sturt

That. And. He can emerge as one of the "best players" on a great team... and Ressler's words affirmed he's going to pay, not to keep "every" player but he will the "best" players on a "great" team. So, yeah, I'd hold off on any predictions, me.

Not sure I want to get so beefy as to have four centers, me. And some might recall, I was one of those who took a polar opposite view.... that beefing up was not consistent with how we're wired to play in the first place. It's like, to me, seeing the old Redskins "hogs" run over a "west coast" offense, and claiming you need to be able to get yourself a John Riggins and some better run-block lineman... no, don't be mixing things, trying to be all things to all situations.... choose the framework for your offense, and just be really really good at what you do. That said, I'm on record as lusting for a Thad Young buyout, and subsequent Schlenk pouncing and signing him to come home... well second "home" anyway. I do think that 3rd column of the depth chart, you only do yourself good to insert some 30+ year-old depth for the playoffs, as long as they're players with some tread on the tire, and are good-to-very-good defenders and good ball distributors on the other end.

It's true, @Spud2nique... it would only be right for some Hawk to eventually ascend to being called The Spanx. I know she sold out, but one of our owners would take some special joy in that, I'm sure.

My last comment on Cam for awhile... and by the way, I think a lot of posters make a lot of great, substantive points in this thread, on all sides... I found myself liking a lot in this one... not sure it needed to get so angry, but, you know, glass houses and all...

Defensive Rating is a useful stat as long as it's taken in context of the overall DRTG of the team, and then the team's DRTG in the context of the rest of the teams. Spent a lot of time last season analyzing it and other defensive metrics as a consequence of my interest in the constant early-on referencing by Lloyd Pierce of Tony Snell being a defensive asset, even as I was constantly watching his flat stone feet get blown by by his guy... that's the kind of thing that makes you want to study some numbers. To the point here... Cam's DRTG last season in ATL was 7th best of the 15-man roster players, and was equivalent to the overall team DRTG at 113. This season, it was 8th best of the normal roster, and comes in at 115, compared to a team DRTG of 114. So, slight but statistically insignificant difference... plausibly could be statistical error pushing that. I am a believer in the idea that McM was openly acknowledging in his interviews that he was encouraging Cam to be aggressive offensively because... why wouldn't he be?... everyone wanted to see Cam evolve into being a juggernaut level player in a Hawks uniform, and maybe just maybe, Cam would change his mind... or even if he didn't, the team would be better positioned to get a FRP once he got dealt. But/and that didn't work out like any of us would have liked... Cam occasionally got some numbers, but it wasn't correlating with team wins... indeed, one could observe that both Cam... and the team overall... flashed how good they could be, but the overriding story was that Cam... and the team overall... only flashed, and remained fickle from game to game. I credit our GM for moving Cam when he did, and giving himself and McM the chance to evaluate the sans-Cam Hawks for a dozen games before the trade deadline. Some may have said, "just wait, and use the trade deadline to your advantage, and let some team desperate for a high-ceiling wing give you maximum return!" But we can see pretty clearly now that that would have been tunnel vision, focusing only on maximizing a trade, and ignoring the bigger picture that there was legit reason to believe that without a player on the court who we and he were constantly hoping to see breakout.... maybe just maybe... this team's engine wouldn't sputter anymore, but being running smoothly again. So... glow-eyed Schlenk... once again...

Fixed. People can complain that I'm wordy,... maybe pedantic... and sometimes they're right, but often precision/accuracy helps promote better conversations, preventing wrong impressions... something I clearly value over the more hipster idea to take pains to speak in soundbites. I could go on.... hehe... but I won't. Drilling into the precise point here... 1. Simmons is sometimes perceived as something significant. 2. Put that together with the perception that JC sometimes is perceived as overvalued... and vwa-lah.... conclusion writes itself. In this case, the big black bold dividing line between them and me/us is that a heckuvalotta folks like myself see Simmons' highlights, but also see the player's deficits, and remember seeing this movie before. NBA players have improved their shooting historically at a better rate than they've improved their attitudes, imo. Best analogy to me is that Ben is Medusa... beautiful to behold from a distance, but if you get too close, turns out, those beautiful thick locks are actually snakes... and worse, if you get close enough to look into those eyes, game over... the reality of that salary will turn a GM's ambitions for his team... and for that matter, his career... to stone.

Can this be true? I'm wary. But I really, really want to believe it. Openly admitting to confirmation bias here. //om/bames_barden/status/1487264712874242048?s=20&t=vXwI3RYXR74W2Yl

(Must we do this?) Big O is a legend. Respecting the game means respecting legends.

I'm the kind of person who loves nothing better than to sit in the opposing team's section at a game, just on the chance I'll get to hear them whine. So, of course, YouTube is such a blessing and this is such fun.

Yeah, the way Nate feels about him right now, think he might quit if Schlenk did that. (Hyperbole, of course.)

"Damn, we need some more beef on this roster... games we lost, we lost because we got brutalized."... ??? So here we are on the precipice of the trade deadline. Is that still a priority... or did replacing Bruno with Dieng, and Nate Knight with Jalen Johnson, and seeing Big2O's continued maturity give you some confidence and satisfaction that won't be anything that gets said about us this post season?

Oh c'monnnnnn.... that's not nice. So, not just a party pooper is Dnice.... a pre-party pooper. I'll host. Flights to Shreveport aren't cheap, so it's the least I can do.

... Hawksquawk hosts a Zoom party. Who's in?

Back at ya.

Soth, I just reviewed the so-called pedantics, or what I would call just fans discussing an issue but that's just me (perhaps)... and I see that in the earliest posts, it was only Mikey who was stating in absolute terms that it was always the GM's plan to make a consolidation trade eventually. Your take wasn't exactly that. Your take was, as I understood it, the GM has evolved to seek a consolidation trade. You imagine a scenario where the GM hadn't ascended yet to the idea that the team wouldn't be able to keep every player, so when the owner said that that's practically a given though they would certainly seek to keep the best players... it's been your perception that that forced the GM to re-think his plans. Of course, that's still not supported by the whole of what the GM has said (ie, based on the evidence we have on the proverbial Hawksquawk table). (And again the man just in the last month spoke on radio emphatically that he was beginning to perceive he might need to think differently about this roster.... so it's difficult then to understand why he would make that statement if he'd always intended to make a consolidation trade, or even if as you prefer to think of it, that he'd already evolved to that conclusion.) But it merits distinguishing between the two POVs b/t the two of you... Repeating for emphasis since it doesn't seem to have sunk in with very many paying this vein of conversation some attention... I'm not omniscient. I'm a flawed, fallible human being. So I can't rule out the GM changing his mind on x, y or z. We may lose every game between now and the trade deadline, and who could be surprised then if he did make a consolidation trade splash(?). Not me. Not many. But to the point here, it's a sober assessment to say it's not been his history to change big picture intentions, but rather, what course corrections he makes tend to be smaller picture. In other words, his objectives rarely if ever change, but his approach to meeting his objectives sometimes does (... see Jay's example above). Done. Put to bed. Exhausted by the pedantics, even if they're mostly my own. Moving on. Still much respect for your thoughts and opinions otherwise.

Think they may move on from Thibs? (Should qualify that as a real question... not a statement wrapped inside a question.)

Guilty as charged, maybe... dunno... didn't really read all that sources stuff, but am aware enough to know there might something in there that was/is applicable. More seriously, but still not very... I'd intended to just convey, since it did capture a little bit of interest here, that some OKC fans did in fact engage me, and that modification was acceptable to them. That's all. Mods, delete away, no problem.

1. No, no, no. Don't do that. Schlenk did do what he said he was going to do still... he just said he and his HC decided to play Dre more at PF, filling that void then. The void didn't go away. He just chose a different remedy. YOU were right, by the way... to emphasize the "maybe" in that quote. Have to give you credit, even though you're not real anxious to reciprocate... hehe. 2. No again. Please read closer. I know I write too much for some people's tastes, and you've said as much on occasion. But you're mistaking the tipping point issue... (clipped from above... )

If one assumes that it was in the GM's plans to "keep everyone," my first reaction is, that's one disconnected-from-NBA-reality GM. Highly doubt the GM had to change his plans, since I do not take Travis Schlenk to be a dolt. Indeed, this is what Ressler said specifically... how is any of this somehow inconsistent with what he'd ever said previously... it's almost Owner-Speak 101, in fact, in the chapter that discusses when you're previously cheap team starts getting good. G'nite.

Respect you brother. But on this one, for some reason, there's an allergy to the GM's own words and a simultaneous appetite for cherry-picking the GM's own words to fit a desired conclusion. If that weren't the case, folks like yourself, instead of taking the dismissive deflection and labeling route ("pedantics"), would have chosen to just respond with substance. Look. It's not my fault that when you read the entirety of what the GM said, his words explicitly make clear that he's been banking on this set of players to internally develop into something special. To your point, yes... I already said this... the GM is clearly gleeful that he's in a better position to make a trade for a star, were one to become available... answering Kirschner's hypothetical. And/but that doesn't reverse what his intentions were and have been. Indeed, his recent radio rant preceding the Cam trade only further affirms that his perception had previously been that this team would develop stars from within--otherwise why would he have said (paraphrasing but I can go look up exact words of course) he's had to re-evaluate his own thinking, and consider if some trades needed to be made after all. I repeat... no one can deny that saying "that will never happen"... in this case, a consolidation trade... is to pretend oneself to be omniscient instead of fallible. It could happen. But that's not what we're discussing here... some (you? Mikey? others?) are asserting it's the plan that the GM has long held to make a consolidation trade. There remains no evidence that that's been his thinking. Rather, he has explicitly told us his plan is internal development with this young core... undeniably.... and nothing "pedantic" about reading his actual words in context and believing he was being truthful.

This team has had practically zero stability in who has been available 1-8 from the very start of the season. You can't just re-establish last season's chemistry and mojo with happy thoughts, of course. Have to actually get on the court and practice together and then play together for a substantial number of games in a row. Cannot presume the worst of this roster with any clear and compelling evidence, for that reason. There has been chronic churning of the rotation and only now has some degree of stability began to settle in. Add to that how Cam's situation was inherently contorting the second unit's productivity because of his (somewhat understandable) predisposition to try to generate numbers. Add to that how, clearly, Dre's presence in particular has become so consequential. And Big2O's. And, more recently, Delon's. Your eyes weren't lyin last season. This roster really was that good that they were very realistically, very plausibly within a misplaced referee's foot of a Finals appearance. And they're a year older, a year wiser, a year more mature. And they're supplemented that roster with a well-regarded PG in Delon instead of the hybrid (though useful) LouWill, and Deing instead of... forgive me for saying it, Bruno... Fernando. All they needed last season was some extended relief from the injury list. Once that happened, this team flourished big-time. Let's go.

Pardon the dripping cynicism over here. There are individuals in the internet age whose incomes partially or in whole are connected to clicks. Consider the options that are available right now to those individuals. Ben Simmons tedium set in weeks ago. No one really gets that excited about Jerami Grant. Otoh.... who can't get excited about John Collins??? Never mind that, as was just pointed out to me, the "JC is frustrated" talk, though technically valid... it was technically valid weeks ago now... and don't miss the "technically" in "technically valid"... yes, he said he was frustrated, but there was context that few seem to be especially interested to acknowledge... “I’m not sitting here complaining and saying I need more touches of the ball, or I need to score more points or need more shots. I’ve never complained about that,” Collins said. “All I’ve said, specifically, if there’s a way that I feel like is beneficial for everybody — and not just myself — is for us to be used in the correct way. That’s the angle I’m taking. If I’m saying it, it’s for us. I just want to be put in the best position to succeed, and that’s it. I feel like I’ve sacrificed and have continued to sacrifice as much as I can for the team. I just want to make sure that’s clear.” And... On whether he has had second thoughts about his desire to remain with the Hawks long-term: “No. That’s why it’s frustrating when I’m mentioned in those kinds of (trade rumors). It always makes my fans, teammates and the organization not know where I might stand. I can’t be responsible for how someone feels when they’re processing what they’re reading. What I’m upset about is, sometimes, I can’t control my own narrative. I do my best to do so, but it’s part of the job. In terms of the Hawks and Atlanta, I don’t need to talk about it because I’ve talked about it enough. This is where I want to be.”