Steve Koonin

[JayBirdHawk]

Koonin talks Hawks.

 

 

Quote

Be honest with me, before the start of the season, did you plan for the cost of a banner on the budget for the 2021 year? 

If you’re talking about winning the Southeast Division, I did not see that as part of our future. What I was hoping for was we would make the playoffs; I was excited about the play-in tournament because I think it gave you the chance to have more meaningful games going down the stretch, but I did not see us being tied for the fourth-best record in the East — not in my wildest dreams.

Would you say anyone in the front office expected to be this high in the standings? 

I can’t speak for everyone’s wildest dreams, but I would say that I think we’ve exceeded all of the expectations we had internally.

What has surprised you the most with how this team has performed this season? Is it the record or something else that you didn’t see coming with this group?

I think the way it turned around. We’re 27-11 (under Nate McMillan). That’s a (71 percent) winning percentage, which extrapolated over a normal season is (58) wins.

 

Koonin on Travis's script:

Quote

I don’t think many people, myself included, expected the Hawks to be tied record-wise for the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. I thought they might have had an outside chance to get the sixth seed, but I thought they’d be in the Play-In Tournament and potentially get the seventh seed. I didn’t expect this.  What would you say was the mood amongst the ownership group in the first half of the season when this team was struggling? 

It’s interesting because we were never really together as a group, so I can’t give you a great judge. Tony had a vision for playoffs. The “P-word” the last couple of years was not mentioned within the building. We were not going to put pressure and jinx and do that for our team. Our past two seasons, it was obviously not a playoff team. What I admire about Travis is when we had dinner before he was hired and announced, he laid out this plan with precision — what year, what needed to be done, flexibility with contracts, taking in bad contracts, getting as many draft choices. He had a formula — I wouldn’t call it an algorithm because it wasn’t that complex, but he had a formula that he followed almost to the day and almost to the tee. It’s worked. He, unequivocally, had a vision and a plan and executed on it. When it came to fruition under leadership from Nate, now everyone can see it. This is fast for a rebuild, especially a strip down to the studs rebuild. He knew what he wanted and articulated it, so we never were surprised in this process. We went back in the draft lottery two years in a row, and went higher in the draft than we were slotted. A few ping pong balls bounce differently, and we might be having a different conversation. The way things have turned out — (Schlenk) scripted and I couldn’t have scripted it any better.

 

Koonin on Playoff Expectation and the MLK jerseys

Quote

My final question: I don’t want to say what are the expectations now that the playoffs are here, but what are the hopes over these next few weeks and possibly months? I’m sure you guys want to win the championship, but what do you hope for? 

I think the hopes are to play Hawks basketball and be very competitive. We would obviously like to win, but I look at it differently from hope. I look at it as milestones. We wanted to make the playoffs. Playoffs had a wider definition this year. When we said that, the Play-In didn’t exist. I think both of us agree that we didn’t think we would win the Southeast with Miami in there. I didn’t think we would be tied for a top-four seed. Next season, we want to take the next step. I don’t know what that means, but I know this is a journey. We want to be more than a perennial playoff team. We want to compete for championships. I think we’re ahead of what everybody thought. Vegas projected us to be 36-36, we significantly beat that in a statistical manner. I’ll be curious to see what we do with finding opportunities. We couldn’t have had more injuries than we had this year. I’m excited to see what a full year looks like. I just want to have a really good time and continue to build this franchise into something really special for this city. More than two years ago, we came up with the idea of the MLK jerseys. Out of the blue, the Pope wanted to bless them. This year’s been a gift. We’ve been blessed by the Pope. We’ve honored one of the great Americans of all time in Martin Luther King Jr. Anything is possible. I’m not going to set limits.

You know the Hawks went 9-1 in the MLK jerseys, right? 

I know every second of what they did in those jerseys. You might just see them in the playoffs. It would make sense.

 

[MarylandHawk]

9 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Koonin talks Hawks.

 

 

 

Koonin on Travis's script:

 

Koonin on Playoff Expectation and the MLK jerseys

 

This is awesome.   Koonin is one of my all time favorite human beings. 

[macdaddy]

save those mlk for a close out game.

[Atlantaholic]

2 hours ago, macdaddy said:

save those mlk for a close out game.

or elimination games both ways lol

Edited May 18, 2021 by Atlantaholic

[JayBirdHawk]

Latest Radio Interview, He Talks:

Murray, Trae recruiting and Huerter and more trades or not.

https://21143.mc.tritondigital.com/OMNY_DUKESBELL_P/media-session/cbb5a36a-5d59-4d26-9a54-77ea2d79ed73/d/clips/4b5f9d6d-9214-48cb-8455-a73200038129/fc77f556-6ede-421a-9cf7-a78e00163f9a/667d7f86-696c-4c4a-b17e-aec5015e4106/audio/direct/t1656710152/Atlanta_Hawks_CEO_Steve_Koonin_with_Dukes_Bell!.mp3?t=1656710152

[Jdawgflow]

12 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Latest Radio Interview, He Talks:

Murray, Trae recruiting and Huerter and more trades or not.

https://21143.mc.tritondigital.com/OMNY_DUKESBELL_P/media-session/cbb5a36a-5d59-4d26-9a54-77ea2d79ed73/d/clips/4b5f9d6d-9214-48cb-8455-a73200038129/fc77f556-6ede-421a-9cf7-a78e00163f9a/667d7f86-696c-4c4a-b17e-aec5015e4106/audio/direct/t1656710152/Atlanta_Hawks_CEO_Steve_Koonin_with_Dukes_Bell!.mp3?t=1656710152

Is there a transcript of this on their website?

[JayBirdHawk]

1 minute ago, Jdawgflow said:

Is there a transcript of this on their website?

I didn't see one, sorry.

[bleachkit]

2 hours ago, Jdawgflow said:

Is there a transcript of this on their website?

Im the same way. I much prefer transcripts over listening to long interviews. 

[JayBirdHawk]

Latest radio interview from today:

Chapter/Part 20 from 4:41 - 4:57PM

https://www.audacy.com/stations/929thegame/shows/dukes-bell-757f8/episodes/390dc2ec6137

 

[thecampster]

4:53 on the clock, Koonin specifically calls out that Jalen Johnson will be like us getting a new player. We're excited, Quin Snyder is excited, etc....he insinuates Jalen Johnson is why we didn't make a big trade.  

Get on board folks. That's the way they want to go. 

[Spud2nique]

1 hour ago, thecampster said:

4:53 on the clock, Koonin specifically calls out that Jalen Johnson will be like us getting a new player. We're excited, Quin Snyder is excited, etc....he insinuates Jalen Johnson is why we didn't make a big trade.  

Get on board folks. That's the way they want to go. 

WHO … are you?  

It’s called.. we were cheap and now we wanna say HEYYYYYY here’s your new old toy JJ… ya no.

[sturt]

2 hours ago, thecampster said:

Get on board folks. That's the way they want to go.

I love camp, but this mindset is absolutely insane to me, from the standpoint of anyone who has been a ATL fan for more than 20 years.

Iow...

"They're highly distinguished authorities in their profession... an owner and front office whose decisions are always and completely about winning championships... and so their decisions are indisputably cogent, and it's not like any of us have any choice in the matter anyhow but to be submissive since we're all slaves to their religion. So, look, getting rid of John Collins represents an improvement for the roster... addition by subtraction... keeping him was holding us back... we're better without him... a logical impossibility to give JJ as many or more minutes than JC, so stop yer yammerin."

(Oh. I get it now, Steve. Thanks.)

Or, more concisely for the TL/DR types, and you know who you are...

[thecampster]

9 minutes ago, sturt said:

I love camp, but this mindset is absolutely insane to me, from the standpoint of anyone who has been a ATL fan for more than 20 years.

Iow...

"They're highly distinguished authorities in their profession... an owner and front office whose decisions are always and completely about winning championships... and so their decisions are indisputably cogent, and it's not like any of us have any choice in the matter anyhow but to be submissive since we're all slaves to their religion. So, look, getting rid of John Collins represents an improvement for the roster... addition by subtraction... keeping him was holding us back... we're better without him... a logical impossibility to give JJ as many or more minutes than JC, so stop yer yammerin."

(Oh. I get it now, Steve. Thanks.)

Or, more concisely for the TL/DR types, and you know who you are...

Look, I'm perfectly fine with people disagreeing with me and what I think is best for the Hawks. Totally get it. I just don't see the benefit in fighting it at this point.

 

The kid is putting in the work this off-season. He makes 1/5 of what JC makes and outplayed him the last 20 games of the season. His per36 splits post Quin make him a better choice than Collins, especially at 1/5th the cost. His splits post all-star break per36 are 16/10/5.  They're going to give him 25 minutes a game minutes and as much as 32 minutes based on how he performs. Its just better to get onboard and support him now. He's either going to start post training camp or very early on and he's your PF of the future. Its just the way it is.

Its kind of like when people got electricity. Lots of people didn't like the idea of having to wire their homes. They had candles and who needs lights in the day time. But you know....best to get on board because electricity was the coming and you can't stop it.  Barring injury, Jalen is your PF. Just get onboard.  Koonin doesn't say something like that if that isn't the reality.

 

[sturt]

camp, I could have written that. You know that, right?

And I probably would have even just a year ago.

But last year, they were still clearly attempting (to me) to add talent, not subtract it. It was still plausible to say they were prioritizing the on-court talent/performance over the off-court expense to the owner.

Not writing that any more. Done defending the decision-making, and God knows, I've defended the Ressler group, the Joneses, and the Lerners/Rizzo to the point of causing others regurgitation of their lunch in the past. I'm not the type to disparage wealthy people in general. I'm not the type to consider my opinion better grounded automatically over people who wealthy people have hired to run their sports operations.

But I'm not stupid. And I'm not sheep. Even best case scenario, to the contrary of what I (sarcastically) said above, there is nothing rational that would prevent JJ from getting the same or more minutes than JC.

Is it awkward to have someone making so much less to be playing so much in comparison to someone making so much more? Sure.

But. Which is worse?

To do that... or... to effectively cut JC (and, so, you're having to replace those minutes with a decidedly lesser talent)?

One is miles and miles worse, and it's unfortunately the one that happened.

And Occam's Razor demands that fans just admit if they haven't already that the waddler and quacker is a duck... this team's owner undeniably at this point is more content with remounting the hamster wheel over all-out pursuit of a championship.

They're going to be good enough to be competitive (I think)... and so, arguably--and from Ressler's POV, thankfully--in a good position to sell tickets and merch... but whatever they are, it's going to be less than they would have been on the other side of, effectively, exchanging JC for Patty Mills. If you're not going forward, you're going backward. Last off-season, Huerter was let go for literally nothing positive coming back in the trade. Nothing. This off-season, same story, but substitute Collins.

Steve Koonin, I get it. It's your job to sell the team. Literally, your job. You've always been pretty good at it, too. But/and, if you're reading this, the old saying goes "don't piss on me and tell me it's raining." Everything you're saying could play out, but it doesn't change the fact the roster is not  improved by subtraction. Even if this team goes on to great success, it will be an inferior success to what would have been with an asset of John Collins' quality. And if this team fails it will be a greater failure because you parted with Collins.

Urine, unlike rainwater, smells horrible. This smells horrible. And I'm sure as hell not swallowing it.

 

[shakes]

Don’t know about everyone else, but I’m loving this new and improved super cynical version of @sturt  

 

I guarantee he ain’t taking no 25 game pledge this year!  Go get ‘em @sturt!!!

[sturt]

40 minutes ago, shakes said:

super cynical

But is it?

No, this isn't looking at all things through Eeyore glasses. Like some.

 

My conclusion is rooted in pragmatism, not cynicism.

I've cited very precise, very empirical, very cogent reasons for coming to the conclusion I have. It's about reason, not emotion. God knows, I didn't want to get to this place, and what you said above is rooted in that very premise... you know this runs counter to my nature.

I certainly understand why most don't wanna go there. I didn't either. I can't not.

Thanks, Tony.

[thecampster]

2 hours ago, sturt said:

camp, I could have written that. You know that, right?

And I probably would have even just a year ago.

But last year, they were still clearly attempting (to me) to add talent, not subtract it. It was still plausible to say they were prioritizing the on-court talent/performance over the off-court expense to the owner.

Not writing that any more. Done defending the decision-making, and God knows, I've defended the Ressler group, the Joneses, and the Lerners/Rizzo to the point of causing others regurgitation of their lunch in the past. I'm not the type to disparage wealthy people in general. I'm not the type to consider my opinion better grounded automatically over people who wealthy people have hired to run their sports operations.

But I'm not stupid. And I'm not sheep. Even best case scenario, to the contrary of what I (sarcastically) said above, there is nothing rational that would prevent JJ from getting the same or more minutes than JC.

Is it awkward to have someone making so much less to be playing so much in comparison to someone making so much more? Sure.

But. Which is worse?

To do that... or... to effectively cut JC (and, so, you're having to replace those minutes with a decidedly lesser talent)?

One is miles and miles worse, and it's unfortunately the one that happened.

And Occam's Razor demands that fans just admit if they haven't already that the waddler and quacker is a duck... this team's owner undeniably at this point is more content with remounting the hamster wheel over all-out pursuit of a championship.

They're going to be good enough to be competitive (I think)... and so, arguably--and from Ressler's POV, thankfully--in a good position to sell tickets and merch... but whatever they are, it's going to be less than they would have been on the other side of, effectively, exchanging JC for Patty Mills. If you're not going forward, you're going backward. Last off-season, Huerter was let go for literally nothing positive coming back in the trade. Nothing. This off-season, same story, but substitute Collins.

Steve Koonin, I get it. It's your job to sell the team. Literally, your job. You've always been pretty good at it, too. But/and, if you're reading this, the old saying goes "don't piss on me and tell me it's raining." Everything you're saying could play out, but it doesn't change the fact the roster is not  improved by subtraction. Even if this team goes on to great success, it will be an inferior success to what would have been with an asset of John Collins' quality. And if this team fails it will be a greater failure because you parted with Collins.

Urine, unlike rainwater, smells horrible. This smells horrible. And I'm sure as hell not swallowing it.

 

When you're asking yourself why you should get behind this? Just say this!

 

[sturt]

1 hour ago, thecampster said:

When you're asking yourself why you should get behind this? Just say this!

 

 

Know you kid, but probably more truth to that than anyone should feel good about.

 

Ressler, doing his daily routine scan of Squawk, sees this, and something like this can be audibly heard reverberating out of his head...

 

 

Yikes. Not good.

 

I kid, but I also know of at least one baseball owner who practically said this one time, not long after he'd bought the team and there was talk that local fans were upset because he'd taken a $65m bribe from MLB to move his franchise to the American League. Appeared in a FL newspaper where he owns a golf course, though, not the Houston Chronicle, so he didn't suffer too much for it... and yeah... he was right. They were his beaches, as it turned out over time.

[Final_quest]

Really seems like Plan A was bringing in a former or current allstar after trading Collins.  Now Plan B, or potentially Plan C, is promoting Jalen as the "new hope".  

Last year they may have slightly overpaid to bring in Dejounte, and they couldn't afford to do that two years in a row.  So, it was either give up all of our remaining assets for a 2nd tier star or sit and wait for a better opportunity.  

Maybe this is me being gullible, but all of the inside information and news reports indicate we were shopping and willing to spend.  The alternative is believing all of the rumor mill of acquiring Siakam, etc. was actually the Hawks FO trying to trick the fans into thinking they are willing to spend but never had any intention of following through because of cost.  

Jalen being promoted like this from Koonin I think is an aw shucks moment.  At the same time, if you are hopeful you think they made the right move by both getting rid of Collins and not overpaying for a guy like Siakam.  

[sturt]

By definition, because the Raptors are no fools, you were going to have to give up at least what is conventionally perceived as equal talent value for Siakam.

It solves nothing basketball-wise, then, to make that deal. You're losing about the same as you're gaining.... ie, after having lost already a starter-quality talent.

 

Here's the essentials of the journey just experienced. The talent inventory on this roster was up significantly last off-season with the addition of DJM.

Then, almost as suddenly it was down a Huerter with nothing coming back to balance that out.

Until, that is, 2/3 into the season, sending 6 2nds out for Bey.

And by most accounts, the team played well, even played extremely well at times... even, at times, the performance level envisioned when the DJM deal was originally made.

And now, giving up JC for nothing? Yeah. No draft pick inventory to make up for his loss in another Bey-like trade. The hope is for JJ to be just as good as JC, but not just that... remember, you have to also see someone back-up JJ at a level somewhat equivalent to what he already has shown.

But wait... that's just to get to where you were at the end of last season. What you need is someone who's going to make the team even better than the last time the team took the court. Thus, the grand hope that JJ will not just be "as good," but substantially better than JC.

 

Good luck with that. And that's not a snarky comment. I hope it works out for you guys. And it could. Especially with Quinn running things. Who knows.