supermariowest

With the 2018 NBA draft a week away, opinions here on HS regarding who the Hawks should select are all over the place. Several of the top names have received high praise from some posters and relentless criticism from others. Opinions are so polarized, in fact, there were a few $100 bets being tossed around in the Homecourt Draft Discussion thread. The premise of this thread/poll is as follows: There are six players (outside of Ayton, who seems poised to be the first overall selection) who are possible picks at 3. Each of those players (alphabetically: Bagley, Bamba, Doncic, JJJ, Porter, Young) has his own poll question. Rate how happy you would be with the selection (where 1 means you hate the pick and 5 means you love the pick). For simplicity, assume we won't be trading down (so we're picking third). Obviously, it's OK to give the same rating to multiple players. (@NBASupes will likely give 5s to both Bagley and Bamba, for example, and @KB21 may give a 5 to JJJ and a 1 to everybody else.)

BTW, there's no preview option on polls -- sorry if the formatting is crazy (or, worse yet, if the poll doesn't even show up). Also apologies to @Brotha2ThaNite, whose idea I (more-or-less) hijacked.

13 hours ago, Peoriabird said:

So what's with the Delaney experiment? Why sit John Collins? Why feature Baze? Why were we wasting time with Luke Babbitt? Why foul Jordan?  all of these acts are mixed signals!

All good questions. I've been getting those mixed signals as well. The approach seems bizarre indeed... Turn on, tune in, drop out, and tank!

12 hours ago, sturt said:

You'd have to ask Bud to be sure, of course, but my working theory has been

(a) that sometimes it's as much about allowing a player some down time from action (and thus some observation time) as it is putting him on the floor.

And (b) some of these players are proxies for future players who the young pillars will play beside when the team start prioritizing winning again... there's something to be gained playing beside a Luke Babbitt, not because Babbitt himself will be out there in 2 years, but a player not unlike Babbitt will be.

And finally (c), there's the trade deadline interest... some players get some of their minutes simply out of an interest to possibly tempt other teams to offer something.

Those are my inclinations.

Oh, and why foul Jordan? Again... it's not that there's NO interest in winning. It's still a priority, and so if the other priorities are getting adequate treatment, then winning gets its due as well.

All good, reasonable responses. Perhaps a bit optimistic, but I don't think we have a reason to not give Bud the benefit of the doubt (yet).

Kyrie thinks the earth is flat and he (allegedly) wants to leave the probable #1 seed in the East to go play for the Knicks, an organization which just signed one of the most ludicrous contracts of the free agency period (good for you, Tim) and seemingly follows a strict "one step forward, two steps back" philosophy. On the bright side, adhering to such a philosophy for long enough will force Kyrie to accept that the earth is not actually flat.

Dude can ball but you don't sell the farm for a dummy.

26 minutes ago, RandomFan said:

Naw man. We can all hate on Whorefart for how he left and how soft he was, but he is still a top 30ish player in the NBA. I'm glad we have Humph back, but he doesn't bring more to the table than the Green Puke did.

"The Green Puke" -- love it... ¡El Vómito Verde!

Awesome press conference (even the first eight minutes where Bob just stands around looking confused). Watch it if you haven't already. 

The Prince that was Promised has arrived!

We're still not good enough to get past Cleveland (let alone GS) but I love this squad. 

Sort of like Captain Hindsight but somehow worse. 

Reading through all of their "accomplishments" is so depressing. A brief history of the Hawks: Out of the frying pan and into the fire, then back into the frying pan, back into the fire, another dip in the frying pan, fire, pan, fire, pan, BudCox. 

Eh. I hope he tears both pectoral muscles in the first minute of the first game next season, but I think this is nothing. The article says OKC thought pursuing Horford would entice KD to stay (and locking down a commitment from KD would help them land Horford), nothing more. Definitely doesn't make me think a deal was in place. 

Horfamania gone! New world Horford rises.

Heel turn coming for Horf?

Refresh page, no news on Al, refresh page, no news on Al, refresh page, no news on Al... Come on, Boss!

Just got an email about the Atlanta Hawks 4th of July sale -- 20% off everything. I wonder if Millsap, Korver, Thabo, and Splitter are part of this "everything"...

6 minutes ago, ViewsFromTheSquawk said:

Hawks targeting DELLY

Say it ain't so! I'd rather lose every game for an entire decade than have Dellavedova suit up.

Oh man. For the record, I have no issue with either of the early picks, but it feels like Budcox trolled us with this one...

Prince at 12? Fans call it a reach.

Bembry at 21? Fans underwhelmed.

Felder late in the second? Fans show excitement, so (1) he is traded (2) to the defending champs (and 3) for cash considerations.

I was at game 6 of the EC semis against the Wizards last year. This was the game where Paul Pierce (seemingly) hit a three at the buzzer to force overtime but, after a review, he didn't get the shot off in time so the Hawks won the game and the series. Moments before the PA announcer announced that the basket didn't count, I saw Teague going nuts in celebration by the scorers table and I knew we won. I'll always remember that.

I saw JR Smith wandering around Midtown when the Cavs were in Atlanta for the EC semifinals. (I saw some of the other guys outside of the Four Seasons on 14th, but JR was by himself.) I spoke to him for a second, told him to ease up on the 3s, then left him to his walkabout. It seems he's still on that walkabout -- launches a kickstarter for a reality TV show while the NBA finals are going on, later announces that he's opting out of his contract (again, while the NBA finals are going on). I don't have a problem with either decision, just the timing is odd. He strikes me as a me-first kind of guy, so I don't see us going after him.

Note to the reader: I didn't read the rest of this thread and I typically don't like it when posters post without reading the rest of the thread, but...

Hawks have been rocking the "true to Atlanta" hashtag all season. Its meaning has eluded me, but I think now I get it: Nothing has ever been truer to the Atlanta professional sports debacle than the last 20 seconds of the 4th quarter.  That ending was, as they say, #truetoatlanta.

I'll get over it but GOOD GRIEF it's hard to not be down on these guys right now.

2 minutes ago, mrhonline said:

Was just thinking that Hinrich sounds German.  

"He's a good guy overall, but he's not perfect. He's got some German in him, and I don't say that in a bad way."

Had to leave that in here somewhere...

Ill indeed! For the first time in the relatively short Bud era, I'm in favor of making big roster changes. And, perhaps more depressing than our drop-off, I'm not confident Budcox can make the appropriate changes. (To this end, I'm not really sure what those changes should be.)