JeffS17

Read through the game thread before checking the score this morning (missed the entire game last night), so that was a fun (read: not fun) roller coaster to see if we won or not. Sounds like we had a few positives-- Bruno playing decent(?) and Garrison Matthews played alright? Box score looks atrocious for Bogi and Hunter. Murray looks like he chucked for 40 and had the lowest +/- on the team... did I miss anything?

I think we're in a position where internal development is going to be the only thing to save us, outside making smart trades for better on-court fit (i.e move DJ). No single draft pick is doing anything for us next year, with the exception if we win a top 4 pick (unlikely).

Joe Dumars on January 31st: "We’re going to see offensive eruptions with this kind of pace and the amount of 3s people shoot. But there’s no push here at the league office from me or anyone else that we want to see a certain score. I left that Boston-Denver game saying, ‘wow, great game.’ That’s what fans want. Fans want to leave a game or watch a game and at the end say, ‘that was incredible.’ The score is secondary to that. Fans just want to see great games." Since then, we've seen games be more physical, less ticky tacky calls, and lower FTAs per game and lower scores. So a lot of the reason our defense seems to "look better" recently is because the refs have been shifting their calls a bit. Our offense certainly looks worse too, and this is one reason why (makes Trae that much more important imo). I see this shift, if it lasts, as a very good thing for us. The league has gotten to the point where any bum ass PG can generate huge offensive numbers, which makes Trae relatively less valuable. So I hope this second half of the year allowing defense continues into next season. Also: would love to see offensive ratings before and after the all-star break if someone knows how to pull that data.

These are the types of nagging injuries you can play through until the offseason if you're a serious contender. I'm not questioning the injuries -- just the urgency at which they needed to be addressed. I agree with the decision to address them immediately and hopefully get a decent draft pick.

It feels like we are reaping bad karma for being very conservative shutting Trae down for his finger and then OO for his toe. We immediately then got hit by a flurry of discrete injuries with Kobe, JJ and now Saddiq.

I would love to lock him in on a multi-year deal at $10M per or less. ACL tear means he won't play next season, or at least most of it, so I feel like that's a fair compromise. I really think Bey is the perfect bench player in Snyder's system, so I would like to see us try to keep him on a bench deal like that. His poor defense shouldn't be exploited as much by second units, and his energy off the bench is nice, and his one-dimensional play can still work in limited bench minutes (especially if he gets hot shooting)

Guessing this secures a lot more playing time for Vit/Forrest. Would love to see AJ/Gueye get into the rotation before the end of the season.

Yes, we're all aware of the big complaints -- they're posted in every thread. But yes, they are illogical in this case. No amount of spending is going to overcome 3 key rotation guys being out (Trae/JJ/OO), 2 of which are your 2 best players. It's so tiresome -- just create a mega thread where everyone can type the same complaints and memes over and over. And yes, it's still amazing to me you guys are still under the impression this roster is a Shake Milton away from doing something meaningful, injuries or not. The irony in all of this complaining about spending in our current situation is that a bunch of guys being out is probably a favorable outcome for us at this point, given the teams performance and this being our last draft pick. It's horrible that Bey has a more major injury, though, and I truly feel for him.

Tough man... absolutely hate it for Saddiq -- I still hope we extend him on a reasonable deal. The guy is such a hard worker and puts in serious effort every single second he's on the court. He's always been a strong bench piece to me and this injury will not change that. And as a side note, this is not the thread for more Ressler bashing, a guy gets injured and we start going in on Ressler? Come on... yalls agenda against Ressler is like a virus infecting and derailing every single thread.

The offense is beyond pitiful without Trae and JJ. Our 2 best playmakers being sidelined is quite painful. The defense was bad, but not sure how it wouldn't be when OO/Kobe/JJ are out and Hunter is on minutes restriction. No conclusions or discourse around Trae are particularly impactful right now, positive or negative, with the number of injuries we have. This is just a G league team trying to remain competitive.

Has anyone seen a time table for JJ?

Always surprises too based on how quickly some of these guys assimilate even if they weren't projected to have an impact. Lively comes to mind there as typically centers take more time to develop and he has surpassed most peoples expectations (definitely mine) for a late lottery selection

Edwards is one of my favorite players right now, especially as a UGA alum. Dude is so good and plays so hard. TWolves are going to be scary as long as he's there

I am in no way familiar with any draft prospects, but I would hope that we do not draft with the mindset of "need a contributor right now" instead of picking the prospects with the most upside, or seemingly realizable upside. I want the Hawks to build a program that sustains success in the long run, not one that thinks "we have to win today to make Trae happy". Great franchises develop their draft picks and young players and have a constant stream of high value talent on the bench. We have the coaching staff to do that, so I hope we are not picking guys under the premise we need a contributor next year. Need to exercise patience right now

This changes how I feel about pursuing him this offseason. The last thing this team needs is another injury prone player and KAT just cannot stay healthy. He's averaging <50 games a season over the last 5 seasons. And he's a big -- a heavy one at that. Yikes... I feel for Minny fans as I was pulling for them out of the west.

Murray has got to work on his handles, so loose and that high dribble gets him in trouble

I don't think coming off the bench is necessarily why Hunter has been playing better, but he's looking so good lately. It's maybe a bit of semantics, but I think the fact Quin put him on the bench has lit a bit of a fire under Hunter. He's basically been entitled to a starting role since his rookie year and now this is a bit of a wake up call. He's also clearly developing better habits under Quin as many have already pointed out (quicker decision making, taking more open 3s, more aggressive, etc). I hope he can do this as a starter next year if we retain him, because Bey starting/closing at SF is not the answer for this squad long term.

It's really just Capela. Other than him, we're getting what we should expect for how much we're investing in backup centers (~$17M/year). Meanwhile, we're spending over half our payroll on guard rotations. Trae/Murray can work together, but the question is if it makes sense to take DJs $25-30M and put it towards a wing or center. I think the answer is yes. You have to expect one of AJ/Kobe/Trent to be ready to be a part of the rotation next year. If we move DJ, it probably makes sense to keep Bogi off the bench, but if we can get good value for him, I would strongly consider moving him as well for a defensive-minded SG (if possible).

Yeah, all this just gives credit to people who said we left the tank early. It's tough to argue against that. It sucks the '19 draft class was so weak. Even the '20 draft class...who could we have taken other than OO? Feels like he was the right choice. I think the biggest "miss" which is still TBD, is in 2022. I would have liked to have Kessler or Braun in hindsight. But no one could see these personal issues coming for AJ and he certainly looked like the right pick in his rookie year.

Our results have been slightly above average in my opinion. Unfortunately, you need well above average results in the draft if you want to contend. Hunter was the right pick, even in a re-draft, so calling him "not top 4 lottery level" is unfair. It was a very weak draft. Cam was a bust but I liked that pick, considering the other options on the board at the time. It was an unfortunate draft to have two lotto picks. Heurter was a nice pick and we got an equal pick back for him so that's just a wash JC was a very solid pick but we fumbled his contract extension Okongwu is absolutely producing at a top 10 pick level -- no idea what kind of expectations you have for 6-10 Jalen was a very nice pick Griffin is still TBD, shouldn't expect a ton for a 16th pick yet anyways, but his personal issues are certainly concerning Bufkin is still TBD, but early signs are relatively promising. The entire premise of "turning into breakout stars" for the positions were picking is pretty wild. A healthier opinion is that we're very lucky to have JJ on the roster with potential to be just that, given where we've been picking in these drafts.

Yeah, let's definitely tank for high picks in years we don't own our picks. Mikey, you're making me feel like I'm on Twitter right now. And miss me with "trade Trae for our picks back" because there's no way in hell San Antonio does that. They can patiently wait, tank another year, and as time passes, leverage in that trade goes up and up. And eventually we'll be forced to SnT Trae if that's the route he wants to go. San Antonio is a very competent front office with a once in a lifetime player. They have all leverage in any trade scenario -- so we're never getting those picks back, we can stop fantasizing about that.

I do not trust this FO to pull off an OKC rebuild that most franchises have completely floundered trying to do. Presti's tank and rebuild is a huge anomaly, not the norm.

I don't disagree with this as a viable approach but betting on an, at best, 14% chance at the #1 pick is quite silly. Hoping to hit in the lottery is a strategy that can leave you looking like the Pistons for years. I'd rather just focus on creating/maintaining a winning culture, player development, and savvy trades. So far, this FO has done well post-DJ trade. This offseason will be a big test though.

Our roster is very flawed from a fit perspective, and we have a lot of contracts that are effectively bad money, for a number of reasons: some overpays, some decline, and injury issues. There are a lot of things to overcome from a roster construction stand point which means the only viable path forward is patience, which most here do not have -- which is why the proposed solutions are to throw money at the problem, i.e go into the tax!!! The reality is there are no $20M/year players that are going to fix our issues. There's no tax scenario even possible that has us contending. We don't need more players, we need better players. Maybe we eek out a couple extra wins with better bench depth, but a couple extra wins isn't even the difference between us getting into the play-in or a 6 seed. We need to re-prioritize where our dollars are going (we spend waaayyyy too much on our back court) and we need to develop guys to create value contracts. That is necessary for any path forward.

I agree with this, assuming we don't go above the first apron this upcoming season. 2025 also lines up with our next reasonable opportunity to pay the tax, which will be JJs extension kicking in.