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I think the answer to this is very TBD but I will reiterate something I've said before...preferably he's not your best player. Preferably he's playing with a star caliber wing that is your actual best player, and is looking to try to average something around 24 and 10+ assists. Maybe that's Reddish, the progress he made looked very real but I don't think he will be able to tell us in which way he'll go for at least one more season, maybe about a half season. Honestly looks as if a lot is riding on where things go for him to me. If he's good instead of taking another step to possibly being great, you might find yourself walking to the other side of the circle unless you can pull off something in free agency. I'm not going to go crazy absurd, but I do think there's some risk that Trae's best role is like Isaiah Thomas (the today version, not the 90s version) or Jason Terry on Dallas in that his best role outside of a perfect situation is a bench role. There might honestly be a fine line between that and being something like a Nash/Lillard without the athleticism hybrid. I don't think we're going to know here about this line...honestly until we see a playoff series (which could be as soon as 20/21, MAYBE, but not as likely as I would have liked it to have been as we were going into 19/20, or as late as 3 seasons from now). They've done a build that's held plenty of risk, we'll see if the gambles pay off soon enough...

From the way we're going, we MIGHT see the NBA jump right to the playoffs IF we're lucky. Worst case, it's cancelled entirely.

I'm starting to think we're in a parallel universe so far this year.

Yep, would not be surprised if they just go right to the playoffs. Have to think they'll be delayed for at least two weeks, but who knows how long really.

Think others probably have already seen it, but fans are now barred from all of the conference tournaments I believe starting tomorrow.

If the SEC decides to go with no fans starting tomorrow, I wouldn't be surprised at all. I'm basically not watching this Big 10 game that's on my TV right now, but they just announced they're going no fans beginning tomorrow. May be a lot of pissed fans tomorrow at multiple venues as a lot of people probably are already there.

That first stretch looks like it's on Rozier to me honestly. Edit: Welp, not reversed. So long. edit: headset again? lul Well it worked because that was not a foul.

While that would certainly make sense to us normal people, Jordan is good buddies with Durant and Kyrie and he got inserted in the starting lineup immediately after Atkinson was ousted. That's a dead on giveaway that the Nets are going to try to appease the two "superstar talents" they have first before making moves that make more sense.

Jarrett Allen is better than DeAndre Jordan and Jordan being inserted in the starting lineup immediately after Atkinson was fired is a dead giveaway that this was to appease Durant. Prince is another story. He sucks and until I see otherwise, I'm going to be on the side that I think Hunter will be better. Regardless of what's going on here.

I think Young will always need to take a few extra long shots. Stick to closer to the 3 point line, and players won't have to play as up on him, and he won't be able to get by as easily.

Probably. I'm thinking he's been sick for over a week too and it's just gotten bad recently. I think there's only 1 reason he is "trying" to play today. If it was any other team I bet he sits out.

Trae is sick. He likely should not have played in this game as it wasn't going to matter regardless sadly and they likely should plant him on the bench in the 2nd half.

Kenny's coaching acumen is undeniable but there is no way that you would be able to fully get Young into the idea of not dominating the ball and looking to share the ball consistently instead of trying to dominate the ball to score or pass. And add on looking to run off screens more like a Steph Curry. Pierce might get fired sometime, but this would be a case of Kenny and trying to return to the Spurs like way with trading Young and probably setting yourself back to 22/23, if not even later at BEST for doing something, or just trying to improve on what you have.

Atkinson is a good developmental coach but if you're firing Pierce (and that may happen at some point) for him you might as well go ahead and trade Trae, pick another PG to develop, and plan on setting back the tank/rebuild another 2 years. I think you can get to him some on off ball play, but doing it fully is likely completely unreachable. If we're going to make Trae work, it means waving goodbye to the Spurs/Budenholzer way. Period. Trae Young's playstyle is much more James Harden then Stephen Curry and I don't think you're fully changing that. Although he's now playing with another PG again, Harden dominates the ball a good bit. I think Trae is always going to dominate the ball a lot and the Spurs way goes against what I've listed here, it's about always really sharing it. Reddish does need to become the best player on the team though, to boot. Or there's major trouble anyway.

Here's a bit of a funny now. Reddish is now at 37.7% FG/33.1% 3PT. I thought poor college likely translates to worse pro results. Well, his overall FG% was worse last year at 35.6%. Sure is looking as if maybe we needed to just hold up after it came out that he was injured last year. I thought of this as a possibility as I was hearing it, and although I might have taken a different pathway with Cam in redshirting him (even with the tank), it might turn out that Cam and Trae (although he had the big college numbers) are proof there's more than one way to slice it to get what you want. Even if the way of just tossing people in the fire and making them learn and grow on the fly by playing with the big boys can look as ugly as spoiled food does to start out. It wouldn't surprise me, in the case of Cam panning out and the Hawks going to the playoffs at some point, if the gears shift to both "no championship" and "the Hawks didn't deserve to get this because they chose to not play for winning".

Cam needs to become a thing. And it's fine if it begins now. He wasn't quite ready earlier in the year but it's been obvious for a while he's trying to become a thing.

What Cam looks like not in 20/21 (although I want him to start that year), but 21/22 will hold great intrigue to me. To me he's partly a very real test case in teams taking a gamble in their development staff in growing a raw product into a star. For the Hawks purposes, it needs to happen though or they've likely busted on the tank/rebuild and a lot of people in the FO are going to look horrible. Probably fired as well.

With the kind of injury Reddish had, you might be able to just throw his freshman season in the trash entirely. I'm beginning to see how a core muscle deal can affect you in several ways. But to show how there might be more than one way to slice it to get to a good outcome, many others, maybe even tanking teams, might very well have chosen to at least somewhat redshirt rookie him and not planned on counting on him, even if he was taken high. Because there was a lot to work on. Turns out some of it is being worked on on the fly, but choosing to throw completely unready players into the fire to make them sink or swim can cause very ugly looking results to start out. And that's been the story.

That's nice but the fanbase really needs to hold everything and see what's done in the offseason. Considering that Schlenk thought every veteran he acquired, even if he had predicted another TANK season as some like to call it, was going to contribute well, and that's been a bust, along with his thought that Len could adequately replace Dedmon through analytics, and that obviously busted, you can hold him in serious question regardless. In this case I need to see moves made before I make a prediction, but something else this also shows is Schlenk/Pierce might be dual on the hot seat and it's make the playoffs or both of y'all are dead. I will reaffirm what I've said elsewhere as well, Hunter is 22 right now, it shouldn't be a slower process with him like normal 1 or maybe even 2 and done's, he needs to start showing some consistency next year instead of it being "oh, he needs a veteran in front of him playing most of the minutes because he needs that carrot to work and improve!"

Might honestly be another locker room meeting type game with the way that went and it's clear players are ignoring Pierce. If Memphis had played competently in the first half, they might have been up by 50+. This team just decided to not come to play. At all.

Should sit Trae back down and concede. He doesn't have it in him tonight.

Meh, I don't think he was trying to one up Ja, I think he just thoroughly stinks today...along with most of the rest of the team.

Other than missing multiple simple entry passes, I would say Young has been about normal today with everyone missing shots unlike some games lately. But normal for him is frustrating if his game is failing him on the day, a lot like the way Harden can be.

This ain't something that I'd do often, but this is a day I'd consider it and I don't consider it a bad thing. Maybe I'm too influenced by that "Josh Smith game" in the playoffs for Houston from 5 years ago but still.

*slaps on my stethoscope* Because a Bud disciple is coaching them, of course! Everything that's been touched by him or one of his disciples turns to gold!