akay

Just cause KD asked for a trade, doesn't mean Nets aren't gonna get everything they want. KD has 4 years on his contract, and he definitely isn't sitting out pouting to go to his preferred team.

1 minute ago, theheroatl said:

It's either Phoenix or Atlanta probably at this point unless a random team just dumps the boat on them like Wolves or Portland.

I don't think Phonix trades Booker, so I think they're probably out

2 minutes ago, EazyRoc said:

Lol why do we have such a hard on for Ben Simmons

Damn, wonder why one of the worst defensive teams in the league would want a DPOY candidate 

58 minutes ago, sturt said:

I didn't see it that way, but perhaps that's just more validation that we're on different planets.

Perhaps lol

58 minutes ago, sturt said:

It's not a projection at all. They did .621 over the course of the not-turned-upside-down 60 games, and .653 when you add-in the other not-turned-upside-down games of the Nate McMillan era.

They did do it, but you have to consider which teams we played and their injury/covid situation + all the other factors that you can't quantize. But sure, I do definitely agree John Collins is instrumental to winning us basketball games, no question there. I just question his true impact

1 hour ago, sturt said:

(a) Not much of a sample size there, but let's go with it. Did you know? 6 of those 7 wins came against sub-.500 teams? Pardon me if, for both reasons, I'm not impressed that one can draw any meaningful conclusion.

(b) This team went 21-14 (.600) in Real Hawks games w/ John prior to his injury (... and sorry, I can't discredit a guy for playing hurt, so whether it's to JC's good or bad, I'm not even looking at the w/l for those games he played with a Sta-Puff Marshmallow Man hand).

Fair enough, but it's the only sample we have. 

1 hour ago, sturt said:

That's not a statement one can make without backing it up with something more than self-authority

I mean, you can just look at who Trae's PnR partner is mostly. His role has definitely been reduced and that's why he's not averaging 20/10 right now. I'm sure there are stats to back this up, but im feeling lazy lol, ill give it to you.

1 hour ago, sturt said:

600 is one.

Another is that, it's one thing for me to be the only person who thought JC's injury pretty much would take us out of winning a first round series with the #1 or #2 seed... it's another for that to be the consensus of anyone who offered an opinion here at the time.

We all saw his value.

Apparently you didn't. And that's okay, but had you said "I think we're fine without him for the playoffs," I'm pretty certain you would have discovered yours was a minority opinion in a big way

And here is where I have issue. 

.600 is a TEAM stat. I want to see what measurable impact John had on that .600 number, and why it would be difficult to replicate his production.

The .600 number is not a basketball reason about John Collins value, and again, his being injured in the playoffs definitely took out of being able to win because it was compounded with Clint being out/injured. 

I really would like to see more numerical reasons or even anecdotal statements about John's game and it being difficult to replace. Currently you point to our record and this playoff series, but I don't thinks a good justification of Johns abilities. 

1 hour ago, sturt said:

I think on this one we might be talking past each other, and there may be some legitimate misunderstanding... I don't mean off-court chemistry, as it seems you've concluded, but rather, I'm speaking of on-court chemistry... that thing that makes Trae and John so so so smooth and exceptional as PnR mates, and on other occasions when Trae kicks it out to the corner to JC for a 3pt attempt. I can't speak as vividly for defensive rotations, but of course, familiarity with each other on defense counts for something. And John's become an average defensive asset to us, which is fine as long as you have other plus defensive assets around him. (That said, if you're going to replace John, at least make sure you're getting a plus defender.)

So... the kind of "chemistry" that actually has some direct impact on wins.

Ahh you're right, I thought you were referencing off court chemistry, apologies for that.

Trae definitely has good chemistry with John as a PnR partner, but that chemistry shouldn't be a blocker in trading John if we can field a replacement as good or better than him.

I am of the opinion Trae Young could run an elite PnR with any caliber big man, John just happens to be a good caliber big that benefits from Trae's abilities. Not diminishing John here, just saying Trae gives him a big boost, but I think Trae can replicate this production with anyone.

1 hour ago, sturt said:

I'm repeating myself now, so that's a sign that I've exhausted the topic and won't continue to pursue it... We cannot win without him anything meaningful. If you let him go, you must replace him with someone as good or better, or you risk neutralizing the possible gain achieved by flipping your 2nd string PF for a 1st string PG.

And to this last point, I am not worried about John being traded because Travis has said that he wants a starter level player for John at the very least. To me, John being traded is nothing to worry about, because anyone he gets traded for will be worth it.

If TS was gonna trade John for nothing, he would have done so a while ago, so him being replaced with someone as good or better is just a pre-requisite to having this discussion in my mind

Also, thank you for the response. I truly love discussing on the Squawk   

2 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

He's still 34. 

I think KD will play as long as his body allows. The NBA is on a different level of competition than any other league, and guys like KD wanna be there as long as possible imo. Totally saying this based on nothing but KD's love of the game, but I can see him playing till 38-39 if he doesn't get injured again.

Not getting injured again is probably a decent bar to level though

Are we gonna see a JC for Simmons trade today? 

Trae/Murray/Hunter/Simmons/Clint lineup is a pretty bad shooting situation, I hope there are other moves planned if do get Ben. 

Murray and Simmons can replace JC's rebounding/defensive responsibilities, but I'm not sure Nate has the creative offensive ability to maximize a non-traditional lineup like we'll potentially have.

1- Can shoot

2- Can poorly shoot

3- Can mediocrely shoot

4- lol

5-lol 

6 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Hawks need to have capspace to make an offer.

My crystal ball shows at least 2/3 of John/Clint/Bogi getting traded this off season, so we see

I think Kevin ultimately gets to Miami and we have a crazy divisional rival.

Gotta get Ben to lock him up

18 minutes ago, GameTime said:

SIMMONS FOR PEANUTS SCHLENK IF WE CANT GET KD! HURRY

Getting Simmons for cheap in this frenzy would be the best move imo. We have a strong home grown roster rn, would hate to gut it

KD on his way to another top team

2 minutes ago, kg01 said:

You can be good.  I wanna be great.  I'm not a huge fan of Durant and his attitude but he has an argument to be considered the best in the game.  Why not try to add him?

Only argument i could see is we'd gut our whole team, and Trae Murray Durant is a crazy core, I don't think the rest of the roster holds up if we trade JC, OO, Hunter, Huerter.

16 minutes ago, sturt said:

We're not on the same planet.

Suffice it to say, when it was understood that our second best player on the roster was severely injured, I (and I wasn't alone of course) acquiesced to the conclusion that there wasn't any way for us to even make it out of a first round of the playoffs.

He doesn't stand out to you perhaps because he does many things well, but nothing elite. But the sum total of his contribution is the second most important contribution to our .651 record under Nate.

And I add that I think it's been too easy to look at the new toy and underappreciate the toy you gave up for that new toy. Gallo was huge for us. Murray might be huge-r. Hopefully so. But it's possible that we've all (me included) become so used to the idea that we were going to lose Gallo somehow someway anyhow, that we began to disregard what he brought to this rotation.

If we lose both Gallo and JC, it's hard to overstate what a void is left there.

Finally, zooming out further... almost no one seems to talk about how disruptive all this may turn out to be to what chemistry this roster had among them. Schlenk more or less promised there wasn't an overhaul intended when he spoke to Kirschner a few weeks ago. That's looking like a lie. You can get away with lying as a GM or whatever his new title is... but you'd better have made people forget about the lie. They won't forget if you guessed wrong.

I understand your position, but you're making more of an emotional argument instead of presenting facts.

Was JC solely responsible for this record we had? No, and comparing that best case record to what actually happened is a little disingenuous as John was healthy during that 6-16 period. 

Last season we went 7-2 without John, and this season we went 17-11 without him. 

We're obviously not intending to start the season without any Pf's so saying John and Danilo being gone is bad yes, if it's a vacuum and we have no replacements. 

The fact of the matter is, John has been in a diminished role ever since Clint came, and there's a reason he's expendable. 

If there are legitimate basketball reasons John Collins leaving is worse than whatever his replacement will bring, I would love to hear it.

But broad brush strokes aren't real reasons for me, winning will absolve any chemistry issues, and we can definitely win with John on the roster, but we've seen we can win without him.

If you bring up last year's playoffs, can't ignore Clint being out.

Just now, RandomFan said:

 

Unfortunate he didn't get to play more, seemed pretty solid whenever he got a chance.

His next team should be getting him for cheap and will be surprised at just how good he is. Should've taken every Lou minute this year.

Also, is Cooper looking like Trae's backup this year? Because that would work out pretty well offensively. Defensively, can't get much worse than Trae...

3 hours ago, bleachkit said:

You only mentioned offense. What about defensive match ups? That's 50% of the game. 

I actually think defense is less than %50 of the game, cause people can miss wide open shots with no defense being played, so I'd say it's more tilted like 60/40

3 hours ago, Peoriabird said:

Agreed, the point is neither are a great fit together. Murray not great off the ball because his shooting. Trae just doesn't like playing off the ball and plus it would diminish his impact on offense.

Trae played off ball with Mpj on his Aau team, and Ray has been saying Trae wants to play more offball.

Don't think this is an issue 

4 hours ago, sturt said:

You've went all-in with the Murray acquisition.

His contract is two years.

You almost certainly have to be in "NBA Finals Or Bust" mode for the next two years.

It's hard to understand any logic in making obtaining FRPs any priority whatsoever.

Whatever else you trade, it's got to be vet talent for vet talent, and at that, you're really only looking to reallocate your resources... a stronger set of assets in the roster in exchange for addressing a weaker set of assets on the roster.

I can't say they'll follow that logic... every season it seems Schlenk ends up doing some head scratcher. Ordinarily, though, that's involved the finishing touches on the roster... not a primary piece. I'm cringing as I await the very real possibility we're going to have another head scratcher but this time for a more significant roster piece.

 

Almost any Collins trade will be a head scratcher. Almost without question, you'd end up with a lesser talent at PF, and potentially neutralizing the overall gain you just made by acquiring Murray. *sigh*

What production from Collins do you expect we'll miss? 

We'll definitely miss his shooting, but spending $25 mil on a stretch 4 when they don't get used all that well doesn't really make a lot of sense.

Whatever we do to replace John, I'm not really worried about the team falling off much from losing him.

He's a great complimentary piece, and perhaps if we had a bigger and stronger defensive 5, John could be a core piece, but he's shown that he's not necessary for us to win games.

JC the person is wonderful and I never want him to leave, JC the player is good, but has to be on a team where his strengths are amplified, and it's not really fair to him to keep making him play some limbo role where he doesn't have things called for him.

My point being, I think we are fine if we trade him, fine if we don't. We get some more flexibility that Travis and Landry can use to fill out the roster, or we can run it back hoping for good health + Murray.

My only concern with running it back is how unhealthy this team is, and trying to hope we can avoid the random tweaks and wear and tear of the season is unrealistic 

7 minutes ago, theheroatl said:

 

 

Who would we want from those teams that's a win now player?

Heat: Bam (Not happening, and other heat players aren't worth john imo)

Kings: Kings want Barnes probably, I'd only want Sabonis for John

Jazz: ???

I hope we don't make some silly trade of John just for the sake of making one. I really don't know what a good return player for him would be.

Perhaps Harrison Barnes and the Kings pick next year? The pick would probably be pretty high knowing that franchise... and we'd have money to spend. 

Just now, AHF said:

I wish we would have given it up.  I am very confident we won't suck next year.  I have much less confidence for 2026 and 2027.

But it gives us a chance to build around a superstar while we have him, a couple of years of poverty 4 years out is worth it if we win a championship, which this roster Travis is building is certainly shaping up positively

6 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

Call me what you want but there is a chance that this doesn't work.

Call me what you want (what you really really want) but there is a chance this does work

Also, nice to know we still have our pick next year in the stacked draft

Ayton for 4/100 next pls

Wow, what a great value trade for us. Let's F********** goooooo

AND WE STILL HAVE JC