Bankingitbig

How do you come to this conclusion? The guy is 23 years old and just had his FIRST playoff series as a starter. Oh and by the way, he actually put up 25/8 this series while shooting 43% on almost 7 3PA a game. Don't think anyone is expecting him to do that over the long haul. But it is nice to finally see a Hawks player step his game up in the playoffs, something we haven't seen in awhile. You don't extrapolate playoff performance and expect it over the course of an 82 game season.......... Oh and don't forget to mention he went up against one of the top PGs in the league.

Calderon with a plus-minus of +29.... He won us this game. Worth the signing just for that game.

Sap's cap hold is ~$30M. He won't be taking a deal below that (his max starts at ~$35M). So we will have ~$86M of the $101M cap tied to those four players. Just saying... There really isn't a "reasonable" deal when it comes to Sap. There is no incentive for him to take a paycut from the Hawks since we have his Bird rights. If he did, then he would just be helping out the owner's pockets. He already has taken his paycut so that we could sign Tavaras and get his Bird rights, which the Hawks rewarded Paul by then cutting Tavares anyways.

There's quite a bit more than just that. Lillard at 25.7ppg and McCollum at 28ppg. Marc Gasol at 20.3ppg and Conley at 24ppg. Paul at 26.8ppg and Griffin was at 20.3ppg. Wall at 31ppg and Beal at 21.7ppg.

What is a reasonable deal? Millsap is going to be looking for the max (as he should be). The new ownership that most likely was the main driving force of bringing in Dwight.... Not sure I want them making the decisions or doing things "right this time". Front office/ownership has kind of shot themselves in the foot whenever they talk about Millsap by saying they will do everything possible to bring him back. That means a max to me. Just say "We want Millsap back and will try to bring him back. We hope that he feels the same way." Simple... That way if they do decide not to offer the max and let him walk, then they don't look as bad to other players.

Let's just say I wasn't too happy with the Falcons when they tweeted this out after the 1Q of yesterday's game.... Trying to freaking jinx us.

I always hear people say this (not a big college bball fan so idk), but Leonard shot 38% from three his rookie year on 109 attempts. It isn't like the guy didn't know how to shoot... For reference, Prince was 32% on 102 attempts.

He has to shoot the three every now and then to keep the defense honest. They are going way under every screen when defending him and giving him the wide open three. Needs to knock those down to show the defense that they can't defend him like that, which then will allow him to drive to the basket more.

This video always cracks me up... This year? "(quick) No!" then the oh shoot moment in his head when he realizes what he just said...

Hate to reply to myself, but wanted to note that Budenholzer and Ferry did meet with Howard back in 2013 before Ressler was owner. So maybe Bud truly did want him. Who knows...

Jeff Schultz also wrote a decent article with a few more tidbits (one interesting point on the Horford negotiations). Basically furthers my belief that the Howard signing was done more so by Koonin/Ressler than Budcox, along with ownership screwing up the Horford negotiations. But who knows... Good to see Ressler trying to get the Hawks more recognition in their own city though.

Interesting article and interview with Hawks' owner Tony Ressler... Source: here

Bud turned to Humphries because Horford sucked and couldn't rebound last year. Rebounding has not been our issue at all this series.... Moose's defense has been fine to me. He is averaging more blocks than Howard and has blocked Wall's drives to the rim on a couple of occasions. Muscala's DRTG is 105 vs. Howards at 113. Muscala hasn't been shooting that great (who has?), but at least he opens up the offense some allowing for easier drives to the rim by Schröder. Also, he is at least active on offense setting numerous screens instead of clogging the lane. That said, I would still try using Ilyasova more or go small. But if my choices were only between Howard and Muscala then yea I would probably say give more minutes to Muscala unless Dwight starts playing like he cares. Honestly don't know how anyone can seriously watch these past two games and say that Dwight Howard has had an impact defensively... I was also one that was expecting a "Playoff Dwight" and defended him coming into the playoffs, but have been very disappointed.

Humphries is not a solution... Muscala has been fine though I would like to give Ilyasova some more run instead. I would rather us go small with Prince at the 4 and Millsap at the 5 than give minutes to Humprhies (over Illyasova, Muscala or Howard).

Where are you getting your stats? NBA Stats has Dwight at ~113 DRTG which is 3rd worse on the team. Dwight has had no defensive impact this series whatsoever.

Salary cap guy is mostly Rick Sund as far as I understand. Michael Blackstone was the Assistant GM that joined in August 2015, but "left" right after free agency ended in 2016 (late July 2016). His background was in sports negotiation (formerly from Shapiro Negotiations Institute) and was supposed to be lead in terms of contract/trade negotiations (from what I understand and believe our favorite hawksfanatic mentioned). I got heavily criticized by @MaceCase and others for saying that the Hawks front office botched it this past offseason in how they handled the Horford free agency. I didn't realize this about Blackstone at the time, but think he could have played a significant part in what went "terribly wrong" and why he is no longer with the team.

I actually thought Muscala was really good in Game 1 and not so good in Game 2. Though I don't think he has been too terrible defending the PnR against Wall. Think he has been better at defending it than Howard.

Agreed about Wes - though there will always be a part of me that thinks the Dwight signing was much more of a management/ownership thing for marketing reasons rather than Budcox wanting him. Though I do actually think Budcox did pretty well in the draft with Prince and Bembry. Think Prince will be a starter for a long time (maybe not an allstar, but we'll see) and Bembry will be a serviceable role player off the bench.

No idea why Prince wasn't in over Baze down the stretch. No idea why Bud isn't giving Thabo more run with how poor Baze and THJ were playing.

Our favorite: Cash Considerations

We had 39 free throws to Washington's 17 in Game 1. Don't think you want to go around trashing the refs when you have double the free throws as the other team. Also, I think it would look bad on Millsap's part in terms of him not being able to handle the physicality himself after exchanging words.

Believe we were tied with Memphis and won the coin toss to have the lower pick.

Funny I did watch the game.......... I don't recall Howard guarding Morris instead of Gortat. Do you? I don't recall Prince guarding Morris instead of Porter.... Do you? So the majority of minutes Morris was being guarded by Millsap. I mean Millsap's minutes were literally matched with Morris. I don't recall seeing Millsap guarding Gortat or Smith when Howard, Ilyasova or Muscala were paired with him and even if he did it would have been for a short period. But sure keep on with your amatuer armchair coaching while avoiding the stats. Here is game flow since you don't believe the On/Off court stats. http://popcornmachine.net/gf?date=20170416&game=ATLWAS

What.... How does me showing you that Morris shot inefficiently prove your point? I didn't show the splits of who was guarding Morris. Your logic is off the charts. You just incorrectly assumed that all of Morris' misses were when someone else other than Millsap was guarding him... Lol that is hilarious. Let me actually take the time to do the analysis so you don't have to go throwing around false information. Morris with Millsap ON COURT (and most likely defending Morris) had 21 points with 8-18 from the field and 2-6 from three along with 5 REBs, 2 ASTs, 1 STL, 2 TOs and 4 PFs. I would hardly call that "destroying"... Millsap's minutes were literally matched with Morris. But Morris did play 5 more minutes without Millsap on the court and went 0-1 with 2 REBs and 4 BLKs. So no... Morris' bad shooting percentage was still a result of Millsap guarding him.

I would hardly say Morris was "destroying" Millsap. He was only 8-19 from the field and 2-6 from the three. And Millsap was doing a decent job of drawing fouls against him (and should have had more). That said, Millsap definitely didn't play up to his par and needs to do better on the boards. I think it would be a horrible, amateur and kneejerk decision to bench my best player and allstar in Game 1 of a series so that my backup can get more minutes. History tells us that Millsap is a MUCH better defender than Ilyasova, so why would I trust Ilyasova to be better at defending Morris. We need Millsap to play well and like himself to win this series. Not going to win it by taking minutes from Millsap and giving them to Ilyasova.