StephenHawking

I mean the deal isn't as horrible as it is made out to be. Dwight stinks once again. He simply demands to many changes in a teams philosophy to give full effort. WE have Plumlord and BellyNelly. One of the best bench scorers in the league and a starter in Plumlord (Lol). No but on the real Plumlord isn't playing as bad as I thought and BellyNelly can possibly give us a late first rounder in December. Dwight for a late first + Plumlord? I'll take it any day of the week

I'm actually with you on that. The thing I'm missing with the Hawks is that it doesn't seem like a collective decision to tank. Yesterday made clear that they aren't on the same page. Schlenk wants to tank. Bud and the team want to win. Dennis isn't playing to his best fits the goal of Schlenk but not Buds. I'd love to see us tank while recognizing that were on purpose not giving 100 percent. Collectively.

Dwight fits no team in the league. Thats why he isn't worth a penny

See im not a Dennis hater at all. In fact Dennis is the reason I started following the NBA. The problem I have, why I loved Bud's decision, is that he has so much more potential. If he wanted to he could be a top 10 pg EASILY in this league. Atm he simply doesn't care and that's what I don't understand. You should always look to improve your game and he's only thinking about offense at the moment.

What are you trying to tell me Diesel?

I'd like to know what you guys think of Bud benching Dennis late in the game last night. Do you think it was due to his subpar play or because of tanking reasons? Personal take: I actually really appreciate Coach Buds philosophy. I loved yesterdays benching of Dennis. Let's be real Dennis plays horrible (understatement) on D. Hes not getting anyone involved in the last couple of games and looks very egoistic. I think Bud wanted to get Dennis of his high horse with the benching. Dennis could be a way better defender if he wanted to. As long as he doesn't put effort into defending he should be benched. If there's one thing where this team can beat any team on any given night no matter what talent they have, its effort.

Yeah that's a weird answer. I mean I would've understood if he's arguing about their defense or poise but not about giving the team a lift lol. Anyway Dennis needs to work on his defense asap. It really sucks that he could be a top 10 pg if he simply would care.

Embrace the tank!!!! Love how we are like 4ppg away from being a top seed in the east. My fear grows that we won't be able to outtank the other teams. Sadly we are too good already.

Well if I'm going to analyse them, I rather go all the way!! :-)

I'm still high on Bembry although not as high as I was before the season. I am eager to see him taking a couple of js from the elbow. I can see him being able to hit them. I also like how he takes the challenge of shooting 3pointers when open. Its clear that he becomes more comfortable day by day. What I thought he'd be better at was recognising plays on both ends. I thought he'd look even smoother offensively and that he'd be less turnover prone. On defense he doesn't look the same as before the wrist injury. Too often he gets caught slipping and hasn't the pesty feel to him anymore. I hope he can turn this around. Still a rookie in this league. I'm not high on Prince anymore. Hes lacking BBIQ. Hes not a winning player. Hes not a good defender. Hes a spot up shooter for now. He cant read the play on fastbreaks. Isn't able to recognise when to shoot, drive or kick which becomes obvious everytime he blows a wild lay up/tear drop or kicks into a crowd resulting in a TO. Most games he isn't part of the offense at all. Actually there are times where you can't even tell whether he's on the field or not for 10 straight minutes. Defensively sure it looks good when he blocks a shot or two but most times that's him trailing the play because he got beat off the dribble. Atm he isn't able to play one on one defense nor off ball defense especially on the weak side. Hopefully he can turn it around and at least step up his on ball d and offensive decisionmaking.

Without going against your point, but Russell isn't a bad player at all. He looked great so far this season for being this young still. He would've never been traded if Magic Johnson would actually be a GM with common sense. He fell to the Lavarmania. Thats the only reason the Nets got gifted with such a talented young pg

Thats why LeBron Cavs always needed that one guy to go iso in the last two minutes to win the game. Actually IMHO the playoffs are EXACTLY that part of the season where great iso scorers are the most important on any roster. There are reasons why the Hawks didn't even have the slightest of chances to go to the finals in 2014. Great moments need great scorers.

But he was talking bout the 2 years of college referring to the different skillset pgs had back in the day

I'd say the level of basketball is leaps and bounds over the level 10 or more years ago. Today point guards are offensive juggernauts nearly impossible to contain. As AHF said the Stocktons of the game aren't relevant anymore because they don't bring enough value. There's a reason guys like Rubio or Rondo aren't considered upper echelon guards. They can't provide enough to todays game to be a factor.

With our staff I'd probably add Bamba to the conversation. I think Hawks University could do things with him

You're right. Out of the Hawks perspective I'd say it's not tradeworthy.

I'd like you to elaborate why he isn't a point guard

Because Dennis plays the biggest amount of minutes. Pretty simple actually. When the whole team sucks you consequently suck too in stats like plus minus. And the irony is glaring in your statement "what's not like" that's why I said it's unfair to criticise Dennis for his plus minus or ridicule the whole thing. Dennis does not think it's a game of one on one. You live in the past if you think so. He had many games where shared the ball well. The situation where in can't make him look good to you anyway. Edit: just to point out how unwarranted the criticism is; Dennis had 1 TO which happened on the first or second play of the game.

Basketball isn't a one on one game my guy. If you play minutes with baze who turns it over on every trip and then afterwards with prince in the rotation you don't look good in the plus minus in such games. I mean he played the most minutes. Would be pretty weird if he had a positive or next to positive plus-minus, he?

Yeah the big positive is his 3pointer. The big negative is that he can't wrap his head around the fact that his game builds from a good 3 pointer. Right now he's pump faking every 3 pointer and tries to do some jelly magic instead. And I'd argue about the fact that his effort is worse than Dennis on D right now. Actually I felt like Dennis tried a tiny little harder on D in the last games

I mean if you have a player that can consistently drag that team to Ws your talking about a flat out superstar player. The duties Dennis can handle is to be a good starter on any team. And it's not really like you said with Dennis being the product of the players around him. He creates his own most of the time. He would still flourish in Cleveland for example but only because he has more space to operate due to great shooters on his team.

What about Prince and Baze? Those are guys who have to contribute this season. They should be leading players. I blame them for playing abysmal every game. Prince sucks. Its official. His BB IQ is below a cucumbers. I tell you now he wouldn't even score on a fastbreak if he had a free lane. He'd probably run into an official or fumble it somehow. Baze sucks Prince sucks Plumlee sucks Ilyasova usually is alright but sucked today so why the hell they blame Dennis, the only guy shooting alright/good splits and not making a dumb play every time he gets the ball in his hands?

And that was Dennis. Still somehow people on the board blame him the most for our play tonight.

Usually there are 5 guys on the court. If 4 people can't buy a bucket all game long and the pressure lies solely on one player it is pretty common that he can't handle it all game long. It was great what he made out of the difficult looks in the first half. Second half he missed. Anybody missed. What's the point in blaming schröder

Devin Booker isn't a better player. I don't understand why people think he's that good. Volume shooters get overrated quickly. He hasn't shown anything worth trading for yet.