sturt

Pardon the observation, but by that definition, almost no primary owner of any sports franchise in existence can be found to be an idiot. That class exists? See, I think there's no single way, but I do think, how ever you get it done, it normally requires a person to be steeped in certain principles/virtues. Tony's changed my mind only recently that he brings the essential principles/virtues to the table.

Honestly. I didn't have that opinion of the man for 7.5 years. Regard for him was relatively high. This last half year has seriously challenged me to think we have an uber-reactionary owner who purposely embraces a convoluted organizational management structure, specifically so that he's able to be an "invisible hand"... able to impose himself into big decisions yet able to claim with some legitimacy that he lets his basketball people make the decisions. Is he an idiot? Depends on how you mean "idiot." He's an idiot, to me, now. He's unstable--prone to embrace one approach one year, and a different one the next. He's prone to saying publicly what he wants people to believe, not what actually is... so he's not trustworthy. And his history is that he seeks out relatively inexperienced people to lead the basketball ops machinery in the organization... which... again, is part of his convoluted organizational management convictions. Hiring inexperienced people is cheaper, but I don't think that's the big deal... rather, inexperienced people are easier to roll over, and easier to lay blame as disappointments occur. That makes him spineless. All of which, can be summed up as qualities of an idiot. Oh. And I didn't even mention not especially self-aware. Who installs his own inexperienced kid into the basketball ops offices, and doesn't get it that naturally people are going to recognize that as an overt mechanism for installing an information channel almost as good as hidden mics and cameras, piped in directly to the owner's desk? Who goes even farther and tells Jeff Schultz how much his kid is universally loved in those offices... as-if anyone would ever have the stupidity to say differently??? My jaw dropped on that one. That's some special self-confirmation bias going on there in the brain of our owner. Our owner. *sigh* He's not an idiot from his own perspective... he's rather simply sly. He's getting what control he wants without having to endure the scrutiny like a Hal Steinbrenner or a Jerry Jones. So, in that way, he's really, really clever.

Not me. Did you see the shorts he was spotted wearing after Quin's introductory presser? Daaaaang. Still can't un-see that.

To be fair to Lauren, she didn't say any different than that. She said the process began years ago to identify the key factors in players they want to draft, and that the 3 draftees are the product of that work. Right? I spose my remark has more to do with "targeted early." And maybe I need to be fair that there's some room to argue what constitutes "targeted"... like, targeted specifically, or just as part of a pool of targets... and "early"... like, how early is early? I get it. What else ya gonna do? You're up there to put on a hype show practically by definition. No one's going to be all that happy with complete transparency. But, yeah, the words chosen too easily lead to takeaways that oversell the situation to be something it isn't. So, maybe a better choice of words that are positive, but within some clearer boundaries. As to the conversation about "the process"... I haven't watched the presser just yet, but that sounds like another way of attempting the "Hawks DNA" theme that Ressler and Fields started pumping last February or so. I'm sorry, but for now count me a skeptic that there's some special psychographic-slash-statistical formula that the Hawks have discovered that will allow them special success. Of course, it's one of those things I'd love to be proven wrong about.

Mods. Please kindly make this required reading so we don't have to sift through so many nothing-burger ideas on the board over the next week. Maybe you can make it so there's a test that a person has to pass before having access to post to this thread??? Appreciate it. All my best -- A Conscientious, but not Histrionic, Poster

Spare me, Landry. Spare me. Please. I'm the optimist around here, but you make it so hard when you so explicitly invite cynical rolling eyes.

This is a case where I'm forced to choose between thinking Tony Ressler is absolute bi-polar bananas, swinging from extreme to extreme... or that there's a whole lot more to the story beyond what even camp necessarily knows. Or, I could just not even bother to think about it and go on with my day with more useful pursuits. Hmmm... yeah... gonna just go with "c".

What this thread needs is a juicy forward-looking rumor.

Soooooooooooooooo.... Nate, if they don't pick up your option, just know you're still in the Hawksquawk rolodex of the mind...

Right. I got that. But none of that responds to the - Neglect to recognize that the ".500 team" label only applies to the actual conditions where KVon was given away for literally no 2022-23 asset... and... related... - The fact that what disappointment occurred for the 2022-23 season... specifically 22-23... can be most vividly and tectonically traced back to the decision to make that trade... ie, by Schlenk, or by Ressler, or by Ressler Junior, or by Fields, or by whatever combination of some or all of those is valid. To have no problem with trading him is the same as saying, "I have no problem with how the 22-23 season turned out." My Spidey sense? Whoever was against the KVon trade (assuming there were those in the room who did) couldn't help himself/themselves, and he/they was/were incessantly verbally and/or non-verbally sending "I told you so's" to the group that won that decision. And Schlenk isn't the lead dog any more as a result of that.

Yes and no. We have no cap space, yep yep. But like practically everyone else, we have MLE we can theoretically use for some improvement. But but... we're way back in that FA pecking order, first by virtue of having no cap space to afford the top tier talent, and second by virtue of other teams having (a) more minutes they can offer a given player (given how our rotation is stacked), and (b) more large market media affection potential (eg, NY, LA, CHI, BOS, etc). Oh. And then there's the whole question of whether the owner will, indeed, be willing to pay that much more tax, assuming he'll pay any at all, right? Too bad. There will almost certainly be some second-tier talents who have to accept MLE dollars because of the scarcity of cap space even among the handful of teams that have some cap space. And trades... unless you can strike a trade with a team with cap space (HOU, IND, SAS, DET) or a team looking to tank (WAS), it's highly unlikely the net outcome of a given trade is going to result in any immediate improvement on the floor for next season.

Sounds fun to me. But wouldn't get my hopes up, given the situation where the new-ish head coach is trying to install his stuff, right? And goodness gracious, let's give Good Eye the benefit of reduced expectations, and at least let the kid get through Summer League before presuming he's gonna be a 2023-24 asset... and even then.... being patient. He does light up a highlights reel, but when he's not good... all the other stuff... let's just say his room for growth is just as vivid. To the JJ as point forward thing, tho.... very, very intrigued to see if Quin looks to experiment there in a way that most coaches probably wouldn't. Seriously adds a whole other dimension to this roster if it proves fruitful.

True that. Would only add, in the interest of full disclosure... took him about 10 games after his return to get back into some consistent production as we've been accustomed to seeing.

In kg-world, its enough to say you're right. No need to be able to actually support your conclusions. Just keep repeating them. Oh, and for a certain audience for whom ad hominem qualifies as substance... sure... sprinkle in a little "you're such a Neanderthal" for the fun of it. In sturt-world, that aint gonna cut it. I don't have to mock you. (In fact, to do that is to weaken my position.) I only have to lay out the facts and comply with what I was taught in PHIL 201 Logic and Reason from the textbook by practically the same title at Marshall University in 1984. I've done that. Satisfied with that. And in the absence of any substantive response, moving on. (But if I did want to mock you, fwiw, I might turn to some of my quips about a certain GOP candidate for president who has long seemed to operate under that same mentality.)

You didn't like the return? Um. WHAT return? Not only did you get no return and an on-court talent deficit for 60-ish games of the 2022-23 season until Bey's arrival... but YOUR GM EFFECTIVELY PAID FIVE 2ND ROUND DRAFT PICKS for the PLEASURE of getting NOOOOOO return. (Caps not shouting, but for emphasis.) Two things. First you're co-mingling here, and you don't seem to even get it that you're co-mingling, my friend. What am I talking about. a) The Hawks' final offensive rating was 116 and change. And final defensive rating was 116 and change. So what? So, basketball games are decided routinely on the basis of as little as ONE missed or made free throw... a one point loss or win... or... as much as... THREE MISSED 3 point shots or made... a single-digits difference loss or win. Sooooo... it probably doesn't matter all that much to your final W/L record if your typical offensive output is, say, 3-6 points less than your typical defensive output. And the converse is true... it matters mathematically a helluvalot when your outputs are virtually the same.... AND you're missing a proven, veteran, primary weapon (BogBog) in your arsenal for almost half the season... PLUS, IN ADDITION to that, and to the precise point here, YOU'RE MISSING A PROVEN, VETERAN PRIMARY WEAPON (KVon) IN YOUR ARSENAL FOR ALMOST 60 GAMES (ie, until Bey's arrival). Then, even when you have those two situations resolved, let's just change head coaches, and let the whole ecosystem we call a team get to re-calibrate to new leadership and that new leadership's decision-making and by most accounts, very-different coaching philosophies. It's a .500 team, sure. But let's be sober. It's a .500 team under the specific, actual, fact-based conditions laid out above. What it would have been WITHOUT THE AFTERMATH OF THE KVON TRADE is almost certainly something better, if not significantly better than .500. b) You're entirely right that if we're talking about off-court benefit, the owner saved money, and too, the GM gained an asset that could be valuable for some season in the future (SAC 2024 conditional FRP). But. When we're talking specifically about the 2022-23 season... this is irrefutably true, not because muah said it, but because it is irrefutably true. "But what about this?" That's fine. But all due respect, North... you were going to have AJ on the roster no matter what anyhow, and if his talent rose to the level of eclipsing KVon's performance, in that case, all things being equal, you were going to see him get minutes anyhow. So, sure, it bodes well for future seasons to have seen AJ get minutes. But for the 22-23 season, it was part of the equation that contributed to a .500 22-23 regular season. What's more... let's be sober enough to recognize, too, that AJ's butt was on the bench for the playoffs. Even our highly-regarded head coach, by evidence of the facts, felt the team had a better chance of winning games with more veteran talent on the floor. (Sidebar: I find it hilarious, truly, that one poster in particular... not you North... has argued so incessantly in agreement with me on this, but ya know... it's me... sturt... so, she's gonna be mighty interested to poke holes in any conclusion once she realizes she's on my side and me on hers. She really don't like me, I spose. Dunno why. I'm honestly her best friend around here. No, really. But that's a whole other discussion for a different thread, if at all. )

Think you must've been sleeping through the several discussions here preseason and the first few weeks into the 22-23 schedule... ie, JDay's defensive slide from the past 3 seasons since his peak was illuminated by almost any set of defensive measures a person chose to look at. It was argued that, though plausible, we shouldn't expect that trend to reverse at age 33. And it didn't. ANYTHING KVon would have given us would have been more than JDay could. Substantially. We literally gave up KVon for NO on-court benefit. And again, salt in that wound, that deal eventually cost us five 2nd round picks to make up something of what JDay couldn't do for us. Them's just the facts, my friend.

Oh. Okay then. Can't get much more persuasive than that, now can ya. More seriously. Repeating your preferred conclusion isn't an argument... it's just repeating your preferred conclusion.

Let's not forget Fast Eddie Johnson... technically a 3rd (!) rounder, but if memory serves, named to at least one ASG in the 70s.

Overboard? Excuse me? Didn't have BogBog back until 25 games in, and took another 10 or so beyond that for him to get back to some degree of consistency. That's nearly half the season. Bey? Only had him for about the last 25 games... and similarly took a few for him to get into the flow. Only acquired him because KVon wasn't on the roster. And none of that even broaches that KVon had himself a banner season overall. From a GM perspective, you sent out a key rotation asset... and effectively sacrificed half a season of wing production plus gave up another 5 2nd round picks for the pleasure. Hard to argue anyone's going overboard when you look at the final accounting, my friend.

Btw... since the name came up... wouldn't sleep on Nate, if Bruno ends up getting included in a deal and if MIN doesn't pick up their team option.

More like what the CP head coach... whoever that ends up being... can turn him into. But yeah. High ceiling there, but a whole whole whole lot to work on, if/when you watch the Spinella video on him. I'm not sure he gets any more than a cup of coffee with the big league club this first season. Did I mention there's a whole lot to work on?

I hear that, and had given it some serious thought as the season drew to a close. But I'm skeptical that they'll go that direction. If you're serious about a championship, a "lights out shooter"... and one with BogBog's temperament and (we sometimes forget) championship experience... is likely worth more to us than we could expect any equal... let alone better... return in exchange. (Speaking of Brad Rowland, I recall him being of the opinion from the day that the extension was signed that he believed it was all about having a $17-ish m asset for trading purposes... fwiw.)

And that, of course, would be moronic.... JC might not have had the stats to support a $25m income last season, but he's not incapable of returning to that output that supported it in the first place... not at all. And and, as the salary cap continues to increase, that $25m decreases in payroll impact, of course. And and and... of course, needless to say... Poole's exit was partially about team drama, and that's not at all a factor with JC, complete opposite. Sometimes the best deal is.... let's say it together, shall we... the one(s) you don't end up making.

Well, actually, no.. it can and barring a trade, will. To the question of who the 3rd will be, it would seem to depend on whether Aaron gets a stronger offer, whether in terms of playing time or salary... arguably, Quin gushed about no one on the roster more passionately than AH, and if one watches AH's exit interview, it's pretty clear the feeling is mutual.