Adreian Payne, Kent Bazemore & Luol Deng = Good Offseason?

[wolvetigers]

Looks like the Hawks from most reports are targeting Deng and Bazemore as potential free agents and with the addition of Adreian Payne, Lamar Patterson - The Hawks appear to follow the formula for a solid team. 

 

HOWEVER, in a star driven league is this enough?  Even with these moves the Hawks are no better than 5th the weak East and possibly another 1st round exit...

 

I would love if the Hawks could get Klay Thompson from Golden State, then the offseason would be stellar..

[Admin]

It's day 2 of free agency, who knows who we are targeting at this point. 

[Buzzard]

Looks like the Hawks from most reports are targeting Deng and Bazemore as potential free agents and with the addition of Adreian Payne, Lamar Patterson - The Hawks appear to follow the formula for a solid team. 

 

HOWEVER, in a star driven league is this enough?  Even with these moves the Hawks are no better than 5th the weak East and possibly another 1st round exit...

 

I would love if the Hawks could get Klay Thompson from Golden State, then the offseason would be stellar..

To read some post on this board, one would be lead to believe our players are aging and on a downward spiral. We were third in the East at the time of Horfords injury. How does adding Horford, Deng, Payne, Bazemore in for a full season equal 5th now?

 

I would prefer a better off season but I still like our team with Horford back 100%.

Edited July 2, 2014 by Buzzard

[coachx]

Yes, I would rate that as good. Definitely better than fair. Its hard to call that great but its definitely upgrading the roster at positions of need.

Edited July 2, 2014 by coachx

[LucastheThird]

To read some post on this board, one would be lead to believe our players are aging and on a downward spiral. We were third in the East at the time of Horfords injury. How does adding Horford, Deng, Payne, Bazemore in for a full season equal 5th now?

 

I would prefer a better off season but I still like our team with Horford back 100%.

I think people forget how good we were with Horford 100%. 

[Admin]

I think people forget how good we were with Horford 100%. 

 

16 wins, 13 losses and that includes getting the 16th win after Al went down in that game vs Cleveland. 

 

What you mean to say is I think people forget how bad the Eastern Conference was/is, especially at the beginning of the season last year. 

[Vol4ever]

I think Deng is the main cog too, but there is alot of smoke in the Monroe thing also.

[turnermx]

16 wins, 13 losses and that includes getting the 16th win after Al went down in that game vs Cleveland.

What you mean to say is I think people forget how bad the Eastern Conference was/is, especially at the beginning of the season last year.

We started slow but who is to say that the team would have gotten better as the schedule got tougher? I still stand by the opinion that if Horf were healthy the team would have won 47-52 games by seasons end rather than the 38 they finished up with..that disastrous stretch of losing 14 of 15 wouldve never happened.

[LucastheThird]

16 wins, 13 losses and that includes getting the 16th win after Al went down in that game vs Cleveland. 

 

What you mean to say is I think people forget how bad the Eastern Conference was/is, especially at the beginning of the season last year. 

Compared to 22 wins, 31 losses without him. We had more wins with Horford than we did without him. However you want to say Dolfy 

[Diesel]

if you couple those moves with the return of Horford... Probably.

 

You must remember, that we played most of last season without a starting quality C.   Adding in an allstar C means that we will be much better.  Especially now that the team has a feel for the direction that the coach is trying to go.   I think without Deng we will be pretty darn good.  Deng just brings us a Juggernaut on defense and a guy who can get us more than 14 ppg from the Sf spot.  We're not worried about the offensive output of Deng because we have so many weapons but on defense is where we see the need for the most help.   Shutting down the perimeter is job one.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

We started slow but who is to say that the team would have gotten better as the schedule got tougher? I still stand by the opinion that if Horf were healthy the team would have won 47-52 games by seasons end rather than the 38 they finished up with..that disastrous stretch of losing 14 of 15 wouldve never happened.

 

No way that team wins that many games.   That schedule switched from 5th easiest before New Years, to about 5th hardest from New Years Day till the beginning of March.   Too many road games.  To many tougher home games.

 

And like Dolfan said, some of the other "good" teams in the East were hurt, just like we were.

 

As for the topic question . . . NO . . that would not be a good offseason.

 

Kent Bazemore is no better than Jordan Crawford.  Deng, while still good, isn't the best of the 2nd tier free agents that we can get.   Payne should be solid, but only if he's contributing from Day 1.

Edited July 2, 2014 by TheNorthCydeRises

[turnermx]

if you couple those moves with the return of Horford... Probably.

You must remember, that we played most of last season without a starting quality C. Adding in an allstar C means that we will be much better. Especially now that the team has a feel for the direction that the coach is trying to go. I think without Deng we will be pretty darn good. Deng just brings us a Juggernaut on defense and a guy who can get us more than 14 ppg from the Sf spot. We're not worried about the offensive output of Deng because we have so many weapons but on defense is where we see the need for the most help. Shutting down the perimeter is job one.

Agree totally that perimeter D is our priority. Next should be rebounding on defense. With stops ad defensive boards the offense will come even without Horf offense wasnt our problem last year. Amazing what Bud got out of our guys with his system in year 1.

[BrazilianHawk]

If that would be the end result, yes, I would rate it a good offseason.

[hazer]

It's decent, if that's the entire off season I'd give that a B+.

[Buzzard]

We started slow but who is to say that the team would have gotten better as the schedule got tougher? I still stand by the opinion that if Horf were healthy the 

Exactly. New coach, new starting Power Forward, new starting Small Forward. We were 7 and 3 over our last ten with Horford. 7 and 4 with him in December. Three of those seven wins were against the Kings, Wizards, and Clippers....The losses were to OKC, Spurs, Miami, and the Knicks. 

 

That December run is what propelled us into the top three in the East.

[Admin]

We started slow but who is to say that the team would have gotten better as the schedule got tougher? I still stand by the opinion that if Horf were healthy the team would have won 47-52 games by seasons end rather than the 38 they finished up with..that disastrous stretch of losing 14 of 15 wouldve never happened.

 

I highly doubt we'd have gotten up to 50 wins. But yes I do think we'd have gotten better than 3 games over .500

[turnermx]

I highly doubt we'd have gotten up to 50 wins. But yes I do think we'd have gotten better than 3 games over .500

Fair enough, at minimum but the loss of Horford came at the worst possible time. Yes others suffered injury but how many lost their best player for 2/3 of season?

[JETSET]

16 wins, 13 losses and that includes getting the 16th win after Al went down in that game vs Cleveland. 

 

What you mean to say is I think people forget how bad the Eastern Conference was/is, especially at the beginning of the season last year. 

We could have easily been 19-10.  We were robbed by the refs in that Heat OT loss.  We had an insane 8 game in 12 day schedule at the end of November where our guys were just dead by the end of it.  We probably beat Orlando and Boston at the end of that run if we aren't playing on dead legs.  Just look at hot low our point production was at the end of that stretch to see proof. 

 

We played 4 games in 5 nights.  had 2 days off. played another 4 games in 5 nights.  I'm willing to be no other team had to endure that last season.

[JETSET]

I would be ok with it as long as Deng's deal is short.  I would rather improve this year while saving our cap for next year's loaded class than give a max player to a guy like Monroe and have our cap screwed for 4 years.

 

I think we could be as good as any one in the East next season if Deng stayed healthy and his shot improved similar to how Carroll's did.

[Admin]

We could have easily been 19-10.  We were robbed by the refs in that Heat OT loss.  We had an insane 8 game in 12 day schedule at the end of November where our guys were just dead by the end of it.  We probably beat Orlando and Boston at the end of that run if we aren't playing on dead legs.  Just look at hot low our point production was at the end of that stretch to see proof. 

 

We played 4 games in 5 nights.  had 2 days off. played another 4 games in 5 nights.  I'm willing to be no other team had to endure that last season.

 

Every team has these excuses, we aren't unique. We'll have them again next year.  We also had one of the easiest starts to the season of any team as well.