REHawksFan

The Hawks NEED to slow down. They are at their best when they aren't top 10 in pace. They get killed when they try to run a track meet on the court.

So you are saying that Edey is the bullseye at the center of the Soth/Supes/Camp vin diagram? I'm willing to buy that lotto ticket. It's not like the Hawks have some long record of success in the draft that they need to protect.

Don't forget Gallo and his elite defense coming off the bench. Also... AND

Clint has fallen off a cliff it seems in terms of impact. In FG% differential he went from top 30 in the NBA to outside the top 100 between year 1 with the hawks and year 2. My point with the above was more that we've gotten proof of concept. Elite center play and slower pace with Trae at the helm seems like a viable option to play average to above average defense and elite offense, imo.

Sorry, I have no idea what to title this post. I was thinking about the ongoing conversation around Trae or No Trae and how each scenario impacts the Offense and Defense and it got me thinking about whether we could have a league average D with Trae at the PG. I was also intrigued by the thought that the biggest issue with the Hawks has been the demise of the C position and, specifically, Clint's rapid decline. So I went back and looked at some historical numbers and here's what I found. I'll present the data for discussion and then maybe add some commentary at the end. This shows where the Hawks ranked in pts per game, per 100 poss, in pace, and in Reb% and where Clint ranked in Reb%, Blocks, Def FG% allowed, and FG% Differential. For Clint, I used minimum of 50 games in each season. The highlighted season is both the ECF run and Clint's first season as a Hawk. On the chart above, the Pace jumped out at me so I charted the pace vs DRtg over each of Trae's 6 seasons. Here's that chart: Unsurprisingly, the Hawks are horrible defensively when playing with pace. Now look at this: This chart is from this year. With Trae, they play at the 3rd fasted pace in the NBA. Without, the they play at the 9th slowest pace. I know there are other variables like injuries to other players and smaller sample size, but the numbers are pretty glaring to me. Interestingly, the ORtg stays about the same relative to the rest of the NBA. It's just the DRtg that plummets when we play fast. So now I'll point back to the green highlighted line in the first chart. In the ECF run year, the Hawks, led by Trae and ELITE Center play by Clint, had the 8th slowest pace and ranked 18th in DRtg, essentially the same as this year when slowing things down. Also, in the ECF year with the slower pace, they still managed to rank 9th in ORtg. And that was with Trae still learning and growing as an offensive player. It seems to me that if we can get elite center play and then slow the pace down a bit, we could hit the happy middle ground of Elite Offense and Average Defense.

Vit still feels like an end of bench guy to me. Bruno, however, seems like he's played himself into a backup 5 role. Next year could look something like this? PG: Trae / Kobe / Vit SG: Bigger defensive Wing Draft Pick / Bogie / Kobe SF: JJ / DH / Bey PF: OO / Vet / Mo C : 7-footer Draft Pick / Bruno / OO

So imagine how good they can be with significantly better wings and a good bench IF they get another dominant center. They just need the dominant center and to actually spend money on a bench.

It was a rhythm 3 that was wide ass open. I don't care what the shot clock said. You were only up 1 pt. Man up and take the shot.

Hawks were +7 on 3pt makes, hitting 18 for the game. Shot 50% overall from 3pt. The game becomes A LOT easier when you do that.

Collier at 10 and Castle at 17

Dude has us taking 2 guards. We got too many as it is. And so few centers but sure, we're taking 2 guards and no center in a center heavy draft. The national media don't know or care about the Hawks.

For the season, the Hawks rank: 6th in 3pt FGM at 13.7 per game; 7th in 3pt FGA at 37.6 per game; 17th in 3pt FG% at 36.3% So they are volume 3pt team with avg efficiency. The real issue is they combine that with: 28th in 3pt FGM Defense at 13.9 per game; 21st in 3pt FGA Defense at 35.8 per game; 28th in 3pt FG% Defense at 38.4% allowed So they allow teams to be highly efficient in 3pt shooting. No bueno. Compared to years' past, they certainly take more and make more but their efficiency is only marginally better. While defensively, they allow far more makes and takes along with a higher efficiency (last year they ranked 8th in 3pt FGM defense, 16th in FGA defense, and 10th in opponent FG%). Conundrum indeed.

Also I have to think the missed games hits harder for the Hawks given the lack of quality depth on the roster.

I've asked before and you didn't answer.... Do you think an elite Center or even a center like Edey would help solve the Trae/DJ fit issues or we gonna have to split them regardless? I like DJ. I obviously love Trae. But the fit is off, especially defensively.

Wonder what the Hawks scouts and FO think of Edey and his fit with Trae.

Hold up.... Embiid, AD, and Joker are 3 of the 5 slowest centers in the NBA by whatever this metric is. And yall are arguing over whether Edey can be fast enough to play in the NBA? Somethin's not adding up here.

I was a big Hali fan at draft time. Thought he would be great next to Trae. I still think he's a really good player. After seeing the Trae / DJ non-fit, I may have been wrong about the fit next to Trae as well. Not sure. But he's a very good player. Just not as good as some of the press he's gotten, imo.

Pretty much. I guess I could have saved the 30 min from pulling the numbers together. But where's the fun in that?

So as of today, Atlanta holds picks 10 and 20. If Edey is more valuable to the Hawks than any other team, should they just pick up a 2nd and draft him in the 2nd? If it works out, it's the steal of the draft. If it doesn't, no big deal. But if they use a lottery pick or even the 20 pick on him when the consensus is he's not a 1st rounder, Hawks either look like geniuses or idiots depending on how it plays out.

Per NBA.com/stats : Tight = 2-4 Feet Open = 4-6 Feet Wide Open = 6+ Feet Rookie Season: 100.0% of 3pt shots were Open or Wide Open / 0.0% were Tight coverage 2nd Season: 96.1% were Open or Wide Open / 3.9% were Tight 3rd Season: 95.8% were Open or Wide Open / 4.2% were Tight 4th Season: 93.6% were Open or Wide Open / 6.4% were Tight March: 90.4% were Open or Wide Open / 9.6% were Tight Shooting % (Rookie/2nd/3rd/4th/March Tight: 0.0% / 33.3% / 22.2% / 28.0% / 16.7% Open: 29.5% / 41.0% / 37.0% / 28.9% / 7.7% Wide Open: 46.5% / 41.8% / 43.7% / 40.4% / 24.2% Every year the proportion of Tight Coverage shots goes up and the Open and Wide Open shots go down. He's been an Elite Wide Open shooter (42.9% for career), an OK to below avg Open shooter (34.6%) and a below avg Tight shooter (28.3%). Like you said, he's in a big slump in March and he's also being covered differently. Will be interesting to see if he's able to adjust and get his Tight and Open % up closer to the 40% mark. .

UPDATE: After last night's game, the Lakers have revised their mid-season offer. Now it's Austin Reaves and DLO for Trae AND JJ. Seriously tho, it won't be long before Laker fans have JJ and Trae packaged together for their scrubs. You know its coming.

And the Hawks were outscored 119.0-100.0 and gave up 49.9% FG% in the 2 games against a "comparable" team. Honestly, last night's game was the only W of the 6 that felt like a really good win (all wins are good, not saying different, but I mean a really good win against a quality lineup). And it's hard not to chalk that game up as a severe outlier given that the Clips shot the ball so much worse than their avgs for the year.

And I get you don't want to hear it, but the 11 games they've played have been against some pretty crappy lineups which makes the offense look even worse and the defense look not quite as good. Honest question, do you believe in the Hawks defense enough without Trae to go an entire season avg. 108 or so points per game on offense? They'd have to have the 3rd best defense in the NBA just to have a net rating of 0.0. How many games you think they win like that?

So the Hawks are so much better without Trae that we are willing to trade him and you think the return could be Jaylen Brown or KAT or AD? Make it make sense. I think Trae is an ELITE player. But I know I'm in the minority on this board in that regard. But I also know elite players don't get traded for other elite players often. When elite players are traded, it's almost always for a discount because rarely do two elite players want to get traded at the same time and it all works out. So by default, you don't trade elite players and get better. So either Trae is elite and the Hawks will get substantially worse by trading him OR Trae isn't elite and there's no way in hell you are getting Jaylen Brown or KAT or AD for him. And you are still likely worse off with whatever players you get for the $40M salary match. I'm not sure there's a path to getting substantially better without Trae unless it's to blow it up and start over. And that's not likely to happen for a variety of reasons.

121 pts per game post AS With Trae (1 game, LOL) 108 pts per game post AS Without Trae (11 games) Sample size too small in both cases. But it's also too small to say trade Trae and keep DJ because the D is best in NBA without Trae. That's a pretty bad take given: 1. the small sample size 2. the poor competition with several teams sending out a g-league roster 3. the post AS game scoring being down significantly, which helps the D I honestly can't believe anyone thinks the offense would be consistently good enough to win over the course of the entire NBA season without Trae. It's not like the D, even given the benefits of scheduling and post AS officiating, is actually a top D in the NBA.