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Trae’s response to the trade rumors is very interesting…I think it’s clear he wants to stay here but the minute he feels like the team can’t win anything, he’s absolutely open to a trade. He really wants to win a championship. Bottom line: Hawks can not be a bad team next year or Trae is gone.

-Okongwu literally hasn’t gotten the chance to start a FULL season yet. -Griffin is literally 20 years who literally just had a bunch of tragedy in his life and is trying to figure it out again and that’s okay! -Bufkin isn’t even CLOSE to a G-league level guard. He’s the best guard defender on this team so far and once he gets better on offense, he could be extremely impactful. -Lundy plays with a lot of hustle and grit and I love that about him. Mo Gueye literally just came back from a back injury and has to learn the system. Yall have to give to get these players to develop. This is not McDonalds where food comes out instantly. This is gonna take time. Trae is in it for the long haul. He literally said this is a young team. Let this team develop and watch this team get better. Months ago, people were loving Jalen Johnson. Now he’s this mid role player? What the hell happened??? All that potential didn’t die of all sudden.

But I mean he is though lol, there are so many draft profiles about him questioning whether or not he can play at an NBA pace. He’s bad in transition (which we really don’t need considering this already has trouble with that). He doesn’t take shots more than 5ft from the basket. He can played off the floor so easily. He really reminds me of a slower Boban in some ways. I can see Trae and Edey working together in pick and roll, but I just don’t see the fit for this team unless something massive changes. Edey is a player for the 80s not the modern game.

People haven’t really admitted this surprisingly but…the team has drafted pretty darn well post 2019 draft. Onyeka is a good center and could start next year. Jalen is great and is continuing to grow as the starting four. AJ had an incredible bumpy second year but is waking up in College Park thankfully. Kobe Bufkin has shown he’s already the best guard defender on this team and has huge potential. The team took 2nd round draft picks seriously and Seth Lundy and Mo Gueye have huge potential. With the exception of Lundy, all of the players I mentioned are under the age of 22. Their youth and the ability to draft well is basically the saving grace of this team right now. The main issue is : 1. Can this be able to trade for someone that isn’t at best a net neutral for this team? And 2. Will that guy be available this offseason? Because clearly they’ve shown the ability to draft talent.

It’s crazy how we are trying to draft a guy that can’t move that quickly in a defensive system that requires our bigs, forwards, and guards to be able to move around quickly. It’s a big no. Don’t care about his height, the slow speed of Eddy makes him instantly not a fit for this team.

Everyone needs Trae’s help and when he’s gone…it makes it difficult for everyone. This is what happens.

Bogi was literally injured for half of the games we were playing during the ECF run. Solomon Hill was terrible and barely did anything. Tony Snell was a body. Hunter literally played the first round and was done for the rest of the series. Collins was fine and okay as a defender. Huerter was okay but was a bad defender for most of the run. Gallinari was bad on defense but was a good scorer. Cam Reddish was literally useless until garbage time in Game 6 of the ECF. Capela was arguably the most talented because of his defense but he couldn’t do anything offensively without anyone spoon feeding him the ball. Okongwu was a rookie who was playing with a torn shoulder muscle. (He played great defense though). Why are we acting like Trae played with a bunch of hall of famers when a third of the players are basically out of the NBA and another are third bench guys for other teams. Trae carried a bunch of 6th men to the ECF and people act like it’s nothing lol

If you want to make the team better it’s pretty simple: trade Dejounte and Capela. Trading Dejounte ends the point guard stagger and we can be able to have defensive guards next to Trae all the time. This will fix our POA issues. Maybe we can get a wing at the three that shoot and defend (like Mikal Bridges). Capela is always blocking the rim and makes the offense worse. His age is clearly showing and the minute we get a center that can just move out the way of the dunker spot, this offense AND defense will be better. Start Onyeka and this defense will be cooking. Like look at these stats from PBP, Trae and Dejounte together are a net negative. Trae led offense is 3 points better than Dejounte. Why is Dejounte still here? We probably should’ve traded him last season. At this point, they have no choice but to trade him this offseason. Thank god they got him to sign that extension so DJ has more value. I don’t think this team is as cooked as people think it is, we just have to make the right moves.

Trae went to the Eastern Conference Finals…Dominique never did.

Very concerning. If defense isn’t good, we aren’t winning games. It’s that simple. We may fall out of 10th seed with this offense

This is easily one of the worst offensive showings of the season. Quin needs to play Jalen at center more and more five-out because it’s the only way we are going to get more consistent offense. If Quin doesn’t do that, the only hope we have is hoping Dejounte goes off with iso because he’s not as good of a scorer as Trae is. And once Dejounte goes cold (which happens a lot), the offense is dead. Point is that Trae is really good and this team when facing good guards may be screwed. (Knicks and Cavs coming soon) The best overall player in this game was Kobe Bufkin. Made some really good passes, changed the game during the 2nd quarter and was one of the main reasons why the game was kind of close during the 2nd quarter. His drive to the rim in the 3rd quarter was the type of stuff I want to see more from him. Capela and Bruno were terrible. Hawks centers were constantly switching to the guards and Schröder, Smith Jr, and Walker saw mince meat. It was disgusting. Another reason why Quin should’ve just done Jalen center lineups. Proof that we don’t miss just Trae but miss Onyeka who can defend guards well. Shoutout to Wesley Matthews who had a sneaky decent game. Very frustrating game, worried about the next game on Sunday. We could lose that one too. We’ve lost the series to the Nets and the best we can do is tie it so I guess we have that going for us.

Look how much better we are without Trae guys…look at the defense and the offense!! It’s so great! We are amazing tonight! So much better without the best point guard in hawks history!!

I’m gonna say this now…if I hear ANYONE tell me with a straight face that this team is better without Trae with how putrid this offense looks, I’m going to ignore them for the rest of my life. This looks like total garbage. We literally can’t do anything right now.

What is the narrative? It’s pretty obviously about the fact that the refs have been much more lenient and nothing really to do with Trae. Walker Kessler got away with a bunch of stuff and was complaining about things the whole game. Players like Hunter and Jalen don’t really complain to the refs unlike they get really mad (like the raptors game where Hunter got a tech). I mean Dejounte literally complains when he doesn’t get calls (he got suspended from a playoff game lol), not as much as Trae, but he does it a good bit. Star players complain all the time about fouls. LeBron complains,Tatum complains, Luka complains (honestly way more than Trae). I mean that’s just what stars do if they don’t get calls.

More like it’s crazy when you only play ONE SMALL GUARD ON THE FLOOR instead of two constantly like we usually do. If you want to improve the defense, you have to end the point guard stagger. BUT nobody wants to hear that. I’m sad we will probably not see Trae and Kobe on the floor together once this season. Dejounte didn’t even have a good game tonight. Our forwards did a great job (and pray they are healthy because if one of them get injured, the season is over). Jalen did a fantastic job tonight. Clear number option on this team tonight and probably moving forward until Trae comes back. Bufkin was fantastic and was a player they needed for a long time. Trade Dejounte, start Kobe at the two next season and see where we go from there. We got our winning trio: Trae, Kobe, Jalen. Let’s see what we can go from there

The answer to all of our problems. Trade Dejounte, AJ, and our pick this year. Start Kobe at the 2. Put Mikal at the three. And we are cooking

We aren’t gonna build a “winning culture” with a team that’s gonna be most likely .500. We’ve been on a bunch of losing streaks this seasons. There is no winning culture to build right now. A bunch of the players aren’t gonna be able to build their value because they are either A. Old or B. Constantly injured. The only players that have actual value on this roster are Trae, Bogi, Dejounte, Onyeka, Jalen, and Kobe. Everyone else has basically no value or the same value when we got them. Hunter is too injury prone that nobody wants him. Capela’s contract is terrible and his age is catching up with him. Bey wants starter money and there’s no chance of that happening. AJ’s entire second season has been cooked and probably made some people think he’s a fluke. We have to keep our young players in order to make those roster better, so it’s just better for this team to get worse now in order to get better next season.

The main thing to take away from this game is that’s it easier to play better defense with one point guard on the court than two. This is why we have to trade Dejounte Murray. Also, we need more size on this team to make it easier for Trae. Good win.

So from the locked on hawks podcast…it takes four weeks to re-evaluate this injury. The least amount of time for Trae to come back is 2 weeks. The most amount of time to come back from this injury is 4 weeks. There are 7 weeks left in this season. There is a very real chance Trae played his game this season.

Well, yeah we are gonna “compete” but this team is really bad without Trae. Who’s gonna set up easy lob for Capela? Who’s gonna help set up Jalen? Who’s gonna help create the many open threes that Trae does? Like people don’t realize how much Trae does for this offense. If we win, it’s because Hunter, Bey, and Jalen are really good on offense (which will be hard without Trae) and Defense. Like I think we are about to lose a bunch of games whether people like it or not. I just hope we see Kobe Bufkin, AJ, and Lundy play a lot more.

As of right now, I think it’s clear the best option for the hawks is to just tank and try to get the highest draft pick possible. I know that sound crazy at this point in the season when so many teams below us are bad, but hear me out. We are the 10th seed and currently on a 3 game losing streak. It could be a 4 game losing streak as of writing this as we are playing the magic and every game against the Magic has been a dogfight. We are 8 games below .500. We would have to go on a 17-9 run in order to get .500. With the way this team is playing, that is probably not gonna happen. We are very likely to finish as the 10th seed. Are you confident that we can beat the Bulls, Magic, or Heat in two away play-in games? Because I’m not. I wouldn’t be shocked if we get destroyed in the first one considering how inconsistent we’ve been this season. While I really want to see playoff Onyeka Okongwu and Jalen Johnson reps, it just seems like it’s not in the cards this year. It would be favorable for the hawks to just lose as many games as possible at this point to try and get a forward or center that can help them get athleticism and youth in the lineup. Someone like Ryan Dunn (shooting is bad, but the defense is incredible and we would need it), Kel’el Ware, Matas Buzelius, or Donovan Clingan. Also have to hope the Sacremento Kings make the playoffs, so we can have their pick this year and we can get another young guy. We could draft a forward and center. Bring in a much needed youth infusion for this roster. People are gonna make this out as a loser post, but I feel like I’m being realistic here. I think this is currently the best way the team can get better in the future. The Mavs already did it last year and look where they are now. Why can’t we do it?

Hawks have the stink of the Dominque Wilkins trade (they’re are people on people on this forum who were alive for that trade) still with them to this day and people still think they’re willing to trade Trae lol. Trae is a hawk unless he asks out and even then Ressler is keeping him until he’s forced too. It makes no sense to trade the biggest star the Hawks have in 30 years.

I am so tired of the “trade Trae” people. When have we ever put ONE average guard defender in the starting lineup in the Trae Young era? When have ever had more than ONE wing defender other Hunter (who’s knees are cooked) and now Jalen? How is it Trae’s fault we only have ONE power forward on this team? How is Trae’s fault that we have basically ran a 8-9 man rotation for literally 2-3 years because everyone else on the bench sucks? How is it Trae’s fault THAT THE FRONT OFFICE REFUSES TO GET CHEAP GOOD DEFENDERS THAT WERE AVAILABLE DURING THE OFFSEASON THAT WOULD HELP THIS TEAM? Trae Young is going to break the assist record this year, he already broke the three point record. He may be our all-time leading scorer. And people want to trade him? So we can have a Dejounte Murray led team with a worse offense, but have the front office do ALL THE STUFF they should’ve done with Trae because they were too cheap to do it beforehand? People act like Dejounte has all these connections but I’ve never seen anyone say they want to play Dejounte in my life except Trae. We saw what Dejounte Murray team is…PLAY-IN. Spurs traded him for a reason. Yall want that for three years instead of Landry just getting more front court help? Atlanta Sports history is not filled with many great players and instead of appreciating and taking advantage of what we have, we are dragging Trae in the dirt for no reason. Get some damn defense on the team and we would win some games.

The worst total plus minus is MURRAY and Clint with -99 and -100 respectively. Trae’s net rating is 0.8 while Dejounte’s is -1.8. But for some reason people want to keep the worse player because he thinks he builds “better connections” and “doesn’t cause drama” as if people were running to play DJ in San Antonio and he didn’t trash the entire Spurs organization when he left. We got this hall of fame talent point guard on this roster and people are acting like Lloyd Pierce and Nate McMillan are Phil Jackson and Greg Poppovich. Acting like John Collins is Blake Griffin and Cam Reddish who couldn’t shoot for his life is Paul George. Get serious people. Trae is maturing, standing up for his coach’s system, accepting the all star injury replacement (which is something he wouldn’t do last year), trying hard on defense. What more do yall want him to do at this point? As I said before, when are we going to build a better team around Trae? We need actually build around the best player and get some defense instead of scrubs.

It is pretty clear to me that the Hawks need a front court option instead of a back court option as their number two next to Trae. The Dejounte Murray trade was by all accounts a failure and didn’t improve the team…so why not get a forward that can improve the size of front court, can pass and shoot the three decently well, and has improved as a defender in recent years? Brandon Ingram has been the best player for the Pelicans this year averaging 22/5/6. His shot diet may frustrate fans because like Murray, he likes the midrange. But I believe he will adjust for the system and have a career year under Quin and Trae. If the Pelicans are another first round or play-in exit, they will look to shake things up. The Pelicans need a point guard, the hawks can easily send them Dejounte Murray. We can finally have the small forward that the team has been looking for years. Thoughts?