niremetal

Hamilton is not getting an NBA deal unless he absolutely blows everyone's mind during training camp. I just can't imagine TS burning that last spot (even on a non-guaranteed contract) on a 27-year-old who couldn't even crack the rotation in Turkey or start in the Montenegran league last year. I can't imagine it'll be much different for other guys who we invite to training camp. I think they're playing for a shot at getting a longer look down in College Park at this point.

Didn't catch this thread on Labor Day proper, but the first dude who comes to mind for me is Mario West. That dude's collar was dyed-in-the-wool blue. He had zero finesse (56% free throw shooter and 6.1 fouls per 36 minutes for his career), but his motor was running on overdrive every second he was on the floor. IIRC, the scuttlebutt was that he was a legend on the practice floor too. He definitely fits the "unsung" mold. The OKC announcer had no clue who he was when he made this play: ...and that was in his third year in the league.

If we're going based on what they contributed as Hawks: Deke Horford Capela Bogi Zaza The only one that was tough was the last spot. I could see arguments for Schröder, Gallo, and Sefolosha. The centrality of Clint/Bogi/Gallo to our late season streak and deep playoff run carries a lot of weight because aside from Deke and Horford, none of the guys on that list started for a winning Hawks team for any extended period of time. And yeah...we've really had some good luck with those international bigs! Right. Also, Dominique was an Air Force brat and, IIRC, was never a French citizen, so I don't count him as international.

Huerter is the type of versatile wing every title contending team needs. But to me, that Game 7 proved to me that Huerter's ideal role is that of a super-role player who can usually be counted on to fill in whatever gaps our perimeter players need plugged in a given match up (though he still has consistency issues even in that role). Huerter went off in that game because Doc made the decision to have Seth Curry--a notoriously bad defender even against shorter guards--assigned to single-cover K'Von all game long. They would double the (hurt) Trae, but not K'Von. Good on Huerter for exploiting that match-up (and on Nate for keeping going at Curry because Doc never adjusted) all game long. But that performance was perfectly consistent with a guy who should be making a bit south of what Bogi is making (not accounting for the fact that Bogi is underpaid). My guess is we'll offer something like 4/65 and K'Von will follow in the footsteps of his boy JC and bet on himself to prove he's worth more than that this season. He will succeed if he cracks 40% from deep and gets a bit more consistent overall.

DerMarr absolutely sucked in his first two seasons. Not a disappointment like Marvin. Like actually was consistently bad, like nearly every other Babcock draft pick. He showed no meaningful improvement during his two seasons, which is always a bad sign. I think the tragic accident actually was the thing that made him focus and work on his game. Kind of like Stephen Hawking's ALS diagnosis and the recognition that the window to do something with his life was short spurred him to go from a face in the crowd to elite in his field, except Johnson simply didn't have the capacity to become elite after his accident. But my take is that absent the accident, he would have actually been out of the league within another season or two at the most because he was going nowhere fast.

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1. Magic 2. LeBron 3T. MJ 3T. Wilt 5. Oscar Here's my GOAT yardstick--you have the #1 pick in an all-time fantasy draft. Because you're #1, you have no idea who's going to be available when your next pick rolls around. Oh, and also, to make it a thought experiment where comparing across eras makes sense, let's also say you are going to be put in a time machine and you have no idea what era's rules and norms you'll be playing under when you come out of it. In that position, I pick Magic or LeBron over MJ simply because I think there are more ways to build a title contender around them in pretty much any given era. Having a big point guard who can shoot, pass, and dribble anywhere from the perimeter to the low post means that you can almost put any collection of good players around them in pretty much any era and make the team into a contender. To me, Magic's performance in Game 6 of the Finals his rookie year, when he moved from PG to C and still dominated, was emblematic of what made him inimitable. Give him literally any role on the basketball court, and he could play it at a superstar level. LeBron is the player who comes closest to that, but LeBron clearly is a "score-first" guy. Magic is like Trae to me--a "whatever option is most likely to result in a bucket for our team" guy. I think that mentality is more conducive to winning titles. Wilt is, simply put, the most freakish talent in NBA history. His combination of size, athleticism, and strength has still never been equalled. But he couldn't shoot, and I don't know how that would affect his value today. MJ would be great in any era, but I really think his dominance was in part a function of the fact that he played during the illegal defense era, which meant that teams weren't allowed to cheat off the ball to help against him (and it also magnified the importance of one-on-one perimeter defensive skills). That made it way easier for him to get to the rim than today, when all the weakside defenders can cheat 10 feet off their man and build "walls" against opposing drivers. Even in his era, I think MJ needed a fairly specific supporting cast (and a system designed to space defenders even further away from him) to succeed at the highest level. Substitute Pippen out with, say, Barkley or David Robinson, and I don't think the Bulls are winning three-peats, because Pippen's versatility on both ends of the floor took a lot of pressure off of MJ at both ends.

I'll add one--Chris Crawford's injuries. I actually really loved his game--surprisingly great athlete with a nice stroke and good feel on both ends of the floor. In both '99, he was fire down the stretch to help lift the team to home court in the first round and then was the only guy who showed up for Game 1 against the Knicks in the semis. He actually looked like possibly the team's best draft pick since Kevin Willis. Then he got hurt in Game 2 and was perpetually hurt for the next 4 seasons. Finally got fully healthy again in the 2003-04 season and started to look like the guy I thought he could be. After the break, he averaged 19/5 and finally developed a deep ball, shooting 40% from 3)...only to blow out his knee and see his career end for good. I know it seems like a small thing to be disappointed in, but I just felt so bad for that guy.

I think McCollum is a way better fit for Philly precisely because he is a playmaker, whereas Powell (like Maxey and Curry) is exclusively a scorer. McCollum chose to develop himself as a 2-guard because the PG spot was spoken-for in Portland, but he's basically become Portland's backup PG over the past two seasons, and has excelled in that role (he's like in the 98th percentile in ast/to ratio). You can pair McCollum with Maxey or Curry and have a balanced backcourt offensively. Powell has a better value contract but the fit just isn't as good. Of course, Morey consistently undervalues fit (and team concepts more generally), so he'll never see that.

Hawk: Deke (I actually loved him even when he was with the Nuggets and was over the moon when the Hawks signed him) Brave: Hank. For someone who played in my lifetime, Maddux. Falcon: I never really got attached to particular players, but if I had to pick one--Jessie "The Hammer" Tuggle. Thrashers: Hockey sucks. My favorite thing about Atlanta is that it agrees with me on that point.

My whole starting lineup is made of Pete Babcock first round draft choices. PG - Rumeal Robinson SG - Ed Gray SF - Roshown McCleod PF - Cal Bowdler C - Priest Lauderdale

No dice. Again, the topic of this thread is "what one thing do you think would push the Hawks into 'chip contention," not "what is your prediction for this season." I think that, of the things that could happen this year that would push the Hawks into contention, Bogi playing at/near his level at the last two months of last season is a better bet than Cam, Huerter, or even Dre (who I am very skeptical will be fully healthy this year) making the leap to second star status. I'm not saying that with a high degree of confidence...it's just that I have even less confidence in the alternative routes to contention. Also...missing 42 games is a damn high bar. Nagging injuries can result in few missed games but hamper a player all year.

I think the difference here is that Trae is such a master of the drive-and-dish, on a level Steph Curry, Draymond, etc, never have been. Per the NBA stat tracker, a third of Bogi's treys last year were wide open, and he hit 49% of those. I personally think Bogie has the ability to sustain a 45%+ 3P% over a full season if he and Trae both stay healthy, since that'll mean that he keeps getting those wide open looks. Also, I think Bogi gets a spark from knowing that he's on a team that has a chance to make playoff noise. His last season in Europe (when he led Fenerbahce to the EuroLeague title), he shot 43% from deep. I don't think that's at all an unreasonable expectation for him. And I think that level would be enough to make the Hawks contenders.

My serious answer actually is: give us a full season of Bogi playing at the level he played in the last 6 weeks of the regular season. Personally, I don't think he played over his head. I think it's just that Nate made him a starter and defined a role for him, and he turned out to be a perfect fit for that role. I was skeptical that it was a flash in the pan until I saw how he gutted it out in the playoffs and stepped up to become our key offensive threat after Trae got hurt--even though Bogi admitted that he was basically playing on one leg and couldn't drive right. His game is more versatile than people give him credit for. It's not a guarantee, but we're talking about "that one thing" here. And I honestly think that Bogi's perfect execution of the role Nate created for him over that stretch (along with Gallo's dramatic improvement) was the key difference between the team that started 14-20 and the one that went 27-11 the rest of the way. If he can sustain that for most of the season, our other wings can focus on D and we'll be contenders.

Just dropping in to give props for the Curly / Jack Palance reference. It is my goal in life to be able to one-handed push-ups while accepting an Oscar at the age of 82 (I'm sorry, but there's no way that dude was less than 80 in City Slickers, so I'm adding 10 years to what Wikipedia says his age was).

Is this not a deal we could have done next summer? If not, I can understand this extension. But if we would have been in a position to negotiate this next summer, I'm not a fan of doing it now. Clint just led the league in rebounds and was our defensive anchor in a year where we made a shock run to the ECFs. I think his value is near its peak now; I doubt his price would go up much next summer, and it could very well go down. And locking him up now makes it tougher for us to move his contract off the books if he takes a step back at some point over the next two seasons, which will reduce our flexibility when Hunter and Cam are up for extension. So yeah...I love Clint, but I feel like I'm missing something here.

In my experience, those end up being the same thing.

I can't imagine the Kings would give up Fox. I still say a McCollum trade is the one that makes the most sense for everyone (though Simmons apparently doesn't like the idea of Portland). McCollum can play PG--the only reason he developed more as a SG was because the Blazers already had Lillard. He is already the Blazers de facto backup PG now, and he averaged a career-high 4.7 apg last year to 1.4 TO/g last year. A 3.45 to 1 AST:TO ratio is elite. He'd be a great fit in Philly. Simmons' arrival would enable the Blazers to slide Powell over to the 2 and instantly transform them from one of the worst defensive starting lineups in the league to one of the best. They could even move Covington or Nance to get an extra offensive spark. As with Sacramento, the lower level of media glare in Portland would be good for Simmons too. The problem is that Morey is a fool who thinks he'll somehow be able to extract a king's ransom for Simmons when the reality is that the best he can hope for is a borderline-All-Star plus some picks or young projects.

I think Murray is definitely that much of a difference maker. Murray is just a perfect complement to Jokic and Porter offensively. And when he's on, he's one of the most unstoppable scorers in the whole league. He averaged 21ppg last year on great efficiency. I doubt Klay comes back good as new, but I think his floor is Kyle Korver. The Warriors were quietly an elite team defensively last year, so the addition of a bit more scoring is just what they needed. The mere presence of Klay stretching the floor (thus taking pressure off Curry) makes the Warriors a lock for the playoffs in my eyes. Admittedly, if it were just Klay returning, I'd be skeptical of the Warriors as legit title contenders. But I also think we're going to see leaps from Poole and Wiseman this year.

Long story short--I think a rematch of this year's Finals. East - Bucks I'm trying to temper my expectations for the Hawks this year. Last year's playoff run was magical and the temptation for a team with such a young core is to say that they'll likely take the next step. But it just takes one bad matchup in the postseason or a cold streak by Trae (the risk of an offense as heliocentric as ours) to end that in a hurry. Even if the Nets are fully healthy, I'm skeptical that team can mesh as well as they need to, and defense will be a concern. Also worth noting that Harden will be 32 this year and KD 33 (Irving is 29). A bit of regression is likely. Add to that the fact that they already were defensively meh and the question of how well Harden will do this year if his foul rate goes down significantly, and I'm not sure they are the juggernaut people expect even if fully healthy. But Giannis will be Giannis. I expect his confidence at the line to be higher this year with a ring under his belt and that pressure off. I think Grayson Allen and Rodney Hood were sneaky good acquisitions for them. No one else in the East strikes me as a threat to win 3 straight playoff series. So yeah...Bucks. West - Suns (with very low confidence) Definitely not the Mavs. Not the Clippers, assuming Kawhi is out or not at 100% in the playoffs. I'm biased, but I think the Blazers will be better than people expect. Not enough to win the conference, though. Probably not the Jazz, same as ever with this core. I just don't like having a 6'1 combo guard as my best offensive player and leaning on a non-switchable Rudy Gobert to anchor my defense in the playoffs. I think the Lakers have the widest confidence interval--I could see them either winning 60 games or hovering around .500. But I think their lack of defense and deep threats in their front 6-7 (Ellington is the only plus 3-ball shooter) is going to be killer in the playoffs. But am I really gonna predict a Bucks-Suns Finals rematch? Yeah, I think I am. I think there's a decent chance Booker and Ayton both improve to clear All-NBA Second Team levels this year. And I think Paul definitely has one more All-Star caliber year left in him. And Monty Williams is the perfect coach for that squad. Denver takes the next-most-likely spot for me. I think the homegrown core of Jokic, Porter, and Murray is as good as any Big 3 in the league when healthy because of how perfectly their games fit each other. The last team I could easily see making it are the Warriors. I just can't imagine the Klay who returns this year will resemble the one who we saw pre-2019, but Curry proved late last year that he's still the most explosive scorer in the league when he's healthy, and they have a fascinating collection of young and veteran talent around him.

Btw, here's what my top 10 looks like in terms of how much guys improved/regressed from their actual draft position. Unsurprisingly, Ujiri, Schlenk, Riley, and Marks are the ones who made out. 1. Tatum (+2) 2. Bam (+12) 3. Mitchell (+10) 4. Fox (+1) 5. JC (+14) 6. Anunoby (+17) 7. Ball (-5) 8. Allen (+14) 9. Markkanen (-2) 10. Fultz (-9)

So looking at this in a "best player available" way rather than looking back at what teams' actual draft positions and needs were, I end up with a list eerily similar to @RandomFan (aside from the #1 spot, at least). I'll break them down into tiers. Franchise Player 1. Tatum. He's proven he can take over games in a way no one else in this draft can. He's the only one I can seriously see as the best player on a championship team. End of story for me. Solid All-Stars 2. Bam. After Tatum, I don't see anyone else I'd build a team around, but Bam is the one who comes closest due to his versatility, especially on defense. I'm with @RandomFan that Bam's ability to switch 1-5 and be above average at each spot is just worth its weight in gold...platinum...diamonds...lithium...whatever. (Also agree with him that the days are over that even elite rim-protecting help defenders make as big a difference as elite switchable on-ball defenders, at least in the playoffs.) Also, it's rare to see a player whose would improve literally all 30 teams in the league, even if he can't be the lead dog on any of them. 3. Mitchell. His stats speaks for themselves, but I can't rank him higher because, well, he's a 6'1 combo guard and he's not on the plane of a Steph / Dame / Iverson (and he's actually even less of a distributor than any of those guys are/were). Borderline All-Stars / High-Impact Players 4. Fox 5. JC I think both of these guys are going to kind of plateau at their current level for the duration of their second contracts. Fox edges out JC because of the remaining upside for Fox if he ever gets a reliable deep ball. I don't think he ever well, though, so it's a close call. Solid players and/or guys with the best remaining upside 6. Anunoby 7. Ball 8. Allen 9. Markkanen 10. Fultz Outside the top 5, Anunoby is the one I think has the best chance (albeit a slim one) of jumping into the second tier, assuming he can stay healthy and continue his impressive strides over the last two seasons. Allen and Markkanen have the safest floors. Ball and Fultz remain intriguing due to their raw talent, but it's looking doubtful that they'll ever put it all together. Miscellany I'm not high on Dillon Brooks. I admit I have only seen his appearances against the Hawks, but I just was not impressed. He can score and get in your grill defensively (which is not the same as being a good defender...see below), but that's it. Here's the first thing that caught my eye about him--in 2019-20, he became the first perimeter player in 45 years to lead the league in personal fouls. And then, last year, he did it again. People talk about him as a great defender because he's so physical, but when you foul that much, you negate the benefits you get from it (often in ways that don't show up in any individual statistics, because other teams get in the penalty earlier, etc). It's doubly harmful for a wing because the guys they are guarding tend to shoot very well from the line. So yeah...call me McKayla, because I'm not impressed. I think Derrick White, Kuzma, Monte Morris, and Kennard are the best of the rest.

Maxey can play point in a pinch, but he just doesn't have the mentality or the court vision to be a point guard. There's a reason no one really saw him as a NBA PG during the draft despite the fact that he's way undersized (and not nearly a reliable enough outside shooter) to make a living as a wing. I'd be willing to bet that Maxey never averages 6 ast/gm or 6.5 ast/36min over any full season. His future is as an off-the-bench gunslinger with a ceiling (not likely to be reached) of Lou Williams...and more likely a Flip Murray type (except he's even shorter than Flip). Re Embiid being somewhat like Jokic...I think "somewhat" is the key word. Agreed that Embiid has very good passing skills for a big man, but more in the same way that Brad Miller or late-career Arvydas Sabonis did--good at passing out of doubles (like you said) or making good reads of cutters from the post. But he's not a guy you want to give the ball with 19 seconds on the clock and ask him to create for teammates on a regular basis, both because he's not *that* good at it and because he'd burn out. Literally the only big men who've ever had the combination of court vision, stamina, and ball-handling skills on that level have been Jokic, Soviet-era Sabonis, and Divac (plus Magic and Simmons, if you're going by size alone). And even Divac was never actually used that way. So yeah...there's just no one on the roster who I think can initiate if Simmons is rendered ineffective as a PG, as he was in the semis last season.

I agree with you there...but mainly because I think the Bulls are better than I suspect you think they are I consider Miami, Philly, and Chicago to all be in the East's second tier now, along with Boston (with the Nets, Bucks, and Hawks in the tier above them). That is, very likely to make the playoffs and maybe compete for home court, but long shots to make a serious title run. I think that the Sixers are bound to regress to that tier unless Simmons comes back *better* than he was last year, because the blueprint to attack him is now clear to everyone, and it will stay that way until he starts becoming consistent enough with his free throw shooting that he feels comfortable attacking the basket. It's really a fatal flaw in a point guard, and thus for the team, since they have no one else who can initiate an offense and create for others. I think the Bulls definitely improved themselves into that tier as well. DeRozan and Ball were great additions--just not worth the price they paid. I think people see that the Bulls overpaid and equate that with "they didn't significantly improve," when the reality is that they did significantly improve, but not by enough to compete for a title...and, by the same token, not by enough to justify tying up all their cap space and tanking their ability to improve any further.

I think people really underrate how key Simmons was to making the Sixers work. IMHO, the Sixers will be a hot mess if they are forced into trading Simmons rather than bringing back an improved version of him (i.e., one that can hit free throws). They have zero even semi-point guards on their roster aside from him. Embiid is not Jokic, and Seth and Maxey are both undersized 2-guards with poor court vision and distributing skills. Their offense will be stagnant AF, and their defense will take a major step back as well. If I'm them, I'm jumping all over the CJ McCollum trade that's been mooted (McCollum is a natural PG who switched to SG so that he could play with Lillard), but Morey is too dumb to make that deal. I don't see the Sixers winning 50 games this season. As for the Heat, I agree people are giving them too much credit (just like I think people are not giving the Bulls enough), but I think they'll be better next year. This past season was rough for veteran teams because of the condensed schedule. Lowry is an upgrade, Duncan Robinson will continue to improve, and Butler will have fresher legs than last year as the season wears on. I see them and the Sixers on the same plane.