sturt

Sooooo... days later... seems like it's less that I'm wrong, more that so many Squawkers are just that addicted to this form of entertainment, and prefer to carry on like this is any ordinary year with any ordinary year's assessment and prescription for what needs to happen... The coaching is terrible... never mind that there's no stability there... Players x, y and z are terrible... never mind that there's no stability there... Players a, b and c are guys we need to trade for now... never mind that the state of instability will continue no matter how the GM alters the roster. Addictions put the hell in unhealthy. See y'all when the NBA gets stable again.

(*sigh*... so much for "dog-determined," I suppose.... hehe... forgive me... but I still am going to try to recommit myself... right after this... hehe ) "Next man up" when everyone has a roster formed under the same conditions, yes. I question, maybe obviously, the premise that the omicron spike has affected every team sufficiently close to the same. The talent drop-off between the #1 player on a given opening night roster and the #15 is one thing... when you're having to, instead of the #15, dive into, not just the G-League all-star pool, but to the run-of-the-mill pool???... and when you're having to do that, on the fly for a few for one game, and several the next??? Then, zooming out and considering that this is a game where only 5 men see the field of play... where chemistry is at least as important as any other sport on the planet... The effect is exponentially convoluted compared to other sports. These are not games that should count if integrity of the regular season--and by necessary inference seeding for the playoffs, and even mere qualification for that matter--is actually held as paramount. I get why NBA HQ... I get why NBA owners... I get why NBA media and their advertisers.... none of them are especially eager to hold integrity as paramount. They have paychecks to consider. I don't get why we don't. I feel we should.

... to think like this? Why am I wrong to think others should think like this, too? (Honest question, and I'm just throwing this out there to read others' thinking, not to argue. In fact, I'll just say from the jump, don't reply expecting me to reply. I won't say I absolutely won't but I will say I don't intend to, and I can be pretty dog-determined to do what I say I was intending to do.)

Actually, it explains so so much... hehehe So, you were Luke's stunt double?

1. Drama Spud at it again. 2. Not familiar with what you're referencing, so either you've confused me with someone else, or you're just confused period, or what actually might have happened is that I responded to the idea that Gallo could be traded with a skepticism based on my read of the GM's off-season comments and how he seemed totally persuaded that the 2020-21 roster just needed some tweaking to get over the hump... and thus, any key player with any key role should feel as safe as can ordinarily be felt as a NBA player... at the sake of stating the obvious, Gallo being one. 3. That said, there's never been any doubt on my part that Gallo would be shopped. Take a look at the 2022-23 roster projections I did in the off-season... he's not there. The question wasn't if, but when. (Was hoping that we'd win a championship with him, and it would just be a draft night move.) And sure, I believed and still believe that if this roster was even just mostly intact for 25 consecutive games, the continuity and chemistry and performance and results would all be making us and the GM smile big... way big. That hasn't happened, but who's fault is that? No one's, of course, so this outrage and wringing of hands as-if the GM should be reconsidering his roster blueprint is totally... totally... misguided and ill-founded, and really is to me just evidence of a ploy to help continue to further the complete refusal to acknowledge the elephant in the room... since... after all, NBA owners have money to make, and the NBA media as well, so they all have incentive to do just that... pretend like we should be actually still caring, in hopes we'll still care... and thus, still spend money, still watch games, and all of that. Oh yeah, btw... I was clearly interpreting the GM accurately... read his comments, and if there's one thing that is self-evident is that he thought he was doing the right thing bringing all the key players in all the key roles back. Not that I was/am alone, but just sayin.

Why are we even giving NBA even a little attention right now? This is a farce. Absolute farce. And the only reasonable response to what is about as entertaining and legitimate as pro wrestling is to not give NBA HQ the benefit of seeing fans continue to care. Stop caring. Leave it to Ressler to use whatever political clout he has to coalesce his peers in pursuit of reining-in Silver, and stop this circus of a non-regular regular season. Starts with us, though. Shouldn't have to, no, but evidently there's no other way. (Forgive the raised pitch of my voice. But this is ridiculous.)

Dunno. Honestly, I've suspended my NBA interest given the current state of all hell breaking loose and no perceptible reasonable plan at NBA HQ for dealing intelligently with the cards dealt. But having said that, no matter what's going on with "your boy Pangos" at the moment, the very fact that he is on an NBA roster, as I recall, should be hailed as some marvelously fortunate prediction on my part. No? I'm sure @Spud2nique will be adult enough to confirm that. Hold that thought. Hmmm.

Intriguing. Sounds like we're getting BogBog back shortly, though, which seemingly would resolve that. Broken record, I just want to see Wright get about 3-4x the minutes he's gotten so far with what was expected to be his backcourt running mates, ie KVon and Cam. When last I looked, those guys had less than 60 minutes of time together in 25-ish games... that dog don't hunt.

To be more precise, I'm a fan of not being nearly so easy nor quick to come to a largely different conclusion about a player based on 30 games. I think people are just too predisposed to look at numbers without context, and arrive at premature conclusions. Wright's not gotten the role that he was expected to get with any consistency, whether b/c McM has been dividing his minutes with LouWill or because of injuries confounding the 2nd unit from being the 2nd unit. So, that's my most fundamental perspective on that. That said, I also was one who made the somewhat-contested case that from a roster-construction philosophy, the GM had seemed to find success by looking to mirror the skill set from starter to back-up at each position... which, where PG was concerned, explained to some degree why trading Rondo for LouWill last year added something important to the rotation. I just think Wright has evolved into a much better offensive player over the years than he used to be, and for fixable contextual reasons he's been set back in ATL. Patience not only will be rewarded, it will be substantially rewarded if he's our back-up come post-season. I believe that.

New Solo replacement option. Not necessarily one I would pursue, but a new option nonetheless....

Key words. At this early stage and with the coaching staff's legitimate day-to-day first priority being the players who actually are going to carry us to whatever pinnacle the Hawks can actually reach, I wouldn't expect that of them, me. I would expect that to be the responsibility of, obviously, his G-League coaches (who one would presume has some occasional contact with McM, a relationship going back to when they were with the Pacers together) as well as some number of the basketball operations/player development side of the house... any of Schlenk all the way down to.... wait... who's that guy at the bottom of the list??? (I missed that news apparently.)

We live in a time when it's not so much the truth that matters, but the perception of truth... what one can tell people is true and get away with it because the confirmation bias urge is so strong in comparison to the critical thought urge. Right? Me, I see what evidently McM saw... it was as-if we were playing the second night of a back-to-back, when oddly enough, we had a long rest. And regarding the scoring from backcourt guys, not all of the shots that Augustin or Gordon made were unopposed. Quite the contrary. Sometimes one has to tip a cap that it's more that a scorer is just feeling it that night than that they're getting great open looks. But it's December. This is when you want this to happen if it's going to happen. Not January, certainly not February, and absolutely not in March. So much script can so flip for a team with enough talented players and competent coaching. And that's not just wishful thinking--there is no shortage of NBA history, Hawks and otherwise, that testifies to that. We'll get Big2O back. We'll get Bogi back. We'll get Dre back. And we'll replace Solo, hopefully, with a hustle/energy/scrappy player. We'll be okay. More than okay.

I just watched all 7 of Augustin's FGs. Highly recommend it.

Without flinching, saying it with my chest.... yes. Absolutely. Small sample sizes shouldn't be nearly so persuasive as they appear to be for some people.

This would strongly hint that either Cooper or Mays is anticipated to be on the varsity squad a substantial amount of time, no?

BREAKING...

My presumption... and I welcome correction... is that he was suggesting that when Delon is on the floor, the offense is handicapped because it is so framed on a scoring PG that it cannot function well w/o that. It's actually not that far from my own assertion in the off-season that, indeed, the team functions best to the degree that the best of the skill sets of the 2nd string mimics closely that of the starters. I would agree that there are more vivid mirror images of Trae than Delon, but at the same time, I've seen... many of us have seen, thanks to the blessing of YouTube... Delon take a lead and be a force on other teams as he did last year in SAC and DET. As @AHF indicated above, this current status is a regression from his mean by quite a bit, and routinely, players with his track record will tend to balance out... and the way you balance out underperformance not merely by performing at the mean level, but by overperforming. Iow, there's a statistically good chance that once Delon begins to get comfortable, he not only gets comfortable, his numbers surge beyond what's been his average. And welcome to my echo chamber... 55 minutes with your primary wingmates just isn't a lot of time over the course of 5 games... let alone 10... let alone 20... let alone 30. There's clear and compelling reason why Delon isn't comfortable out there yet. Not a doubt in my mind 30 games in, that Delon Wright will be a colossal asset come playoff time when defense tends to be that much more a premium asset.

In my best Sammy Hagar voice.................. I can't de-rive... fifty fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive.

Tomatoe Tomahtoe?

(Had McM made some overhaul to what the team was running last season, could be some discernible relevance to that response.)

(Sometimes I'm taken too seriously... that's my own fault, I suppose.)