Final_quest

Again my analogy is every draft is perfect if you get the benefit of hindsight. That Derrick White trade was a top 10 trade of the past five years. Every GM is a genius if they get to look back and make all the right moves. Still none of that has anything to do with the notion that it's easy to reset your roster after you've spent up to the luxury line and you're a .500 team. Saying we should have traded for Derrick White two years ago somehow means any team can easily get out of that situation? It's not even related to the problem. Similarly many said we should have not signed Collins or Hunter, but I'm talking about how to make a shift after we did sign those players and trade for Murray. If we traded for White instead of Murray, we're in a completely different situation.

Said on Brad Rowland’s pod by Glen Willis, Hawks went from 2nd on spot up efficiency in 2020-2021 to 29th in 2021-2022. They had the offense humming and that probably boosted the defense quite a bit. You make your shots and set your defense. Remember when Nate brought in his offensive scheme after the ECF? Oops. Trae had healthy Clint for PnR, and could kick out to Bogi, Gallo, and Huerter. Three volume shooters. JC was 38% or more as well. I still believe Trae can turn this around with the right guys.

I’m not saying there’s no way to acquire players, but we’re a lot more limited. To the best of my knowledge we didn’t hear a rumor that OG for Murray was on the table. At the time Murray was looking pretty inefficient, could be Toronto had no interest in him. I think the entire league wishes they traded for Derrick White. But we can also fantasize about dream scenarios of drafting major contributors with late first round picks and 2nd rounders. I will say easy is the wrong word to use when talking about options to amend our roster after we spent on guys like JC, Clint, and Hunter who all had long contracts. Then we used the draft capital on Murray. Nothing has been easy after that. Possible to make some very impactful moves, but not easy. Our FO definitely missed on opportunities. JC for Markannen and picks! They are on the clock to right the ship.

We got a lot of payroll committed. Only 3 teams have more than us going into 2025-2026. Jalen needs to get paid as well. Also Bey? If trading Murray isn't the answer, who is Capela, Dre, or Bogi gonna bring back in a trade? People seem to expect guys like Josh Hart.

I agree with a lot of what you say. The reason I think Murray is the key trade is because he has the highest value. But trading Murray and keeping the other guys is not what I had in mind. Bogi is tradeable, but I think they might want to keep him as one of the top bench gunners in the league. If they do trade him, it will be for a similar useful role player that could start if needed. Hunter and Capela can be moved but only in a JC type of transaction. But I agree we can’t start both of them next year. I see at least one gone, most likely Capela. Murray ideally gets us a borderline all star, like Ingram. Just have to see if another option besides Ingram emerges. I do think the fit is not there with Murray and Trae. You make a good point I’ve been thinking about. We can’t win with Trae and a cast of role players.

If the Hawks are lucky enough to move up, Clingan would be sweet. Edey is polarizing so depends on the Hawks FO take on him.

We did not pull the right strings. Committed to the wrong pieces. Quickley was the prize for OG. He was a top FA going into next year. I don’t think Toronto will be happy they made that move, but at least they got a building block. Not sure who we had to offer that beats Quickley. Not AJ or even Bufkin, and we probably didn’t want to send Okongwu. One reason I was glad to trade Huerter was it gives us a first to trade for someone like Josh Hart or Derrick White. Huerter would be redundant for us with Bogi.

Boston was stacked and had been in the conference finals most years going back to 2016. 2020-21 was the only year of the past 8 seasons where they finished middle of the road. The Knicks and Pacers didn't sign stupid contracts for guys like Hunter and Collins, or trade all their draft capital for a poor fit like Murray. When you have untradeable contracts and zero draft capital it limits your options to improve. We actually have more committed salary than either of those teams. Our mistakes were from decisions on what we invested in and that limited our ability to add talent. A trade involving Murray is the key for us to improve. We don't have much in the way of assets apart from that. Hawks have $163M committed next year. NYK: $145M Pacers: $107M Salary table:

Had written out a bigger message, but it’s important to remember accurately. During the 27-11 streak and ECF run we did NOT play Kris Dunn much. Delon Wright and Rondo were not even on the roster, traded Rondo for Lou. Solo played a ton of minutes, but Capela was DPOY level. He got injured and lost his burst. The guards were not defensive players at all. Front line was unlocked Capela, Collins, and Solo. But Capela was like an MVP candidate for a stint. He carried the defense and was even a more fit roll partner on offense. When his injury hampered him we became a .500 team. We never replaced that production.

Ingram is less ball dominant than Murray. Also much longer. Would need to get a POA defender, unless we really can get Herb Jones. I think NAW is a free agent. Wonder what kind of deal he ends up with.

They definitely flubbed the off-season. But since they’ve had no issue spending up to the tax line I honestly think something happened. My best guess is they got cocky thinking Siakam deal was getting done. Maybe they were gonna use the TPE to take on another contract as part of the deal. They were also looking to move Capela to Dallas. In either deal the TPE could have been part of it. So they wanted to avoid signing even a one year deal to keep more flexibility for the bigger trades. It gets difficult to bring in someone late in the offseason after they struck out. Everyone is signed. But they couldn’t find a deal they liked all year. Would love to know what they were trying to do, but I don’t believe they held onto a few extra million just to pocket the money. It really seemed like they wanted to make a move. As a fan you have to hope this was a year when not making a move was the right call. They could have gambled on Siakam and lost him immediately.

I'm not really insisting that a multi-year deal was the only option, but that seems like it was the dominant suggestion of what we should have done around here. Are you saying that would have been the wrong move? I don't pretend to know all the options discussed, but I'm guessing the market for 1 year deals at the MLE level was pretty limited. Timing of that limited market was probably a barrier. A guy like Miles Bridges who was basically a felon presents unique issues even now. Another thought is the FO may have had a lot of false confidence that Siakam was in the bag. They screwed up last offseason to be sure, but in my view at least they had the right idea going for guys like Siakam and KAT. They have not done well with messaging or having a consistent strategy. They shifted from buyers to sellers in the middle of the season too. Again I think they had a lot of false confidence in what they would be able to do last offseason and at the trade deadline. None of that changes that our roster and payroll was and is a mess. No good plan B after missing on primary targets, but adding more bench role players on multi-year deals at $8-12M/year would have been a detriment in any case.

Yep, you do understand that if we kept JC, our committed salary for 2024-2025 would be about where Milwaukee and Minnesota are in spending? I see having $185M in committed salary on a team with one star player as a huge detriment. So the improvement we made was eliminating toxic payroll. We did the right thing trying to get Siakam or KAT and aborting when the ask was too high. After failing to do that, adding a multiyear MLE deal to "improve" the team would put us in the camp of adding to one of the worst payroll tables in the league. Would have been the wrong move. If this FO fails again this offseason to shift our roster in a positive direction, we might be headed for a fire sale.

Also those teams have multiple HOF and All NBA players. They have DPOYs and MVPs. We don't. We have one guy who made one 3rd team all NBA. They have a players that deserve that level of spending. Ya'll act like we were one guy like Niang away from being a top team. The actual truth is we are in the lottery with the 11th highest payroll headed into the offseason. Our roster needs an overhaul. Got to have the right diagnosis to get the cure. We just need to spend $8-20M is not the cure unless it's so that we can land an MVP, DPOY, or all NBA guy.

Here's where we stand for next season: If we had signed an MLE player like everyone wanted we would be a top 8 spending team heading into the offseason. Are you saying that we were one MLE signing away from being a Finals team? If not, why invest in a roster pretending like it is a deep playoff team. If we did what yall wanted we would be paying for a Finals team with a play in roster. We got to fix some things. Adding an MLE player doesn't fix the need to replace three starters.

For sure. It's situational. There are better questions to ask and the playoffs are not demonstrating that tax paying teams provide the recipe to win series. Here are the tax paying teams: A couple standouts that definitely made the right move to pay, but a lot of teams that are stuck with a roster and cap situation where they are totally handicapped. Only 2/8 advanced.

I encourage everyone to listen to the latest pod from ATL and 29 about roster deconstruction and reconstruction. They talked about trying to "win" a Murray trade as in looking like we win on paper but failing to address the functional changes the roster needs. Specifically mentioning that Ingram would look closer to a win, but may not help us become a better two way team. Jones or Murphy might look like losing a trade, but could get our roster in a better situation to have a strong POA defensive unit. It was a refreshing conversation. Roster deconstruction and reconstruction is a much better focus than getting hung up on if Tony will pay for another bench player. We're not gonna win by masking roster flaws with MLE bench players. We have three starters Capela, Murray, and Hunter that we have to look at making a painful transition to something that fits better. That's where I hope and optimistically believe the front office is focused. See these posts as well: Expensive isn't just spending. It's also the draft capital and players required to make a move. We could have "paid" for Siakam and given up draft picks, Jalen, Okongwu, and/or Bufkin. What can we do with our cap situation, draft capital, and available players to reconstruct the roster? That's the essential question of the off season.

I can see Trae feeding a couple star players with his floor game and shot profile. Problem has been when Capela declined defensively and offensively Trae hasn’t had a high enough level player to work with. Capela and Collins/Gallo worked for a stint. We need the right fit for Trae on the front court. Murray doesn’t have the same capability to distribute and get teammates easy buckets. His offense is more iso heavy. I can see him leading a good but not great team.

Not Murray trade rumors. Published ideas from si.com. https://www.si.com/nba/hawks/news/potential-dejounte-murray-trade-packages-if-atlanta-decides-to-move-on

Yes, it was Siakam or nothing. Maybe make a small move after landing Siakam. You guys are only looking at this year’s cap as having extra room. With Siakam you would have a huge raise for him plus Murray and Okongwu raises for 2024-2025. If you added another multi-year deal on top of that it would put us as a top five spending team for 2024-2025. No one sees the wisdom in managing a long term cap so you don’t cut guys like Collins or become like Phoenix.

Poeltl with Toronto fits. Could be the bridge from Capela. Allows us to play Okongwu at the 4 or 5 in a rotation with Jalen.

They have been willing to spend up to at least the luxury line multiple years in a row. Ressler's spending is huge trigger for the fan base, so I get the reaction to spending below the luxury line as him simply being cheap. But I think they were being more strategic last year. I'm guessing almost all of our options like Dosunmo, Thybulle, Niang, Gabe Vincent, were gone by the time we gave up on Siakam. No one of quality would have been available for even a one year deal. They had a plan B that was essentially to stay flexible for a Siakam type of play that actually makes a long term impact. Additionally if they sign ANYONE else to a long term deal when you already had $160M in committed salary for 2024-2025, you tank your future flexibility. $160M committed is hard enough to work with, and the idea that you sign guys like Niang or Lyles to long term deals while you pursue Siakam makes zero sense anyways. The audible or hail mary would have been trading our only first round picks for someone to make an impact after losing on Siakam, and that means giving up part of our limited future draft capital and eliminating future cap flexibility. Probably no one available worth making a move like that. Again no good options after losing on Siakam. They got the wrong vet min guy, Wes Mathews, as well.

He’s coming for your car Jeffrey.

I was very wrong about Justin Holliday, but he had a minor role. It’s just that I thought he would perform really well. Bey vs Hunter I completely misjudged. Thought Bey could show he was actually better, but that was a total flop of a prediction. I think the Trae and Dejounte pairing is my biggest miss. Thought they could be a Harden and CP3 type of fit. I did say I would give the FO credit and support the move even if it went south. They tried and actually got us a top player in his prime. That in itself is an accomplishment. My big hope is we can still flip him to make the trade worth it.

#1. OKC could follow our same path if they pay a majority of their guys on rookie contracts. Plus Chet Holmgren gets injured. Then they have to start giving guys away or face cap hell in short order. They are in a great position now, but could waste it like we did. But a difference is they also have 2x the draft capital. #2. The fan attachment is irrelevant, although it’s annoying that guys who proclaimed players as future stars are now telling you ownership messed up by paying them. But I really think ownership and GMs mirrored the same attachment the fans did. I get it, the ECF run was awesome. Where is the humility to admit being wrong about JC, Hunter, Cam? Instead it’s bold claims like I would have negotiated better deals and traded them at the perfect time to maximize returns. Huh? Sure.