JustSomeGuy

Put me down with this team as a 50 win squad sans injuries. I think our regular season ceiling is the 3 seed. 

51 minutes ago, Diesel said:

His production was replaceable with cheaper players.... Period.   Higher upside remains to be seen.   

If you drive the price of a stock down to it's low... and other stocks are there... they all sell the same at the price.  However, the potential of the stock can change with a new CEO and a New direction.    Again, we've seen a better JC.  

I will concede that Ingles was the PF (not Crowder) and INgles put up good shooting.  But Ingles never scored more than what 12 ppg in 31 mpg.   Ingles was not a PNR PF. He was a catch and shoot PF who you could put on the corner.  Quin used what he had.   Just like you watch JJ and Bey now.  When they are on the court, they are not doing the same thing even though they play the same position.  A good coach knows how to play players to their strengths and brings out his own creativity in using them.    I think Snyder would have found the old JC.   If another coach could do it, Snyder certainly could. 

 

 

We saw a “better” JC when we were a worse, talentless team and he was getting 20-10 with teams sleepwalking into our arena every night.

And you’re just making my point again with Ingles. Quin prefers to play 4 out with playmakers on the perimeter. Could he have found a role for JC? Probably. But you don’t pay guys you have to scheme into impact 25 million a year.

Ans again, it doesn’t matter what you “think” Quin could’ve done to unlock It’s a pointless and purely speculative argument because the reality is Quin was a part of the braintrust that decided to trade him away. Meaning QUIN DIDN’T WANT HIM.

Y’all make it sound like the team purposefully sabotaged his career and traded him for nothing to embarrass him, ignoring the fact that if he was as talented as some on this board think he is, teams would have still given up something of value for him knowing the scheme alone was the problem. That isn’t what happened. 

50 minutes ago, Diesel said:

1.  Quin may have saw value in JC's play.  When asked by upper management can it be replaced, he looked at JJ and Bey and said Yes.   Money saving. 

2.  He PNRs better than any of Quin's traditional 4s have.  He also have shot better from 3 (during his career) than many other 4s that played for Quin. 

Most of his HC career, his PF was Favors...  Favors has a career 3 pt percent of 19%.

 

 

Your first point leads with a hypothetical/speculative conversation which can’t be proven but still makes my main point. His production was replaceable with cheaper players with higher upside.

Not ironically his upward trajectory as a winning coach coincided with the emergence of Joe Ingles, Jae Crowder, and co in Utah’s lineups. Derrick Favors took a step back in minutes on court and as an offensive focus. His scoring production dropped every winning season Quin was in Utah which coincided with the ascendance of the team in the West. He was also ten times the interior defender John Collins is. 

1 hour ago, Diesel said:

I think this is the effect of watching him play in a system that was bad for his game.   You really don't know what JC's best is.  You act like you've seen it, but you have not.   Otherwise, you wouldn't dismiss the pre-CC JC  so easily. I've never been one to judge a player by their contract.   If they are a cog on a winning team, who cares.   Do people in GS look at Klay or Draymond and say... these dudes are worthless?  No.   They work within the context that they have been given.   

I don’t really know what his best system is, Especially not in this modern NBA. He’s not a strong enough post player to be a featured big in a half court offense and not a good enough perimeter player to play in a 4 out offense. He can’t even play as a small ball 5. Especially not in a league with Embiid, Jokic, Gobert, Wemby, etc. I would guess his best game would be as a mid range pick and pop 4, a la, Karl Malone in the 90s but that isn’t the way the game is played anymore. I think his best role is a hustle big, like a Kenneth Faried or Taj Gibson. Winning players but hardly all stars and not paid like them. Maybe JJJ in Memphis but he isn’t as good a rim defender despite his athleticism.

And I disagree that Quin’s system would be good for him for two reasons

1. Because Quin didn’t see him as a system fit. He coached him for half the season and if his input loomed as large as everyone speculated it did in personnel decisions, John would still be here if he wanted him here. His perimeter limitations hurt him. And if a salary dump was the goal there were easier ways to do that with players who were more coveted on the market that would have returned more value. 

2. Because he does none of the things well that Quin’s traditional 4s have done. 

Even look at the preseason and as much on ball action as he have seen from JJ and Bey. John can’t do any of that consistently or effectively. So this isn’t me hating on John, just acknowledging his limitations and poor fit. 
 

7 hours ago, Watchman said:

E

 

The trade was all about saving money for the owners.  Period. (Well, and to appease Trae.) They gave away Collins for a bag of chips and a half empty can of Coke.  There is not a single player on this team whose game doesn't have very significant warts.  It's okay.  You can admit it.  You don't like Collins. That's no secret.  I'm sure Collins did not expect the offense to revolve around him, but including him on a pick and roll every now and then would not be unreasonable.  Ask Embiid which player he'd rather defend on a PNR, Collins or Capella. Capella never posterized  him.  I've never seen Capella look down at the rim.  Sending Collins down to the corner and rarely, if ever passing the ball to him would frustrate any player, especially one with some degree of offensive ability.  Trae got his panties in a wad because Collins dared to call him out about moving the ball. around.  Criticism of Trae is not allowed without retribution.

So you’re saying Trae forced John out? And the team gave him away for nothing to Utah when there were better deals on the table… because why? 

I don’t dislike John. I think he is a winning rotational player. What I didn’t like was his contract and production value, which made him expendable. There are a lot of apologists for his game who make all of his failures, other players/circumstances fault. John is, at best, a third/fourth option whose star profile rose because he was playing on a talentless roster and got a chance to put up more numbers than he otherwise would’ve. Just because he can jump high at the rim doesn’t mean he was good. Especially when he’s a poor post defender, poor perimeter defender, poor playmaker, poor shot creator, and last season a poor spot up shooter, who deals with long bouts of ineffectiveness. 

The man literally had a two rebound playoff game against a team that played a 4 guard offense. 

28 minutes ago, Diesel said:

Yeah... that's how I heard it.   I'm not of this generation so I don't know how much gravity that holds. 

 

And coupled with the off-season talk about him, in particular, buying into his role I think there’s some smoke but we will see how it plays out. 

IIRC didn’t he wipe his IG this off-season when the trade rumors began? 

Agree that Hunter situation looks odd. No real proof but the Energy there doesn’t feel right. I don’t think he lasts the season here. 

The energy with this team is palpable. Last year the team looked like they had a 2 ton gorilla on their backs all the time. Everyone looks like they’re playing free and having fun, especially Trae. 

@sturtthe fact that they got nothing in return for him was certainly not Atlanta’s choice but a reflection of his perceived value across the league. That’s not Atlanta’s fault. 

If Atlanta thought little of him, how much less do other teams think of him to not be willing to part with ANY assets of value to acquire him?

I can acknowledge that John was phased out of the offense and probably didn’t fit into the teams long term plans and even that he sacrificed for the team. I can also acknowledge that his game has significant warts. If he saw himself as a frontline player, those flaws manifested in far too much inconsistency and long stretches of non production on the court. That’s not Atlanta’s fault, that’s on him. Hell he lost touches to more productive players, anyone else willing to take the ball out of Trae’s hands to appease John? What about Murray? To do that is just asinine. 

But Clearly that’s Utah’s problem now given the quote above. The offense will not revolve around John, nor should it. And the irony in his comments about ego is he is the only player who has openly complained about touches on this team. Addition by subtraction is real. 

2 hours ago, sturt said:

 

 

 

Not really interested in a deep dive on the question, but I wonder how much of a change it's going to be compared to what he would have had under Quin, now that Quin's installing his stuff fully instead of the hybrid that JC played under for the last of the season. It's been my impression that Hardy and Snyder share a lot of similar philosophy, but I could be assuming too much, dunno.

 

Agreed on this. The problem is that playing in this type of system also doesn’t play to his strengths as a player, either. Which is probably part of why Atlanta traded him away.

2 hours ago, sturt said:

Among the most intensely revisionist history comments I recall reading anywhere in quite awhile... years, for sure... well, with the exception of the political realm, where it's practically an every day experience.

Nahbabanah... a guy doesn't erase all of his good vibes by being candid after having been kicked to the curb by the team where he'd been by practically anyone and everyone's account at the time he was with the team the most consistently positive force, day-in-day-out, in spite of a lot of very-public headwinds to that.

C'mon. The sellers' remorse, trying to find some way to actually feel even just neutral about selling your stock at an all-time low for the company, is understandable, but don't just make crap up.

 

Atlanta didn’t “kick him to the curb”. They gave him an opportunity to change his family’s life, paid him 100 million dollars, and he didn’t produce. His game did not continue to grow and evolve and it made him and his contract expendable. 

This isn’t personal. It’s business. Yeah hiring McMillan and his nonexistent offense probably did him no favors but John is who he is as a player and squeezing sour grapes at this point. 

3 hours ago, Final_quest said:

Hate being in a position where Collins succeeding would feel like a Hawks failure.  That being said I don't think we will have big regrets about letting him go, just regrets about not trading him for peak value.  

He’s earning that from me with his comments since the trade. We think of him as a leader but it hasn’t been lost on me that the idea of addition by subtraction can include removing a sour attitude from a locker room as well. 

Trae will still average 9 or so assist. He will still be allowed the freedom to pick his spots, we will still run the PnR and he had 5 in less than a half the other night. 

2 hours ago, Diesel said:

It's a different offense.   Unfortunately, the truth is that they have no passers in Utah.   It's like guys out there with the ball trying to create their own shot or create some offense.   I was a fan of Collin Sexton but he has not stepped up since being in the league. 

Agreed. Sexton is definitely more of a 6th man than lead guard but this goes what I’ve been saying that this Utah team does not play to his strengths.

Can’t play as rim runner, no passer to create easy baskets, still will have challenges creating his own shot. 

If playing with CC was what held him back in Atlanta how will playing alongside Kessler be any different?

On 9/15/2023 at 11:44 AM, macdaddy said:

I could be wrong but haven't all his injuries been related to the knee that he hurt 3 years ago and had surgery on last year.  I'm hoping he's a new man. 

Also not believing for a second we thought he could be our starting SF.  Trae/DJ/Bogi at 30 minutes a game together would be a big defensive issue.  

Bogi isn’t that much worse of a defender than Dre as you make it sound. He isn’t a great athlete but is a good team defender, and more disruptive. He is also a better shooter, shot creator, and is more consistent so the fit wouldn’t be that bad.

3 hours ago, macdaddy said:

Yeah and i wouldn't say that would be development anyway.  Seems he's talking about having more of a role in the offense i guess.   I think he would have done well under Quin but Quin seems to really like JJ so makes sense. 

I disagree because Quin saw him play and clearly decided there wasn’t a role for him here. 

Everyone has an opinion I guess but his suggestion that we stunted his growth feels like sour grapes. His game grew tremendously while here but I’m not sure I see where his game really was going to take another step.

He’s a tweener who was a non existent shot creator, even in the post. His rim runner role was replaced by necessity because of his deficiency as a post defender. His passing improved but he declined as a rebounder and had a knack for disappearing for long stretches on the court. Not to mention the injuries.

Best of luck to him though. 

The only deal that makes sense is one where he brings us back something of value that makes us better.

If trading him doesn’t return anything of value that will help us win, I’d rather reduce his minutes and move him to a bench role and use his value he would bring us as an expiring in a couple years. 

I don’t think Capela is as done as people here make him sound. I think he is definitely nearing the decline but that doesn’t mean we HAVE to trade him. Especially with no equal talent available to come back to us. We can always just let him expire or hold him until closer to the deadline. 

I personally really like our lineup with Bey at the 4 and CC at the 5. Gives Clint the room to be a lob threat and rebounder. Covers for the deficiency of Bey/Hunter as rebounding wings and opens up the floor for DJ and Trae. 

8 hours ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

 

 

Jalen looks good but who is that kid in the Kobe’s? He might need a camp invite or something 

Also count me in the pro-JJ crowd. He has the type of game that plays well even without plays called for him. I also like Bey in his role and don’t mind playing him at the 4 for short stretches would be more ideal next to Capela than OO because Dre is such a poor rebounder.