akay

First half impressions: - Dre's handle is good, he's definitely improved in a tangible way. - Trae and Dejounte are NICE, they have a good connection and I'm excited for their highlight reel by the end of the year. - I wish Okongwu looked more confident in his shot, but it's only the first half of the first game. - Dejounte on defense is a breath of fresh air, we never got this much transition play before. The defense to offense all around is great - Trae continues to be Trae, and I hope this is his Mvp candidacy season - Jalen can play NBA level basketball which is nice, but he needs to start hitting the gimmies

Hunter has done something impressive with his handle 3 times in the first 7 minutes. I think it's real

Nice drive by Hunter, need him to stay aggressive.

Trae really started this game off losing his man on defense and air balling a logo 3? Can only go up from here : D Off topic, but DAMN in so happy Hawks ball is back. Miss Atlanta

Pretty fair deal for him, and has the potential to be a steal if his handle and shot creation are real. Trae x JC x Hunter x Murray is a great core top 4 to have for at least finishing off the first half of the 20's

So did Hunter not get an extension? Wish we could've locked him down for cheap before his all star season

Definitely not, JC is a great fit today on the team, and we have him on a decent contract for a while. Dray would be better on offense for screening and playmaking, and our perimeter defense would get better, but I don't think the +'s from Dray coming in outweigh JC's impact. Losing JC's shooting, rebounding, and selflessness would be too much. And no JC right after losing Huerter would just be So all in all, dray can keep his booty in golden state or go the lakers. JC gonna win a championship next to Trae

Jae and Justin probably have similar impact, don't see us making the trade unless we have a cheap extension planned with Jae, and he's fine being on the bench (doubt). Also, what is up with everything needing a sponsor? Can't even get a Shams rumors without having to hear ATT? smh Schlenk, stay stingy and don't overpay for this mans please.

Raptors are the weakest champs in a while imo. I think any champ in the last decade smokes em including Warriors last year; Steph was playing great, and the rest of the team was clicking well. Don't think they have it in them to repeat though, second round exit this year my prediction. Giannis gonna carry Bucks to a great regular season.

Glad you're laughing cause Hawks are obviously top 3 team when everyone healthy. MVP Trae All Star Murray MIP Hunter Swiss Knife JC Swiss DPOY Capela. That's a championship caliber starting 5, and then Bogi coming off the bench has 6MOTY potential. This team (when healthy), feels pretty tough to beat.

Yessir lets do it. I def wanna do at least the Hawks game, but also down for others. Scrubs got fun young players at least lol. And it aint no fun otherwise .

To be fair, I've only ever seen Bogi go straight for the body, never the ball lol. Gotta assume they'll change it up though, and having a non-basketball move finally get banned is remedied is nice.

JC and Cap boutta eat with 2 elite PnR players on the team. Which has me thinking, in the future, if you're an elite big, wouldn't you want to play with a pg who will maximize your skills? Trae Young expertly uses his big better than anyone currently in the league, so I'd have to wager that a generational big man (Zion/VicW) will make their way to the Hawks at some point in Trae's career. Just some for

Squawkers ever meet up? I was also planning on seeing our boy many times.

So I'm assuming Travis wants to pay him no more than 72/4, so Dre is looking for a 80-92 million dollar deal? If I'm the Hawks, I'm fine with letting Hunter play into Rfa if he doesn't want to sign for 72/4, I don't have much faith he'll go back to his 15 game sophomore season form.

Idk what this account is, but locking up Hunter for 15-16 million per year would be awesome 👁👁. Trae/Murray/Hunter/JC is a solid core of players to build around for the short/long term

Unnecessarily rude comment... Insiders just tell us what they hear. Appreciate not being surprised by the NBA media as much @insiders, yall are awesome. Other than that, I'm glad the Ayton situation is settled. Paying max money to Ayton would've been crippling imo. Now if KD's thing could move along, that would be great...

Real threat to get bounced in the play ins lol. I'm sorry, but I really don't see any world where the Knicks are a top 6 seed. That roster just screams mid

How often are assistant coaches let go? I feel like if our defense is horrendous again, and we flame out this season, new guy will be gone along with the rest of Nates staff

In what world does grabbing 8 boards and 8 assists per game not make you an elite rebounder or playmaker? You wanna say he's a bad half court playmaker? Fine, he's still elite in transition as a playmaker and finisher. He's also elite on defense as evidenced by him being a dpoy candidate every year Please stop making him into something he's not

There's qualifications to being an insider now other than knowing things they shouldn't? It's been told pretty often when things get serious the insiders get shut out. A few hours before a trade goes down would probably be the least likely time we'd see someone on the board say anything. Insiders here have called pretty much every major move months in advance, unfortunate they couldn't do a few hours lol

Is the offense gonna remain the same with Murray at the 2 instead of a good shooter? The strengths of the roster are already different than last year with Kev/Gallo(jc prolly), and Murray/Holidays /Harkless in. Don't think you can just assume we'll be playing the same type of ball with pretty different personnel. It feels like we're giving up shooting for better defense and toughness

Yup, this is mainly what I'm interested in as a number without context is simply a number. If we assume that the "Real Hawks" record of .652 wasn't a fluke and aligns with our expectations of the team basketballwise, how were the Hawks running during this period to achieve this success? If we remove Kevin/JC/Anyone we may potentially trade from that roster, what impact needs to be replaced to replicate the success, and how attainable is it to find these replacements? I know Kevin and JC and the rest of our core was special, and I will truly love them for the rest of their careers, but what were/are they bringing to the table that we'll have to replace? If you have any insight into this @sturt, I would love to hear a bit deeper analysis of how our Hawks operated during our best stretch and what changes need to be made now to go even further with Kev(probably JC) gone. Getting Murray means we have to get more creative with our offense, so I think the Hawks team next year is going to look very different in playstyle than previous years, which is a separate discussion, though fun to think about.

Hi @sturt, I think it would be helpful to talk about what exactly happened with the team basketball wise when we had that.652 record. Currently you talk about expectations and logic your way through why the % is absolute in it's demonstration of our true Hawks abilities, but don't bring up what players like Kevin and JC did during that time period to make them unexpendable. Was Kevin playing aggressively and showing off how good he can potentially be with consistency? Was John playing tremoundous defense resulting in us having a higher win %? I think just pulling up the record is somewhat reductive in that it overlooks the basketball aspect, and just jumps to the conclusion. If our Hawks were doing something special (or even what was expected), what was it? What are we missing now that Kev is gone and potentially JC? These are the questions that get me curious when you pull the record, because while it is impressive, just putting the record out and using logical reasoning without detailing what went on basketballwise makes it hard to accept the conclusion.

What do you think we extend hunter for assuming we do? I would hesitate to give him more than a 72/4 contract