Don't panic, the best is yet to come

[kurupt]

I really wanted make some posts on various topics over the last few weeks/months, but rarely could narrow it down to just that one topic. So here goes my overall take on the current season J

Prologue: After the 60-win 2014/15 season (including a trip to the ECF), the Hawks finished last year with 48 wins and a 2^nd round sweep by the hands of the NBA champions Cleveland Cavaliers (who shot 51% from 3-pointrange over the whole series). According to most metrics, the Hawks still where the 2^nd or 3^rd best team in the East and a Top-6 team for the whole league.

(Interesting to see how the individual Hawks performed in that series: http://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/2016-nba-eastern-conference-semifinals-hawks-vs-cavaliers.html)

The hawks offseason plan was to trade Teague for a draft pick (ending up with the 12^th pick, a very good haul in my opinion) and to add Dwight Howard to play alongside Al Horford and Paul Millsap. They also counted on the continued development of Bazemore (new contract) and THJr to further improve the team.

Without going into too much detail, that was a very sound and reasonable battle plan. Unfortunately Horford chose to leave and the Hawks ended up just replacing Horford with Howard and Teague with Schröder (plus Taurean Prince as the draft pick).

At best, I would’ve expected this team to do as well as the one before with ~48 wins, purely based on the adjustments needed. They are on track to 44-45 wins, which is a record that I would have expected at the start of the season. To me, the “sky is falling” attitude commonly seen on this board is rooted more in the unrealistic expectations of some people than in reality. This also goes for the assessment of some players.

 

I will split my detailed commentary on the players in several parts (starting) PG, Wings, Bigs and the Bench.

Point Guard: Schröder has basically translated his per-36 bench production to his starting job – against better opposition and more game-plan focus on him. He is also doing it more efficiently across the board (TS% / eFG%, TOV%) and almost all advanced stats are also up. He is pretty close to giving the Hawks what Teague gave them over the last 2 years in his first year as a starter and on a slightly worse team. Despite all valid concerns, Schröder is doing as well as you could possibly have hoped for in my opinion – and (hopefully) has even more room to grow.

Wings: The main starters this season were Korver/Bazemore/Sefolosha. On major problem was (and is) that none of these guys is a true SF, all are at best tweeners leaning more towards being SGs. This is especially problematic on defense

Korver was not good enough anymore to be a starter. His niche was his amazing offensive efficiency and compared to all previous Hawks season, his offensive metrics fell off a cliff this year. The Hawks were distinctively better without him (or at least without him starting), which has never happened before. Whether that was on him declining or him missing Horford offensively and defensively doesn’t matter in the end. To get a first round pick for him was a great deal.

Bazemore was the designated starter but had a brutal(!!!) start to the season. He shot like 35% from 2 and 20% from 3 over the first three months, his PER is at 9.4 right now. Part of this is him pressing too much and the starting role may be just too big for him. But I also see him misused. He just is no SF. He can’t defend that position and offensively his length/athleticism isn’t that great anymore when going against guys like Paul George, Durant or LBJ, so his offensive game gets reduced to pure shooting which he is at best average at. He has been better the last few months and I can see him being a serviceable starter at the 2-spot or a good player off the bench on that position if he continues this way.

Sefolosha, when healthy, has done what is to be expected of him. I also see him more as a 2-guard than a SF, but defensively he can guard both position very well. Offensively he is limited. The problem is that much like Bazemore, he is a serviceable at best as a starter and also not a very good shooter. Having one wing position with a “slightly below average starter” may be okay for a team aspiring to win 50 games, having two of them is hard.

Bigs: Howard is a dominant rebounder and decent rim protector but lacks the “utility value” that Horford had: setting screens, being smart and agile on defense etc. But he is what he is as a player and he has done exactly what the Hawks needed him to do by improving their poor rebounding.

Millsap does what Millsap does. He is great and by far the most important player on this team, both as a player and as a leader. The only gripe I have with him this season is that he has had a lot of pretty bad shooting games (sub 35% shooting), which is hard to overcome for this team since their firepower rests on so few shoulders (Schröder, Millsap, THJr basically, the rest is far too inconsistent).

Bench: First off the good news: THJr has fully arrived. He is a legit starting caliber 2-guard in this league now. After a so-so start, he has been excellent over the last 3 months. The only reason he is still coming off the bench (and I agree with that) is that the rest of it is so bad and Bazemore so far has been too inconsistent to take his role as the primary scorer and ballhandler off the bench. Putting THJr in the starting lineup for Bazemore would immediately fix most of the wing problems, but leave the bench a hot mess.

The rookies seem to not be ready enough and I trust the coaching staff with this decision. They have a good track record with developing Schröder, Bazemore and THJr as backourt players.

The main reasons why the bench is so bad is that Delaney is worse than I could’ve ever imagined. He can’t shoot from anywhere, not even his (formerly) famed mid-range game works on the NBA level. It was clear that he was a liability defensively, but since he isn’t athletic enough to be a driving guard, his lack of shooting makes him literally worthless. This is also why THJr has to handle the ball so much for the bench units.

Mike Muscala has been decent, but the Hawks also miss the firepower that Mike Scott provided. Much like THJr now, he won the Hawks a few games on his own when he caught fire and the Hawks have no one like that besides THJr anymore. Last year they had Schröder and Scott going ham off the bench.

Overall assessment: most of the Hawks players actually perform according to expectations or even outperform them. The most glaring issue is that the 2 most “disappointing” performances came/come from the same position in Korver and Bazemore at the wing. This leaves the Hawks with one good player for 2 starting spots and that player has to come off the bench because backup PG can’t actually play in the NBA. What could be a very, very good starting 5 with Schröder/THJr/Sefolosha/Millsap/Howard is instead a very flawed Schröder/Bazemore/Sefolosha/Millsap/Howard lineup.

I still like this teams chances in the playoffs though. There you can shrink your rotations and increase the minutes for your best players which naturally will lead to more “THJr with the starters” minutes. I also like the attitude this team is able to display, they are a lot more competitive and “edgy” than the Teague/Horford-led teams and if it comes to playing good/better opponents that is something you need to have a chance.

It may not translate to as many regular season wins this season, but I see more playoff potential in this group than is last years. The ceiling with Howard dominating the boards is much higher than the “we are going to out-finess you” Hawks of last year.

Also, going forward, I can see Bazemore stabilizing if they play him exclusively at the 2. He could then take on THJrs role that may be more fitting anyway. THJr seems to be a good starting 2-guard now and I believe that Prince/Bembry + the draft are able to address the remaining wing problems that Hawks have for next season.

Edited March 10, 2017 by kurupt

[Lurker]

I think the actual plan was to get Howard, then trade Millsap for future assets.

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, kurupt said:

I really wanted make some posts on various topics over the last few weeks/months, but rarely could narrow it down to just that one topic. So here goes my overall take on the current season J

Prologue: After the 60-win 2014/15 season (including a trip to the ECF), the Hawks finished last year with 48 wins and a 2^nd round sweep by the hands of the NBA champions Cleveland Cavaliers (who shot 51% from 3-pointrange over the whole series). According to most metrics, the Hawks still where the 2^nd or 3^rd best team in the East and a Top-6 team for the whole league.

(Interesting to see how the individual Hawks performed in that series: http://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/2016-nba-eastern-conference-semifinals-hawks-vs-cavaliers.html)

The hawks offseason plan was to trade Teague for a draft pick (ending up with the 12^th pick, a very good haul in my opinion) and to add Dwight Howard to play alongside Al Horford and Paul Millsap. They also counted on the continued development of Bazemore (new contract) and THJr to further improve the team.

Without going into too much detail, that was a very sound and reasonable battle plan. Unfortunately Horford chose to leave and the Hawks ended up just replacing Horford with Howard and Teague with Schröder (plus Taurean Prince as the draft pick).

At best, I would’ve expected this team to do as well as the one before with ~48 wins, purely based on the adjustments needed. They are on track to 44-45 wins, which is a record that I would have expected at the start of the season. To me, the “sky is falling” attitude commonly seen on this board is rooted more in the unrealistic expectations of some people than in reality. This also goes for the assessment of some players.

 

I will split my detailed commentary on the players in several parts (starting) PG, Wings, Bigs and the Bench.

Point Guard: Schröder has basically translated his per-36 bench production to his starting job – against better opposition and more game-plan focus on him. He is also doing it more efficiently across the board (TS% / eFG%, TOV%) and almost all advanced stats are also up. He is pretty close to giving the Hawks what Teague gave them over the last 2 years in his first year as a starter and on a slightly worse team. Despite all valid concerns, Schröder is doing as well as you could possibly have hoped for in my opinion – and (hopefully) has even more room to grow.

Wings: The main starters this season were Korver/Bazemore/Sefolosha. On major problem was (and is) that none of these guys is a true SF, all are at best tweeners leaning more towards being SGs. This is especially problematic on defense

Korver was not good enough anymore to be a starter. His niche was his amazing offensive efficiency and compared to all previous Hawks season, his offensive metrics fell off a cliff this year. The Hawks were distinctively better without him (or at least without him starting), which has never happened before. Whether that was on him declining or him missing Horford offensively and defensively doesn’t matter in the end. To get a first round pick for him was a great deal.

Bazemore was the designated starter but had a brutal(!!!) start to the season. He shot like 35% from 2 and 20% from 3 over the first three months, his PER is at 9.4 right now. Part of this is him pressing too much and the starting role may be just too big for him. But I also see him misused. He just is no SF. He can’t defend that position and offensively his length/athleticism isn’t that great anymore when going against guys like Paul George, Durant or LBJ, so his offensive game gets reduced to pure shooting which he is at best average at. He has been better the last few months and I can see him being a serviceable starter at the 2-spot or a good player off the bench on that position if he continues this way.

Sefolosha, when healthy, has done what is to be expected of him. I also see him more as a 2-guard than a SF, but defensively he can guard both position very well. Offensively he is limited. The problem is that much like Bazemore, he is a serviceable at best as a starter and also not a very good shooter. Having one wing position with a “slightly below average starter” may be okay for a team aspiring to win 50 games, having two of them is hard.

Bigs: Howard is a dominant rebounder and decent rim protector but lacks the “utility value” that Horford had: setting screens, being smart and agile on defense etc. But he is what he is as a player and he has done exactly what the Hawks needed him to do by improving their poor rebounding.

Millsap does what Millsap does. He is great and by far the most important player on this team, both as a player and as a leader. The only gripe I have with him this season is that he has had a lot of pretty bad shooting games (sub 35% shooting), which is hard to overcome for this team since their firepower rests on so few shoulders (Schröder, Millsap, THJr basically, the rest is far too inconsistent).

Bench: First off the good news: THJr has fully arrived. He is a legit starting caliber 2-guard in this league now. After a so-so start, he has been excellent over the last 3 months. The only reason he is still coming off the bench (and I agree with that) is that the rest of it is so bad and Bazemore so far has been too inconsistent to take his role as the primary scorer and ballhandler off the bench. Putting THJr in the starting lineup for Bazemore would immediately fix most of the wing problems, but leave the bench a hot mess.

The rookies seem to not be ready enough and I trust the coaching staff with this decision. They have a good track record with developing Schröder, Bazemore and THJr as backourt players.

The main reasons why the bench is so bad is that Delaney is worse than I could’ve ever imagined. He can’t shoot from anywhere, not even his (formerly) famed mid-range game works on the NBA level. It was clear that he was a liability defensively, but since he isn’t athletic enough to be a driving guard, his lack of shooting makes him literally worthless. This is also why THJr has to handle the ball so much for the bench units.

Mike Muscala has been decent, but the Hawks also miss the firepower that Mike Scott provided. Much like THJr now, he won the Hawks a few games on his own when he caught fire and the Hawks have no one like that besides THJr anymore. Last year they had Schröder and Scott going ham off the bench.

Overall assessment: most of the Hawks players actually perform according to expectations or even outperform them. The most glaring issue is that the 2 most “disappointing” performances came/come from the same position in Korver and Bazemore at the wing. This leaves the Hawks with one good player for 2 starting spots and that player has to come off the bench because backup PG can’t actually play in the NBA. What could be a very, very good starting 5 with Schröder/THJr/Sefolosha/Millsap/Howard is instead a very flawed Schröder/Bazemore/Sefolosha/Millsap/Howard lineup.

I still like this teams chances in the playoffs though. There you can shrink your rotations and increase the minutes for your best players which naturally will lead to more “THJr with the starters” minutes. I also like the attitude this team is able to display, they are a lot more competitive and “edgy” than the Teague/Horford-led teams and if it comes to playing good/better opponents that is something you need to have a chance.

It may not translate to as many regular season wins this season, but I see more playoff potential in this group than is last years. The ceiling with Howard dominating the boards is much higher than the “we are going to out-finess you” Hawks of last year.

Also, going forward, I can see Bazemore stabilizing if they play him exclusively at the 2. He could then take on THJrs role that may be more fitting anyway. THJr seems to be a good starting 2-guard now and I believe that Prince/Bembry + the draft are able to address the remaining wing problems that Hawks have for next season.

I applaud the effort and thoughtfulness put into this and it's pretty spot on.

However, I'm not sure about 'the best is yet to come' - if we weren't losing games to really bad teams, giving up historic 3 pts shots/attempts, turning the ball over and struggling to score, I would feel better about the playoffs.

[kurupt]

vor 7 Minuten, JayBirdHawk sagte:

I applaud the effort and thoughtfulness put into this and it's pretty spot on.

However, I'm not sure about 'the best is yet to come' - if we weren't losing games to really bad teams, giving up historic 3 pts shots/attempts, turning the ball over and struggling to score, I would feel better about the playoffs.

The 3-point thing is a tricky one. Yes, it is obvious that the Hawks often get scored on by a bunch of 3's. What's not so obvious is that they are good (or even great) at most other defensive things. The reality is that they are not the 2004 Pistons defensively, but still at least a top10 (if not better) defense overall. I think giving up the 3's is actually "part of the plan", because they can't be elite at everything. Part of it is that Howards (and even Millsaps) strength surely is not the closeout on 3-point shooters but other stuff and the defensive scheme and focus highlights their strengths instead.

It's a matter of expectations: if your expectation is for the Hawks to be top5 in everything then chances are that you will be upset/disappointed, because 90% of teh teams are not that great ever.

And as far as the bad losses are concerned: of course I'd rather have them win more of the "winable" games. But here is the thing: they just aren't a 60-win team, so something has got to give: either you beat up the bad teams regularly to get your wins, but have few impressive wins / close games vs. good competition and fewer "comebacks" or you have a higher variance in your play, but are able to actually challenge the Cavs, the Warriors and get some really unexpected comback wins because of it (which is the case this season in my opinion).

For a playoff series I'd much rather have the higher variance team that may take a few games of Cleveland than the one that'll get impressively out of rround 1 just to get swept by the Cavs again.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, kurupt said:

The 3-point thing is a tricky one. Yes, it is obvious that the Hawks often get scored on by a bunch of 3's. What's not so obvious is that they are good (or even great) at most other defensive things. The reality is that they are not the 2004 Pistons defensively, but still at least a top10 (if not better) defense overall. I think giving up the 3's is actually "part of the plan", because they can't be elite at everything. Part of it is that Howards (and even Millsaps) strength surely is not the closeout on 3-point shooters but other stuff and the defensive scheme and focus highlights their strengths instead.

It's a matter of expectations: if your expectation is for the Hawks to be top5 in everything then chances are that you will be upset/disappointed, because 90% of teh teams are not that great ever.

And as far as the bad losses are concerned: of course I'd rather have them win more of the "winable" games. But here is the thing: they just aren't a 60-win team, so something has got to give: either you beat up the bad teams regularly to get your wins, but have few impressive wins / close games vs. good competition and fewer "comebacks" or you have a higher variance in your play, but are able to actually challenge the Cavs, the Warriors and get some really unexpected comback wins because of it (which is the case this season in my opinion).

For a playoff series I'd much rather have the higher variance team that may take a few games of Cleveland than the one that'll get impressively out of rround 1 just to get swept by the Cavs again.

That can't be true when the league is moving in the direction of having the 3 point shot as such a big part of the offense, and we should know, we hoot a ton of 3s.  

Quote

The reason that may be? Those aggressive teams mentioned above have figured out the weaknesses of the Hawks’ defense, and they are well-equipped to attack it.

“We know that they are a team that likes to have their bigs play back in pick and roll coverage,” said Washington’s Bradley Beal. “So we took full advantage of it and were able to come off screens for jumpers or get in the lane and create for someone else.”

Beal’s teammate — star point guard John Wall — added on to that assessment.

“They are a type of team that closes out the paint first, then closes out on shooters, so with me and Bradley being aggressive in pick and rolls, guys just have to be ready to shoot.” said Wall. “More teams are just going to give me the shot in pick and rolls by allowing me and Gortat to play two-on-tow or take us away and let the weak side score.

This gives a good breakdown of the problems in our defensive scheme.

http://hawkshoop.com/the-hawks-defensive-scheme-has-problems/

[JTB]

Can someone help me out!

i rewatched the last cavs game (just because) and I noticed the cavs announcer said that Dennis is among the best this season in mid range jump shots for pgs!

I knew Dennis had improved and it was highly noticeable  but I had no clue he was among best at his position this season......of course assuming the cavs announcer knew what he was talking about.

 

can anyone confirm this????? I'd really like to know.

[Plainview1981]

2 hours ago, kurupt said:

I really wanted make some posts on various topics over the last few weeks/months, but rarely could narrow it down to just that one topic. So here goes my overall take on the current season J

Prologue: After the 60-win 2014/15 season (including a trip to the ECF), the Hawks finished last year with 48 wins and a 2^nd round sweep by the hands of the NBA champions Cleveland Cavaliers (who shot 51% from 3-pointrange over the whole series). According to most metrics, the Hawks still where the 2^nd or 3^rd best team in the East and a Top-6 team for the whole league.

(Interesting to see how the individual Hawks performed in that series: http://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/2016-nba-eastern-conference-semifinals-hawks-vs-cavaliers.html)

The hawks offseason plan was to trade Teague for a draft pick (ending up with the 12^th pick, a very good haul in my opinion) and to add Dwight Howard to play alongside Al Horford and Paul Millsap. They also counted on the continued development of Bazemore (new contract) and THJr to further improve the team.

Without going into too much detail, that was a very sound and reasonable battle plan. Unfortunately Horford chose to leave and the Hawks ended up just replacing Horford with Howard and Teague with Schröder (plus Taurean Prince as the draft pick).

At best, I would’ve expected this team to do as well as the one before with ~48 wins, purely based on the adjustments needed. They are on track to 44-45 wins, which is a record that I would have expected at the start of the season. To me, the “sky is falling” attitude commonly seen on this board is rooted more in the unrealistic expectations of some people than in reality. This also goes for the assessment of some players.

 

I will split my detailed commentary on the players in several parts (starting) PG, Wings, Bigs and the Bench.

Point Guard: Schröder has basically translated his per-36 bench production to his starting job – against better opposition and more game-plan focus on him. He is also doing it more efficiently across the board (TS% / eFG%, TOV%) and almost all advanced stats are also up. He is pretty close to giving the Hawks what Teague gave them over the last 2 years in his first year as a starter and on a slightly worse team. Despite all valid concerns, Schröder is doing as well as you could possibly have hoped for in my opinion – and (hopefully) has even more room to grow.

Wings: The main starters this season were Korver/Bazemore/Sefolosha. On major problem was (and is) that none of these guys is a true SF, all are at best tweeners leaning more towards being SGs. This is especially problematic on defense

Korver was not good enough anymore to be a starter. His niche was his amazing offensive efficiency and compared to all previous Hawks season, his offensive metrics fell off a cliff this year. The Hawks were distinctively better without him (or at least without him starting), which has never happened before. Whether that was on him declining or him missing Horford offensively and defensively doesn’t matter in the end. To get a first round pick for him was a great deal.

Bazemore was the designated starter but had a brutal(!!!) start to the season. He shot like 35% from 2 and 20% from 3 over the first three months, his PER is at 9.4 right now. Part of this is him pressing too much and the starting role may be just too big for him. But I also see him misused. He just is no SF. He can’t defend that position and offensively his length/athleticism isn’t that great anymore when going against guys like Paul George, Durant or LBJ, so his offensive game gets reduced to pure shooting which he is at best average at. He has been better the last few months and I can see him being a serviceable starter at the 2-spot or a good player off the bench on that position if he continues this way.

Sefolosha, when healthy, has done what is to be expected of him. I also see him more as a 2-guard than a SF, but defensively he can guard both position very well. Offensively he is limited. The problem is that much like Bazemore, he is a serviceable at best as a starter and also not a very good shooter. Having one wing position with a “slightly below average starter” may be okay for a team aspiring to win 50 games, having two of them is hard.

Bigs: Howard is a dominant rebounder and decent rim protector but lacks the “utility value” that Horford had: setting screens, being smart and agile on defense etc. But he is what he is as a player and he has done exactly what the Hawks needed him to do by improving their poor rebounding.

Millsap does what Millsap does. He is great and by far the most important player on this team, both as a player and as a leader. The only gripe I have with him this season is that he has had a lot of pretty bad shooting games (sub 35% shooting), which is hard to overcome for this team since their firepower rests on so few shoulders (Schröder, Millsap, THJr basically, the rest is far too inconsistent).

Bench: First off the good news: THJr has fully arrived. He is a legit starting caliber 2-guard in this league now. After a so-so start, he has been excellent over the last 3 months. The only reason he is still coming off the bench (and I agree with that) is that the rest of it is so bad and Bazemore so far has been too inconsistent to take his role as the primary scorer and ballhandler off the bench. Putting THJr in the starting lineup for Bazemore would immediately fix most of the wing problems, but leave the bench a hot mess.

The rookies seem to not be ready enough and I trust the coaching staff with this decision. They have a good track record with developing Schröder, Bazemore and THJr as backourt players.

The main reasons why the bench is so bad is that Delaney is worse than I could’ve ever imagined. He can’t shoot from anywhere, not even his (formerly) famed mid-range game works on the NBA level. It was clear that he was a liability defensively, but since he isn’t athletic enough to be a driving guard, his lack of shooting makes him literally worthless. This is also why THJr has to handle the ball so much for the bench units.

Mike Muscala has been decent, but the Hawks also miss the firepower that Mike Scott provided. Much like THJr now, he won the Hawks a few games on his own when he caught fire and the Hawks have no one like that besides THJr anymore. Last year they had Schröder and Scott going ham off the bench.

Overall assessment: most of the Hawks players actually perform according to expectations or even outperform them. The most glaring issue is that the 2 most “disappointing” performances came/come from the same position in Korver and Bazemore at the wing. This leaves the Hawks with one good player for 2 starting spots and that player has to come off the bench because backup PG can’t actually play in the NBA. What could be a very, very good starting 5 with Schröder/THJr/Sefolosha/Millsap/Howard is instead a very flawed Schröder/Bazemore/Sefolosha/Millsap/Howard lineup.

I still like this teams chances in the playoffs though. There you can shrink your rotations and increase the minutes for your best players which naturally will lead to more “THJr with the starters” minutes. I also like the attitude this team is able to display, they are a lot more competitive and “edgy” than the Teague/Horford-led teams and if it comes to playing good/better opponents that is something you need to have a chance.

It may not translate to as many regular season wins this season, but I see more playoff potential in this group than is last years. The ceiling with Howard dominating the boards is much higher than the “we are going to out-finess you” Hawks of last year.

Also, going forward, I can see Bazemore stabilizing if they play him exclusively at the 2. He could then take on THJrs role that may be more fitting anyway. THJr seems to be a good starting 2-guard now and I believe that Prince/Bembry + the draft are able to address the remaining wing problems that Hawks have for next season.

A few problems. This team is rarely competitive . They routinely get blown out, and mof the time they don't challenge shooters.

Bazemore is not a starter at SG or Sf. He has very marginal talent. Best bigges asset being an average outside shooter. HE bring almost nothing to the table

[JTB]

1 hour ago, JayBirdHawk said:

That can't be true when the league is moving in the direction of having the 3 point shot as such a big part of the offense, and we should know, we hoot a ton of 3s.  

This gives a good breakdown of the problems in our defensive scheme.

http://hawkshoop.com/the-hawks-defensive-scheme-has-problems/

That was an excellent article....however I do wonder if bud will change the defense scheme once the playoffs come. Bud isn't dumb he's aware of what's not working.

bud just doesn't have many other options and at this point you can't throw the rookies in the fire (too late in the season). 

Im not sure what exactly can be done to try to make the defense better with this current roster but bud may surprise us.

[Lurker]

I do still have it in the back of my mind that Hardaway Jr might be on a hot streak but this is the best stretch he's been on in his career period, showing that his subtle changes seem to be working. There are some dips through it, but its never really been bad.

Since the start of the new year: 16.6/3.4/2.5 on 47.3% FG/40.3% 3PT/79.3% FT. Third leading scorer...and hasn't started every game.

Streak or real? Some of it might be streak, but he's gotten better at attacking the rim, has cut down on some of the stupid shots, and while not good, plays hard on defense and hustles.

[Trout7]

5 hours ago, kurupt said:

I really wanted make some posts on various topics over the last few weeks/months, but rarely could narrow it down to just that one topic. So here goes my overall take on the current season J

Prologue: After the 60-win 2014/15 season (including a trip to the ECF), the Hawks finished last year with 48 wins and a 2^nd round sweep by the hands of the NBA champions Cleveland Cavaliers (who shot 51% from 3-pointrange over the whole series). According to most metrics, the Hawks still where the 2^nd or 3^rd best team in the East and a Top-6 team for the whole league.

(Interesting to see how the individual Hawks performed in that series: http://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/2016-nba-eastern-conference-semifinals-hawks-vs-cavaliers.html)

The hawks offseason plan was to trade Teague for a draft pick (ending up with the 12^th pick, a very good haul in my opinion) and to add Dwight Howard to play alongside Al Horford and Paul Millsap. They also counted on the continued development of Bazemore (new contract) and THJr to further improve the team.

Without going into too much detail, that was a very sound and reasonable battle plan. Unfortunately Horford chose to leave and the Hawks ended up just replacing Horford with Howard and Teague with Schröder (plus Taurean Prince as the draft pick).

At best, I would’ve expected this team to do as well as the one before with ~48 wins, purely based on the adjustments needed. They are on track to 44-45 wins, which is a record that I would have expected at the start of the season. To me, the “sky is falling” attitude commonly seen on this board is rooted more in the unrealistic expectations of some people than in reality. This also goes for the assessment of some players.

 

I will split my detailed commentary on the players in several parts (starting) PG, Wings, Bigs and the Bench.

Point Guard: Schröder has basically translated his per-36 bench production to his starting job – against better opposition and more game-plan focus on him. He is also doing it more efficiently across the board (TS% / eFG%, TOV%) and almost all advanced stats are also up. He is pretty close to giving the Hawks what Teague gave them over the last 2 years in his first year as a starter and on a slightly worse team. Despite all valid concerns, Schröder is doing as well as you could possibly have hoped for in my opinion – and (hopefully) has even more room to grow.

Wings: The main starters this season were Korver/Bazemore/Sefolosha. On major problem was (and is) that none of these guys is a true SF, all are at best tweeners leaning more towards being SGs. This is especially problematic on defense

Korver was not good enough anymore to be a starter. His niche was his amazing offensive efficiency and compared to all previous Hawks season, his offensive metrics fell off a cliff this year. The Hawks were distinctively better without him (or at least without him starting), which has never happened before. Whether that was on him declining or him missing Horford offensively and defensively doesn’t matter in the end. To get a first round pick for him was a great deal.

Bazemore was the designated starter but had a brutal(!!!) start to the season. He shot like 35% from 2 and 20% from 3 over the first three months, his PER is at 9.4 right now. Part of this is him pressing too much and the starting role may be just too big for him. But I also see him misused. He just is no SF. He can’t defend that position and offensively his length/athleticism isn’t that great anymore when going against guys like Paul George, Durant or LBJ, so his offensive game gets reduced to pure shooting which he is at best average at. He has been better the last few months and I can see him being a serviceable starter at the 2-spot or a good player off the bench on that position if he continues this way.

Sefolosha, when healthy, has done what is to be expected of him. I also see him more as a 2-guard than a SF, but defensively he can guard both position very well. Offensively he is limited. The problem is that much like Bazemore, he is a serviceable at best as a starter and also not a very good shooter. Having one wing position with a “slightly below average starter” may be okay for a team aspiring to win 50 games, having two of them is hard.

Bigs: Howard is a dominant rebounder and decent rim protector but lacks the “utility value” that Horford had: setting screens, being smart and agile on defense etc. But he is what he is as a player and he has done exactly what the Hawks needed him to do by improving their poor rebounding.

Millsap does what Millsap does. He is great and by far the most important player on this team, both as a player and as a leader. The only gripe I have with him this season is that he has had a lot of pretty bad shooting games (sub 35% shooting), which is hard to overcome for this team since their firepower rests on so few shoulders (Schröder, Millsap, THJr basically, the rest is far too inconsistent).

Bench: First off the good news: THJr has fully arrived. He is a legit starting caliber 2-guard in this league now. After a so-so start, he has been excellent over the last 3 months. The only reason he is still coming off the bench (and I agree with that) is that the rest of it is so bad and Bazemore so far has been too inconsistent to take his role as the primary scorer and ballhandler off the bench. Putting THJr in the starting lineup for Bazemore would immediately fix most of the wing problems, but leave the bench a hot mess.

The rookies seem to not be ready enough and I trust the coaching staff with this decision. They have a good track record with developing Schröder, Bazemore and THJr as backourt players.

The main reasons why the bench is so bad is that Delaney is worse than I could’ve ever imagined. He can’t shoot from anywhere, not even his (formerly) famed mid-range game works on the NBA level. It was clear that he was a liability defensively, but since he isn’t athletic enough to be a driving guard, his lack of shooting makes him literally worthless. This is also why THJr has to handle the ball so much for the bench units.

Mike Muscala has been decent, but the Hawks also miss the firepower that Mike Scott provided. Much like THJr now, he won the Hawks a few games on his own when he caught fire and the Hawks have no one like that besides THJr anymore. Last year they had Schröder and Scott going ham off the bench.

Overall assessment: most of the Hawks players actually perform according to expectations or even outperform them. The most glaring issue is that the 2 most “disappointing” performances came/come from the same position in Korver and Bazemore at the wing. This leaves the Hawks with one good player for 2 starting spots and that player has to come off the bench because backup PG can’t actually play in the NBA. What could be a very, very good starting 5 with Schröder/THJr/Sefolosha/Millsap/Howard is instead a very flawed Schröder/Bazemore/Sefolosha/Millsap/Howard lineup.

I still like this teams chances in the playoffs though. There you can shrink your rotations and increase the minutes for your best players which naturally will lead to more “THJr with the starters” minutes. I also like the attitude this team is able to display, they are a lot more competitive and “edgy” than the Teague/Horford-led teams and if it comes to playing good/better opponents that is something you need to have a chance.

It may not translate to as many regular season wins this season, but I see more playoff potential in this group than is last years. The ceiling with Howard dominating the boards is much higher than the “we are going to out-finess you” Hawks of last year.

Also, going forward, I can see Bazemore stabilizing if they play him exclusively at the 2. He could then take on THJrs role that may be more fitting anyway. THJr seems to be a good starting 2-guard now and I believe that Prince/Bembry + the draft are able to address the remaining wing problems that Hawks have for next season.

So are you saying that the Hawks are basically sacrificing the team, in order for Bud to give his 70 million dollar cheerleader his starting minutes? That is exactly what i am saying.

[Trout7]

3 hours ago, Hotlanta1981 said:

A few problems. This team is rarely competitive . They routinely get blown out, and mof the time they don't challenge shooters.

Bazemore is not a starter at SG or Sf. He has very marginal talent. Best bigges asset being an average outside shooter. HE bring almost nothing to the table

Except that 70 million to the table.

[warcore]

I can't wait til we're starting Dennis/THJr/Prince and let Baze and Bembry handle the backup guard spots.

 

[AHF]

Nice post.  Agree with a lot of what you had to say and the entire thing was well written and thought out.  Two items from the wing discussion:

Quote

The main starters this season were Korver/Bazemore/Sefolosha. On major problem was (and is) that none of these guys is a true SF, all are at best tweeners leaning more towards being SGs. This is especially problematic on defense

***************

Having one wing position with a “slightly below average starter” may be okay for a team aspiring to win 50 games, having two of them is hard.

I preached the fact that we were all SGs all last season and again early this year.  Completely agree.  Prince is our only true SF and the fact that we haven't invested the time into developing him means that we are inevitably going to be in a bad matchup situation against opposing SFs.

I don't disagree with the second sentence either but think it is actually not applicable to our guys.  The average starter at a position is the #15-16 guy in the league at that position.  Neither Baze nor Thabo or even close to that level.  They aren't even in the conversation for among the 30 best at their positions.  The are decent reserves and waayyyyy below average starters.

[kurupt]

I get the frustration with Bazemore. But here is the thing: since his horrible start during the first 2 ½ months of the season, he has been as good as he was last season and his 3-point shooting has been really good (about 37-38%). Sure, he still has some bad shooting games, he is not and never will be Klay Thompson, but overall he now is the guy they paid. If he can stay at this level, he is no “bargain”, but he is worth the money with the new CBA coming.

If he can stay at this level and THJr can play consistently as he has the last few months, they can give THJr a similar deal and have two decent starters at the 2 spot. With Schröder/Bembry/THJr/Bazemore for the 1 and 2 spot, the Hawks have a decent rotation with a lot of potential playing for the bench units, too. Schröder will have to develop into (at least) a borderline All-Star like Jeff Teague was and is to make it work, but I think he has that in him. And of course you need above average starters at the 4/5 spot like with Millsap and Howard now with Prince developing into a very good player at the 3, too.

I get that having THJr + Bazemore doesn't sound sexy, but the fact is that the Hawks (and no other team for that matter) won’t be able to sign “several all-star players on cheap deals”. They have to make the most out of the opportunities they have.

 

Paying Bazemore + THJr 30+ millions a year for two average starting caliber players might sound crazy. But if you look at the market value for comparable SGs with relatively new deals, this is it:

Evan Fournier 17 millions per year

Courtney Lee 12 millions per year

Allen Crabbe 18 millions per year

Danny Green 10 millions per year

Jordan Clarkson 13 millions per year

Jamal Crawford 14 millions per year

Wesley Matthews 18 millions per year

 

Now some of these names might sound better than Bazemore (or THJr), but none of them is actually better than those 2 – in fact, most of them are worse. The only problem is that THjr is younger and looks better right now than Bazemore. So do the Hawks want to pay 2 “decent” starters?

There are of course better starting Shooting Guards in the league...but also worse ones. We are just accustomed to seeing the flaws of the Hawks players and only notice others when they have good performances.

[AHF]

That market was the bubble market and everyone of those deals is pretty unattractive.  Would rather pay THJr than Baze (who isn't as bad as he started this season or as good as he started last season) but you have to look at what you are paying the two of them (both SGs incapable of being an average starter at SF)  as a % of the cap.  If we could unload Baze it would be absolutely the right move.

[kurupt]

I completely agree, but the facts are the facts: Bazemores contract expired before THJrs and THJr before this season was not worthy of an extension. Everyone of course would prefer to have spent the 70 million on THJr as it stands now, but that wasn't possible due to how things happened :)

The best case would be to be able to trade Bazemore for something and give THJr a similar contract and hope that he lives up to it. But who would take Baze and for what? Because just giving him away for the sake of it doesn't make any sense either.

Edited March 11, 2017 by kurupt

[LamarHampton]

2 hours ago, kurupt said:

But who would take Baze and for what? Because just giving him away for the sake of it doesn't make any sense either.

I disagree with the above. Giving him away - free to good home! - makes sense. He is overpaid and we have someone else at the position who is more deserving of his salary than he is, and I would get rid of him simply for cap space. I like Baze the person. I was happy they signed him because he was a decent player, good energy and team guy, and I thought he would produce more after another year in the system, but instead he has not taken that step and arguably has regressed. At this point it would be a win to not have to attach assets to a trade including him to entice someone to take him off our hands with that salary of his.

[Alex]

TLDR

[Kimsey]

Didn't read all posts but didn't see any mention on the draft picks in the next 2 drafts. We HAVE to hit home runs with 2017 pick circa 20 and 31. The talent there will be much better than 2016 picks 12 and 21.

There's leeway with our own potential lotto 2018 pick and the Twolves pick circa 16. They have to get 3 out of the 4 right like they did with Schröder at pick no. 17 overall. Absolutely no Bebes or Paynes. 

Resigning THJ and flipping him with the 2018 picks could net us the star they've been looking for. 

 

[Jody23]

On 3/10/2017 at 0:27 AM, Lurker said:

I do still have it in the back of my mind that Hardaway Jr might be on a hot streak but this is the best stretch he's been on in his career period, showing that his subtle changes seem to be working. There are some dips through it, but its never really been bad.

Since the start of the new year: 16.6/3.4/2.5 on 47.3% FG/40.3% 3PT/79.3% FT. Third leading scorer...and hasn't started every game.

Streak or real? Some of it might be streak, but he's gotten better at attacking the rim, has cut down on some of the stupid shots, and while not good, plays hard on defense and hustles.

A big reason for Hardaway's rise has been his physical conditioning.  He is in MUCH better shape than he was when he came here from New York.