Dejay

No doubt. I still remember folks like Bill Walton singing the Suns' praises when they got Diaw for JJ, even long after Diaw refused to play hard down here and wanted out of town. You have to go back to Nique's heyday to find a guy remotely close in terms of star power, getting phantom calls to go his way, and being the bane of the universe in terms of drawing the ire from mainstream fans and media from bigger markets (NYC, Boston, LA, Chicago, et al). Mainstream media folks and their fans cannot stand to see such a player doing well, especially after predicting his quick demise within seconds after he was drafted. And when you add in the Atlanta factor, it turns their stomachs ten times more. I guarantee you if Young was playing for the Knicks and they had the same record as the Hawks, you wouldn't hear anything about him 'cherry picking' or not making the USA team. And if he was playing for the Lakers, oh boy. They'd be killing the Mavericks' brass on a daily basis for making such an idiotic trade and begging Cuban to pull the plug on his GM. But since he's in Atlanta instead, well...

I cannot say that I disagree with you in terms of the pick. Unless Edwards is available, I fully expect for them to move that pick for an established veteran player...

Lol, folks on this roster are getting tossed over the place as if it's the Royal Rumble...

You're not lying. He should be slowly worked into the lineup after his foot is fully healed so he can get a little acclimated to playing with Trae, Collins, et al.

So let me get this straight. The Hawks pick up a legitimate center who plays defense and rebounds without clogging things up for 'gotta get mine' time? And the only things they give up are a middling pick from Brooklyn, a 2nd rounder, and the ashen remains of Evan Turner? This wasn't just a steal; this was a jack, a mugging at 3am reported on Action News. The only thing missing out of this story is Michael Corleone telling us about Luca Brasi and some band leader...

Stevie Ray Vaughn?

It was Prince and Michael Jackson for me. Can we just start 2020 over again? Seriously...

I don't know how the teams play with any kind of focus today. I just don't...

Just sad and surreal. I'm totally lost for words...

It would be one thing if he was getting 16/5/5 on a team with the same record and we were just being myopic fans hoping to be thrown a bone. But this man is hanging up nearly 30 points, 9 assists, and 5 boards for a team that has no one else on the entire roster who can create offense without his help. This squad would have trouble beating the Washington Generals if Trae wasn't on the squad, much less any team in the league. If Trae was playing for one of the bigger market teams, guys like Lowe would be advocating for Young to start in the ASG, not be there as a reserve. We wouldn't be hearing anything about his defense or lack thereof but reading one column after the next blasting the front office of (insert big market team here) for not getting him enough help by adding a viable backup point guard or someone else who can actually play. So an argument could be made about Trae starting but they wouldn't be very good ones. Both Walker and Lowry play on superior squads where it's much easier to put up stats when opponents have to concentrate on other guys beating them. Try doing that on a nightly basis when the entire arena knows you're not only the engine that makes the car go but the brakes, the accelerator, the head gaskets, the battery, transmission, radiator...

I remember all right. They played Stan like a kid does Madden on a PS4. Not only did Kasten bite (hard) on the one-year offer sheet but gave him a six-year extension to boot despite Koncak coming off knee surgery. Then they doubled down on stupid by hiring the very man who gave another stiff out west a big contract (see Rasmussen, Blair), only to watch him bring said stiff to town with him. Throw in the Adam Keefe draft pick in '92 and you couldn't give tickets away back then. The rest of the league was laughing as the Hawks were being escorted to salary cap hell one way, no stops, express ticket-style...

I've been saying this for how long on this board? Even back in the '80s, teams like the Pistons were still bringing in REAL players by trading Adrian Dantley for Mark Aguirre and adding James Edwards to fortify their bench; two championship parades followed. What did the Hawks do during that time? Cry 'salary cap' (see Koncak, Jon) and kept bringing in scrubs who couldn't beat Georgia State on a good night. No small wonder how the rest of the East back then (see Knicks, Pacers, Cavs, et al) quickly passed them by. This has been the franchise's modus operandi since the Omni's foundation began to settle in. The exact, same tactic was used in the Lenny days, the BK error (spelled correctly) and the Sund/WLOC years. Folks in town who knew better and read the same script in 1983 didn't want to watch the sequel in 1992 and stayed home or said 'eff this' by following MJ or the Braves instead. Case closed. For the first time since the Nique days, we finally have a guy who can draw folks to the building without having giveaways at the gate. From the time I started realizing that, I stated that the front office need to move Heaven and Earth to ensure that they don't do to him what their predecessors did to Nique, Steve Smith, or Joe Johnson. While I'm not suggesting that they throw out Hunter or Reddish with the bath water, you don't look a gift horse in the mouth either. Strike while the iron is still hot...

As Ric Flair would say, 'we've only just begun...'

Thanks for the reminder, I just voted (again)...

A few years ago, Sturt and I had a long discussion on a thread here about changing things up in terms of league scheduling, new playoff formats, and the like. And what do you know, the league is looking into bringing this into action. Some of our original ideas that are now being looked at via ESPN (see Zach Lowe this morning) are as follows... -Shortening the league schedule from 82. I think that we narrowed it to around 78 games instead. -A play-in tournament to motivate middling teams to try harder and below .500 teams not to job out for more ping-pong balls in the lottery. I got a little hogwild with this concept by having tiers; the top five teams would play each other twice and the next five teams would play each other twice. The ten teams after them would play each other in a one game play-in, with the five winners automatically going and the last playoff spot going to the losing team with the best record. The extra games, gate receipts, and TV revenue created would be split amongst the participating teams, giving the bottom-rung guys even more incentive to do better a lot sooner. I once had them playing a tournament to determine lottery selections but who torture themselves watching that? Now, why I break these tiers up in fives? Well... I eliminated conference designations and went with six divisions or regionals instead (Atlantic, Southeast, Mideast, Southwest, and Pacific). Memphis and NOLA would join the SE, Washington would head to the Atlantic, Minnesota would finally go to closer locales in the Mideast, OKC, Denver, and Utah would join the Texas trio in the SW, and the Trailblazers would rejoin the Pacific. Everyone would play each other twice and six times within their own regional, creating a 78-game season. That's how I came up with the tier system. And yes, after tier play (which can also be used as a championship cup competition for the top tier teams), there would be a 16-team playoff tournament for the NBA Title. In light of our boys having a rough time so far this season, I thought that bringing this up and thinking of what else the league could do would help lighten things up a little. Any more ideas out there???

Nah, that's way too late in the game. Bob: 'Trae hits a three from the corner, Hawks up 43-41 with five minutes left in the first half' Nique: 'Well, that should do it right there. That's a wrap...'

I may have been there for that game. My Dad and I had season tickets back then...

Well, two can play. My first game ever attended with my Dad... https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/197803310ATL.html

A lot of us elder folks have been waiting for moments like this dating back to when Nique was doing the impossible at the old Omni over a quarter-century ago. I'm going to echo what a lot of us already know; we finally have our superstar. What Trae Young is doing is something we didn't see in the 60-win campaign, Steve Smith's heyday, or even when Joe Johnson, Osh Smith, and the gang had it cooking. He's making this franchise relevant to the casual basketball fans who aren't exactly hardwired to root for or against a certain team. That goes a long way, especially in a transient town like this one where folks need a better reason to pay $$$ for tickets, concessions, and parking other than just to watch (insert NBA star here) run roughshod over the local product. When was the last time this team was regarded as 'must see TV' by NBA pundits from coast to coast? Folks are actually having real regret about missing Hawk games, either live or at home. Even fans and analysts of other teams are looking at the Hawks now and no longer laughing at the prospect of an easy win. Instead, they're looking with some real dread of 1) just how many points and assists is Trae going to hang on them, 2) do they have enough firepower to offset things if he goes hibachi-mode in the clutch, and 3) who is going to be next contestant to be placed on the business end of a highlight clip (I'm pretty sure Lamarcus Aldridge isn't looking at his Twitter feed right about now). Trae is going to make a lot of folks richer in this town. For instance, if I'm Jabari Parker's agent, I'm doing cartwheels and backflips in my living room right now from all of the much easier touches he's getting from being set up every night. Collins' agent was probably doing the same thing until that drug test came in. Once Reddish, Hunter, and Bruno start really getting it, oh boy. And one can only imagine the look on Tony Ressler's face every month when looking at the bottom line and the $$$ now pouring in from the additional merchandise and ticket sales. If they manage to keep this thing afloat until Collins get back and they are somehow in the playoff conversation (Lord knows no one would want to play them if they somehow made it), how do you not have Trae as an MVP candidate? And what free agent or player to be on the outs isn't dialing up Travis Schlenk's phone number as a result? It's like I'm watching that Matrix movie all over again, when Neo started realizing who he was and started doing Neo things for the first time. The look on Morpheus's face said it all...

For the second consecutive game, I heard the opposing team's postgame show start off with the obvious (them losing), followed by a long diatribe praising Trae. State Farm has an atmosphere with him lighting folks up that I haven't seen in a LONG time. When Cam and a few others really get their sea legs under them offensively, oh boy. Save up and get your tickets early. The way this is projecting, those available seats are going to become quite expensive and rare pretty soon...

Not in my 40+ years of watching them live or on TV. Not Drew. Not Roundfield. Not Mutombo or Steve Smith. Not even Nique in his heyday received 'MVP' chants at home. But tonight, I heard them and was thinking the same line as Morpheus did of Neo in that Matrix movie...

So who got the BBQ Pitmasters special from Trae this time?

I just got in to see this game. Oh my, can't wait to see the replay...

I watched the Pistons post game and when they interviewed poor Bruce Brown, he looked as if he was concussed after getting hit in the face with a tire iron. And now I see why from watching the replay so far. Good Lord, Trae cooked him like a brisket on BBQ Pitmasters...