enrique

38 minutes ago, benhillboy said:

I hate to break up the love fest but I’m obligated to lend career perspective and balance (courtesy of statmuse):

 

And that my man is why plus/minus is worthless. At least do on/off and compare to team overall. You will find Trae stand extremely tall. 

On my "Others" 

• Action=The Punisher (Marvel) and Pennyworth
• Cartoon=Johnny Quest
• Comedy=Seinfeld & The Office
• Serious=Breaking Bad
• Special Category=The Punisher (Marvel) and Daredevil (Marvel)

5 hours ago, shakes said:

this 100%.  There's no room for religious nutjobs in a functioning locker room.

 

 

It's really anyone who presses their standards onto everyone around them. There are guys who push their political views, religious views, recreational drug views, etc. onto everyone else without regard for how others may think or feel about the situation. The only segment that tends to get called out will be the more religious extremist views. But it will create locker room issues if it is a deeply felt conviction that is thrown about regularly.

5 hours ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

1) Hunter + Mills + AJ + Bufkin

2) Hunter + Mills +AJ + Bufkin + 1st round pick

Sorry for leaving a like and then deleting it. Totally misread your response. So you don't care about Siakim signing with us long term? For me, that is the limit to any trade I'd send north for him. No way would I part with young talent for a one-season-hope-he-signs-lonterm situation. The minute difference you have between 1 &2 situation is definitely baffling to me. 

A great article on Trae 

A shocking assessment of how Trae has been overlooked and underrated. Surprised to find an article like this anywhere. It seems whatever Trae does, the NBA has to change their metrics to explain why he isn’t good enough for the respect and honor due!!! 

12 hours ago, Spud2nique said:

Trae was the NBA overall leader in overall POINTS ( 2155) AND DIMES (737) in 2021-22.

2022-23, last year led the NBA in overall DIMES (741).

2 years in a row he captures the overall dimes category. 

1478 dimes in 2 consecutive seasons? I wonder where that ranks in 2 year spans against guys like Magic, Stockton, Nash, Paul and the rest of the dimers?  #witnessgreatness

Stockton and Malone were on another plane. Stockton averaged over 1100 assists a year for 5 years in a row. He also busted 1000 a few more time. All in all his assists dwarf anyone else’s we will find. Trae has had an amazing (and increasingly efficient) assist rate. Just nowhere near the greatest set-up artist in history…Stockton. 

Okay, took one more glance at passes per game (team) to see what it looked like over the past three years. Interestingly it isn't all bad at all. You can view the data at NBA.com. Click on "Stats" and "Teams." Then click from "General" to "Tracking" in the drop down. Next click the last drop down "Drives" and select "Passing." You can then sort by passes per game. Pretty simple stuff. 

The conclusions on this kind of statistical gnat straining is:

1) There is little correlation between passes per game and success.

2) The past few seasons have seen the best offenses have lower pass totals.

3) Basketball is not a monolithic system. It is a variety of systems that are designed to maximize the strengths of a roster while minimizing any deficiencies. For this reason, these kind of statistical observations should not be used to make a point. Rather they should be used to gain a better perspective on the overall offense or defense a team may be employing. 

I promise I am done with looking up stats on this arena. Hope the Hawks come out with a weekend sweep of our beloved Sixers

4 hours ago, gsuteke said:

Atlanta isn’t passing the ball as much because they aren’t looking for open shots on the perimeter.   They aren’t looking for open shots on the perimeter because the shooters on the team are the ones bringing the ball up the court.   The problem isn’t passing here it’s a lack of quality shooting on the perimeter.   To me this will be exposed on down the road if nothing is done about it.

 

on another note Trae and Murray are getting a lot of single pass possession assists through penetration 

I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment. If we don't get our perimeter shooting moving above 35% we will find little to no space for any kind of penetration. That will not go well:(

On 10/11/2022 at 1:27 AM, Spud2nique said:

What up brother long time no see. Hope you well! Enrique in the house .

@Jody23 our infamous “on to the next”

Your prediction sir! 

Spud! Yes, I am (and have been) very, very busy with work and family... I scroll over here when I am able, but not nearly the amount of time I used to. Still love the Hawks and challenge the Traeters whenever they raise their heads:) Really hoping we can take a step forward this year...

I've been hyped before and let down...so as much as I loved what I saw vs Bucks in preseason, I will go 48 wins. We will make noise in the playoffs.

On 7/5/2022 at 4:41 PM, Atlantaholic said:

This put up or shut up time for Hunter. With the current lineup he really has no excuse to deliver solid efficient play on both ends. The difference betwee being just another team and a real championship threat could hinge on if he finally takes the next step and becomes a factor. 

In reality, he has been our worst on/off starter for every year (other than Cam). He has great promise, but hasn't really shown consistency. I hope he bets on himself this year and delivers! If he does, we are going deep in the playoffs. We can't loose that way. 

Just wanted to congratulate Trae for taking sole possession of second place in NBA history for players with 25/9 seasons. Oscar may be untouchable at 8, but our boy Trae just put up his most efficient season ever and now has 3 25/9 seasons in a row. Just passed Lebron and Tiny Archibald. 

Big props for Trae. He probably doesn't even know that...focusing on winning the ring!

38 minutes ago, sturt said:

 

 

Damn.

And I believe that might be the first time that the term "concise" has ever been used in describing something I wrote... hehe.

 

And my hidden cams have detected the following reaction toward you from a couple of friends here...

Haha!!! I don't know your reputation. But when you are making several points and trying to connect the dots in a logical flow, you could have rambled on for several more paragraphs. So I think your argument was concise...it was just thorough too. And thoroughness doesn't mean brevity. But thoroughness can be concise. You were concise:)

1 hour ago, sturt said:

We agree... except... people keep bringing up things that allude to the Real Hawks as-if they weren't actually performing at a .653 rate, which is what they commonly use to justify their want for big moves.

The line of reason is stout... the numbers are the numbers.

I agree with your take on the "Real Hawks" vs "Gumbo Hawks" (great image)...I think a more fair assessment would be to use the actual season (2021-22) and not conflate the hybrid coaching of Pierce/McM. I think McM got more out of the team than Pierce, but in his season implementing his own offense and defense we really did not take a step forward. 

The "Real Hawks" record for 2021-22 that you have mentioned is around .617 (5th best in the East and 9th best in the NBA). Now I haven't compared this with "Real Mavericks" or "Real...", but it is a really solid display of the team's potential. My bigger concern was the overwhelming lack of development from all players not named Trae last season. I have tried to see any patterns or find a reason but at this point, no success. But I think we all get our "gut reaction" to that horrific patch of games that put us in purgatory by the All-Star game. I am still happy we made the playoffs via the play-in. Our awful showing (sans healthy Capella and Collins) revealed huge deficiencies among both our game plan as well as our execution. I believe the addition of Murray will actually make us geometrically harder to contain on offense. The coaching, however, concerns me as does our player development.

13 hours ago, sturt said:

I'd never heard of it. And skepticism is just my nature. Would want to study it further to see its strengths/weaknesses.

Thanks for the link.

 

Not sure if you've happened to come across the handful of times I've posted this... so forgive if you've seen it already, and especially forgive if you've already ascended to the logic of it...

 

 

Wow, I can't like this enough! Thanks. I am rarely on the Squawk due to job, family, and other items. I still love the Hawks and all, but miss this community. It is interesting that last season we had the most Winshare games lost to injury of any other team in the NBA. I will see if I can pull that stat for this season (can't remember where that data was available...always book mark and download the data). It would help quantify a bit, it just takes a long, long time to compile in a spreadsheet to actually quantify what the rest of the league dealt with compared to our Hawks. 

Regardless, your thinking is clear and your language concise. You are on point!!! So thanks!!!

12 hours ago, sturt said:

I'd never heard of it. And skepticism is just my nature. Would want to study it further to see its strengths/weaknesses.

Thanks for the link.

 

Not sure if you've happened to come across the handful of times I've posted this... so forgive if you've seen it already, and especially forgive if you've already ascended to the logic of it...

 

 

Looks like I have my reading list cut out for me ! And I noticed someone said that EPM doesn't include Defense. It absolutely does bring defense into the mix. It is why Trae drops precipitously from near the top of the ratings to just outside the top-10. Again, it isn't perfect (none of the catch all do), but it is the best we have at predicting outcomes for games over the past decade.

24 minutes ago, sturt said:

I know what PER is. I know what VORP is. I know what RAPTOR is. I don't know what EPM is. (But I take it that it's similar.)

Here is a bit on all the advanced metrics and where they shine and where they don't. https://hoopshype.com/lists/advanced-stats-nba-real-plus-minus-rapm-win-shares-analytics/

11 minutes ago, sturt said:

I know what PER is. I know what VORP is. I know what RAPTOR is. I don't know what EPM is. (But I take it that it's similar.)

I also know that, going into last season, the one thing that was practically unanimously said from outsiders about the Atlanta Hawks was that "that team is really, really deep."

Yes, we said that too, but I took note of how typically we were considered the team with the most depth anytime that conversation was raised.

So, the riddle is... were the outsiders wrong, and were we fooling ourselves?

Or is it the case that when you place in the very middle of the season this 22-game ( a full quarter of the entire season ) gauntlet where the 5 men on the floor on any given night was fluid to the point of starting even G-Leaguers who by definition weren't good enough to be on an NBA roster... that's going to affect EVERYONE's stats and, almost unavoidably, the outcome of the season if your regular rotation is that superior in comparison.

We were not fooling ourselves. Our guys were handicapped in a big way in contrast to when the rotation was, at least, the actual rotation, and not some gumbo version.

EPM is the most accurate predictive advanced metric we have. It isn't flawless, but pretty solid for a catch-all advanced metric. If you look at the playoff series and outcomes, the teams with the better EPM among the rotation tended to win. Exceptions are teams where you have a beast (Giannis) and injuries remove a key piece of the equation.

I wish there was a way to filter out some of the "noise" from the COVID games. I know most teams dealt with it as well, so honestly I have tended to disregard its impact on the Hawks..."all the other teams dealt with it too." I am not saying that this is, in fact, the reality. But I was letting you know why I didn't concern myself when comparing teams overall depth last year.

I do know that if our younger players developed and stepped up, we would have had an amazing season. Trae's improvements were beyond my hopes. Most of the other players really didn't take big steps up (or some even took a slight step back). I don't have an answer for that other than it is obvious that the Warrior's player development system is lightyears better than most any organizations.  

1 hour ago, ABH said:

Had depth last year also 

If you do a quick comparison on dunksandthrees EPM and compare our roster to GSW, Memphis, Bucks, Boston, etc. you will see the glaring lack of quality depth we had. We only had 5 players above 0 on EPM. All those others had 8-10 players. Hard to compete when your depth is not at the quality of the competition. 

16 hours ago, gurpilo said:

I think Griffin is coming inside this 8 and Huerter might be the odd man out.

Good call, Nostradamus!!!!

On 6/30/2022 at 10:49 AM, marco102 said:

You're thinking about this one backwards. 

Kevin is like 7 years younger than Bogi. Kevin is having his first healthy off season in years. Is way more available and you can use his contract in the future to get other assets.

It's Bogi all day for me. 

Agree. But apparently we are not in ownership

29 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Nope! We need to let this die.

Just be the 2022 Hawks.

Until we get a coach that can create a system to maximize our players' talents and abilities while minimizing their weaknesses along with a player development coach to get the most from our young players, we will not be anywhere near the Warrior's.

4 hours ago, Alex said:

What are the Spurs doing here? They need youthful players and they traded away their only star.

Rumor is there are several HS players that are freakishly good at guard coming through the draft over the next few years. They are going complete rebuild and an almost 26 year old late blooming guard is not on that timeline. I am sure the Spurs knew Murray would be miserable in lotto land for a few years. I respect their haul from Murray and allowing him to go to a future contender.