. Again, Gallo was an underrated asset to this lineup. It doesn’t always have to be Max players unless they are truly a fit.

Devin Booker had 5 straight losing seasons to start his career, then got paired with CP3 (not to mention rising players Mikal Bridges and Ayton) and all of a sudden he is a winning player that carried a team? Now he has KD, Beal, and Nurkic at 14-15 and we want to pretend he could take whatever is left of this roster after a trade and do better than Trae? News flash, fluke or not, Trae has taken his team to a conference finals and he has NEVER ran alongside a CP3, Bridges, Ayton, KD, Beal, Nurkic. Capela, Gallo, Collins, Bogi, DJM is the best talent Trae has played with. Oh, let’s not forget, Monty Freaking Williams and Frank Vogal as HC. Quinn may be on the same level as those guys, but before Quinn, not even close.

Omg, this fuggin guy again with the knee…. Damaged goods

We are digging ourselves into a deep hole. All this losing is going to take its toll on the locker room at some point. Our season doesn’t ride solely on the back of JJ’s health. Coach needs to look in the mirror and acknowledge that he’s not doing enough to put our guys in position to win games. If Dre is out of the lineup then start Bogi, not Mathews. We need to get off to faster starts in games. We clearly can’t play defense, so put pressure on the opponent with scoring. I’m tired of getting in these long droughts and having to play catchup. FO, do something with this roster. We just went a month without a PF and the best we came up with was giving OO minutes at the 4. We waived Miles Norris instead of giving him a chance to HELP us with his size. What are we actually doing here?

Don’t judge me! This is supposed to be a safe space for the bros lol

I feel like the one time we had money to spend in FAgency we knocked it out of the park. Gallo, Bogi, Rondo/LouWill, Snell, Solo, Dunn (even tho he was a dud) Players want to get paid, if you have cash to spend that’s all the negotiation you need. We haven’t had cash recently which is why we have not made significant moves in FA since 2020-2021.

Bruh, don’t play with me like this. Now I’m going to have to research this for my own peace of mind lol

Bogi Korver!!!!! Feature him and his spacing as a weapon!