TheNorthCydeRises

LOL . . you just gonna hijack that man's thread like that? The fact that Hunter is completely left out of the top 100 for ESPN, shows just how much they pay attention to the Hawks . . . . unless they have him as a top 50 player.

Players 100 - 51 are out. Here are the Hawks on the list: 99 - Danillo Gallinari 95 - Kevin Huerter 64 - Bogdan Bogdanovic 55 - Clint Capela 54 - John Collins I call BS on Clint and Collins not being top 50 players, although I wouldn't put them any higher than top 40. It bodes very good for Kevin Huerter to be recognized as a top 100 player in a contract year. No De'Andre Hunter, mainly because he was hurt most of the year, and people didn't get to really see the Hawks until the playoffs. The only suspense now is how high do they rank Trae?

Mods . . . help me out. Cam Reddish and Danillo Gallinari were excluded from my choices. I wrote 10 down, but only 8 showed up. Please add them to my choices, if you can.

There's a feature in NBA 2K22 that allows you to build a team from scratch. When that happens, 8 players from the current team are protected from being selected in the Expansion draft. If the NBA were to announce that Seattle and Kansas City were about to be awarded NBA franchises, which 8 Hawks players would you protect? I'm going to assume that we'd get 100% consensus on Trae Young being protected. Out of these 10 players . . pick (3) that you WOULD NOT PROTECT.

You know what it is, man? It's the big elephant in the room. We felt that we NEEDED Cam to not only be good, but very good, in order to justify the trade of "that dude in Dallas" for Trae Young + 1st rd pick ( Cam Reddish ). That's part of the reason why people go so hard for Cam, and sell him very high on his potential. It is our best interest that Cam becomes the player that people think he can be. If he does, we become an elite team for the next 3 - 5 years minimum. But the things you pointed out, are right on the money: He didn't live up to expectations at Duke ( injury or no injury ) He had a rookie year in which, by analytic standards, he was very bad, despite showing promise after the All-Star break And he had a 2nd year that also didn't start out that hot, even before he got hurt. So now it's year 4. He arguably have 3 wings on this team ( Bogi, Hunter, Huerter ) that the organization trusts. And he has another hybrid 3/4 guy that could take minutes from him in Jalen Johnson. This is the make or break year for him. To me, he doesn't have to be great. He just needs to be consistent and a plus player on the floor. No more sub 40% FG for the season. No more sub 33% 3FG shooting. Just be solid across the board. Jalen Johnson, to me, is fantastic. Can score at all 3 levels. Can defend 1- 4 if need be. And can create for others, a trait that neither Cam nor Hunter have in their offensive games yet. If Jalen shows that he can consistently knock down long jumpers, it's going to be IMPOSSIBLE to keep him out of this lineup, in favor of guys who are off and on. He just brings too many skills to the table. You know . . that gives me an idea for a thread topic.

Still got that last pint of Traeterade in you body huh?

1) Hawks will have a 12 game win streak going into the Jan. 7th game vs the Lakers . . . which is a ESPN game. 2) Hawks will be up 3 - 2 in the Eastern Conference Finals . . . I don't know if they can close it out, but they will be up 3 - 2, with at least 2 shots to get to the NBA Finals 3) Jalen Johnson will displace either Kevin Huerter or Cam Reddish as being the 1st wing off the bench.

Game 1 vs Vikings WIN!! Despite the coach making an idiotic 4th down call in his own territory, which failed, and changed the momentum of the game, Joe Burrow and the squad pulled out the victory in OT. Even Mr. Dropsie ( Ja'Marr Chase ) came up big against the Vikings. And yes, sometimes you do need a little luck to help you out. Whether that was a fumble or not at the end of the game, I don't know. All I'll say is that kind of call has gone against the Bengals for DECADES. So if this was a payback gift, so be it. A win is a win! These guys look a lot like the Trae Young / John Collins duo, in their relationship on the field. Next up . . an old friend.

Falcons fans . . . need a 2nd team to root for that is not in the NFC, to take your mind off the Falcons? Come on over and root for the Bengals. Like our Atlanta Hawks, they're a team with good young talent, and a potential superstar that everything revolves around. And also like the Hawks, this year has the potential to be special. We're in the AFC North, so there's nothing easy in this division, that's for sure. But we do have a favorable schedule if we can pull off a few upsets or two. Goal: Get to the playoffs and win at least 1 game . . . ( Bengals are 0 - 7 in the playoffs since 1990 and have missed the playoffs the last 5 seasons ) Let me introduce you to the team the proper way . . .

I've always liked Dennis. And I still respect him for at least trying to be the leader of the Hawks when the franchise took all of his help away from him. As for the IG post, a few things - He's a great sport about not getting that big contract he was looking for. Dennis' sense of humor was always one of his strong suits. - He's low key flossing like hell, with the Black Phantom Rolls Royce and the Baby Blue Bugatti in the shot - And I like what lethalshooter says abut God not making any mistakes, and that his next contract will be bigger. He'll get a chance to play a significant role for the Celtics, that should make them a better team. And if they make some noise in the playoffs, a team will definitely pay for his services. He's only 28, so he's in the prime of his career for the next 2 - 4 years. -

I was actually watching Smackdown off and on last night, and missed this segment. This is great marketing for Trae, but probably greater for the Hawks. Trae didn't have to come out in a Hawks hoodie, but he did. And the fact that he did, just ramped up the boos even more. And it's great to see the team name outside of a basketball setting. Next, I want to see Sami Zayn ( the wrestler who introduced him ), do the same thing in Philadelphia, with John Collins showing up. If they want to make the Hawks the "villain" team, I think our guys would embrace it fully and have fun with it. Both team need to be at least over .500 though. The game needs to mean a little something in the standings to give it that extra spice.

I'm staying 30 feet from the basket and launching 3s like Trae. I'm making one of them.

The Hawks probably know that they're not going to be able to keep everybody. DeAndre Hunter is a valued commodity by most of us, including the Hawks front office. Cam's potential as a great 2-way player is also valued. But if either of them get hurt for an extended amount of time during this season, and Kevin stays healthy, Kevin needs to be the one that we place the priority on keeping. Until the other two do something like this to decide a playoff game ( not necessarily a playoff series ), Kevin may be the one that should be priority, He's a Hawks legend for this game alone.

Dennis was offered a MCM bag . . but he wanted a Gucci bag . . . The Lakers and the rest of the NBA said . . forget that . . and offered him a duck bag

Why would he, or should he take a discount?

Give me the 2012 - 2015 version of Joe Johnson In the playoffs, it really helps if you have a guy who can create and make his own shot. He became a much better clutch shot maker as he got older. These games in his final season in Atlanta, really set up the Joe Johnson that people later saw in Brooklyn, when he was making damn near everything in the clutch. Then once he got to Brooklyn, he just started going nuts in the clutch. As much as we love our wings, none of them can do this with the ball in their hands at the end of games. Having a scoring wing like this alongside Trae who can get his own shot at any time, would take pressure off of Trae at the end of games. Plus Joe was a great secondary passer who could set up bigs and shooters for easy shots, another element that our current wings do not possess. PG - Trae G/F - JJ F - Hunter F/C - Collins C - Capela G - Williams G - Huerter G - Bogi G/F - Reddish F - Jalen F - Gallo C - Okongwu If this was our squad this year, that's a top 3 team in the league, no doubt. And it might be enough to take out Milwaukee or Brooklyn. And if we get past them, we're beating ANYBODY coming out of the West. 2

I went to Northeast High on the northside of the city. Our rival was Northwest. The spelling of "Northcyde" is actually a reference to this rap group. As for Collins, he has it in him. He, more than anyone else named Trae, is ready to take on an expanded role in the offense. Everything on this team can't be reliant on bombing away from 3 or scoring at the rim. Trae is so dangerous because he has the best floater in the game and is now scoring in the midrange. If we can get John consistently scoring around the rim, in the midrange, and on spot up 3s, we're going to be a championship contender that even Milwaukee and Brooklyn may not beat.

John Collins devrloping an all-star level midrange game off the dribble.

Happy birthday GM.

Also, Lonzo Ball was hurt this season with San Van Gundy taking the ball out of his hands, and putting in Zion's. Lonzo ended up being more of a combo guard than the point guard. With Lavine and Vucevic, don't be surprised if Lonzo averages 8+ assists this season. Lonzo's long range shooting problems are gone, He's been a 37%+ 3 point shooter since leaving the Lakers. If he ever decides to attack the rim and start drawing fouls, he could easily be a candidate for MIP. Don't be shocked if he turns the corner and starts to approach the 18 - 20 ppg game mark, while also dishing out 8 assists.

And this is Bam last season.

And this is what happened to Gobert in that infamous Game 5.