I expect this to be the starting lineup next season....

[JTB]

Personally I prefer this lineup right now cause at this point there's nothing to lose. Hawks highest ceiling this season is either first or second round out (really typical season from recent years during this 10 straight playoff streak)

Anyhow I call this starting lineup "On to da future":

pg- Schröder aka "lil goldie"

sg- THJ (love when the arena announcer says T!...H!...J!....just sounds so star like! lol)

sf- Prince 

pf- Sap

c- Howard 

 

i believe the "on to da future" lineup give the Hawks the best possible out come going forward on both sides of the ball, while also developing chemistry among Dennis, THJ, Prince...who should be our starters at those positions for a very long time.

 

 

thoughts? If any?

[Guest]

I like it...barring any significant trades I don't see anyone knocking any of those guys out of the starting lineup next year. 

[ViewsFromTheSquawk]

What I want.... 

 

Schröder

Hardaway Jr

Hayward

Millsap

Howard

 

what I'll get 

 

Schröder

Hardaway

Bazemore

Millsap

Howard

[benhillboy]

I dont see any reason to bring this core back other than wanting to sell less tickets and receive less national attention.  Baze, Sap, and Dwight simply can't make those salaries and play those roles for a small market team.  On a real contender Dwight is a backup, Baze a 9th-10th man, and Sap a third option.  Here they're just a drop of a hat away from a blowout on any given night.  With the Bazemore albatross I can't see Hardaway turning down the offers he's gonna get elsewhere.

Edited March 19, 2017 by benhillboy

[ViewsFromTheSquawk]

26 minutes ago, benhillboy said:

I dont see any reason to bring this core back other than wanting to sell less tickets and receive less national attention.  Baze, Sap, and Dwight simply can't make those salaries and play those roles for a small market team.  On a real contender Dwight is a backup, Baze a 9th-10th man, and Sap a third option.  Here they're just a drop of a hat away from a blowout on any given night.  With the Bazemore albatross I can't see Hardaway turning down the offers he's gonna get elsewhere.

I've actually put a lot of thought into this.... I honestly think bud knows he's building towards the future team with the roster assembled the way it is because if you think about it... 

 

1.Dwight will more than likely stay here for the remainder of his career and if that is indeed the case he will have to take a lesser role especially if we find a Center who is capable of starting. And if he does decide he wants to resign after his current contract expires it will be on a Al Jefferson/David Lee type deal so he could just be a rotational big man

 

2.Im fully confident in this front office to get rid of Baze so we can pay THJ and of course in the future Bembry and Prince. 

 

3.We'll find a backup PG

 

4.Dont be surprised if we don't resign Millsap. He isn't a piece that makes this team better in future years, and granted while I love Sap he should really strongly consider a return to Utah or maybe sign with a PF needy team like Detroit,San Antonio,or Memphis

[Lurker]

Dwight Howard's the new Rudy Gay. Good stats but people don't realize how damaging he can be if he's in his bad habits. He plays PNR defense like it's 2008.

Unless he accepts he isn't what he used to be, I hope he's enjoyed his only season in Atlanta.

[Guest]

Just now, Lurker said:

Dwight Howard's the new Rudy Gay. Good stats but people don't realize how damaging he can be if he's in his bad habits. He plays PNR defense like it's 2008.

Unless he accepts he isn't what he used to be, I hope he's enjoyed his only season in Atlanta.

Agendas agendas agendas

[JTB]

38 minutes ago, benhillboy said:

I dont see any reason to bring this core back other than wanting to sell less tickets and receive less national attention.  Baze, Sap, and Dwight simply can't make those salaries and play those roles for a small market team.  On a real contender Dwight is a backup, Baze a 9th-10th man, and Sap a third option.  Here they're just a drop of a hat away from a blowout on any given night.  With the Bazemore albatross I can't see Hardaway turning down the offers he's gonna get elsewhere.

Dwight isn't a back up on a real contender. Dwight get unfair blame and still to this day I don't understand it. While he isn't perfect he definitely helps the Hawks out in many ways. 

He'd be better if our starting  wings could at least be avg 3pt shooters.

also I noticed you didn't mention Thabo...Thabo much like Baze is a bench player at best yet Thabo for some odd reason continues to get overlooked as the majority of the board wants to blame Baze and Howard ....when in reality and this is just my opinion of course the BIGGEST problems the Hawks have are specifically due to Baze and Thabo more so offensively than defensively. 

I don't care if Baze and Thabo played a perfect defense game , they are so horrible offensively it completely puts ALL pressure on Sap, Dennis to create for everyone....Howard was only supposed to be here for easy shots and put backs and rebounding (by the way Howard's offensive boards are remarkable this year) but lack of offense from our so called elite defenders as bud likes to refer them to (speaking of Baze, Thabo) it really puts pressure on Howard doing more than expected offensively.

 

YOU DON'T GET DWIGHT AND NOT PUT SHOOTERS AROUND HIM....PERIOD!

[JTB]

3 minutes ago, Lurker said:

Dwight Howard's the new Rudy Gay. Good stats but people don't realize how damaging he can be if he's in his bad habits. He plays PNR defense like it's 2008.

Unless he accepts he isn't what he used to be, I hope he's enjoyed his only season in Atlanta.

Yeah ok let's just blame Dwight and overlook our horrible offensive wing players in Baze and Thabo.....

Dwight has this big name so he's suppose to overcome his shitty ass wings horrible habits....yeah yeah we hear you ....

[Lurker]

Dwight's PNR defense is so bad it wouldn't have mattered if Dennis played an average game last night, it would've still been a decisive loss, sorry but I've seen this story before, and these two things tell it all:

1. No Millsap=0-4. Three straight blowouts.
2. In the first game without Millsap last year (this season though), the guards all had an excellent game and it never looked like they had a chance at overcoming Phoenix, one of the WORST teams in the league.

My point is this team is not talented enough to overcome Dwight's porous PNR defense.

[Guest]

PG- Dennis

SG- Jimmy Butler

SF- Taurean Prince

PF- Sap

C- Dwight 

 

or

 

PG- Dennis

SG- THJ

SF- Paul George

PF- Sap

C- Dwight

[Alex]

Onto the future?  It shouldn't contain either one of Millsap or Howard.  

[benhillboy]

2 hours ago, JTB said:

also I noticed you didn't mention Thabo...

We've gotten excellent value out of him in his Hawks career.  He's also a cinch to move this offseason.  Dwight is a decent value, Baze's horrible.

Arguably the most telling stat for a team is simply point differential.  We finished +3.6 last season.  Based on Hubie Browns scale, a team that can be easily predicted to bow out in the second round.  We're at -.9 at the moment, most likely indicative of a routine first-round out.  4.5 points worse per game is huge and can't be a coincidence when adding 30 minutes a night of Dwight to the equation.  Baze's regression to his true player profile and a monumental drop off in backup PG play factors in too no doubt.  But it seems evident the change of style on both ends to suit Dwight hurts more than helps.  You can't defend his effort on defending away from the rim most nights, you just can't.

Edited March 19, 2017 by benhillboy

[TheNorthCydeRises]

3 hours ago, JTB said:

Personally I prefer this lineup right now cause at this point there's nothing to lose. Hawks highest ceiling this season is either first or second round out (really typical season from recent years during this 10 straight playoff streak)

Anyhow I call this starting lineup "On to da future":

pg- Schröder aka "lil goldie"

sg- THJ (love when the arena announcer says T!...H!...J!....just sounds so star like! lol)

sf- Prince 

pf- Sap

c- Howard 

 

i believe the "on to da future" lineup give the Hawks the best possible out come going forward on both sides of the ball, while also developing chemistry among Dennis, THJ, Prince...who should be our starters at those positions for a very long time.

 

 

thoughts? If any?

That should be the starting lineup going into the playoffs.   Let Baze and Thabo ( since he's fallen off the map since his return ), come off the bench.

That would at least take some of the pressure off of Dennis and Sap to provide all of the offense for the starting unit.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

2 hours ago, Lurker said:

Dwight's PNR defense is so bad it wouldn't have mattered if Dennis played an average game last night, it would've still been a decisive loss, sorry but I've seen this story before, and these two things tell it all:

1. No Millsap=0-4. Three straight blowouts.
2. In the first game without Millsap last year (this season though), the guards all had an excellent game and it never looked like they had a chance at overcoming Phoenix, one of the WORST teams in the league.

My point is this team is not talented enough to overcome Dwight's porous PNR defense.

That's because the right lineups aren't playing together.

Bud likes Hardaway's production off the bench, but the team can't survive with Thabo and Baze continue to start games and play big minutes alongside each other.   That puts way too much pressure on Dennis and Millsap to score the basketball.  And since they aren't going inside to Howard, it makes it even worse.   Thankfully, Prince is cutting into some of that time with the wings, but it's still affecting the team.

 

One of the best 5-man units this season has been . . . 

PG - Schröder . . . G - Hardaway Jr . . . F - Sefolosha . . . PF - Millsap . . . C - Dwight

 

The starting lineup of . . .

PG - Schröder . . . G - Bazemore . . . F - Sefolosha . . . PF - Millsap . . . C - Dwight

 . . . has consistently been one of the worst lineups we put out on the floor.

 

Baze is by far the biggest negative on the team among the main rotation players.  Hardaway Jr is the biggest positive.  But everything revolves around Millsap, with everyone being a positive with him on the floor . . . except Bazemore.

 

 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Who plays the best alongside each other?  2-man groups . . . ( Net points per 100 possessions ) . . . Main rotation players only

 

Schröder - Hardaway ( +6.9 pts )

Bazemore - Hardaway ( +3.5 pts ) 

Thabo - Ilyasova ( +13.5 pts )

Millsap - Prince ( +9.4 pts )

Howard - Hardaway ( +6.9 pts )

 

Hardaway - Howard/Schröder ( +6.9 pts )

Delaney - Sefolosha ( +6.8 pts )

Ilyasova - not enough Hawk data . . best 5-man group is Dennis-THJ-Thabo-Ilyasova-Millsap ( +27.2 pts )

Prince - Millsap ( +9.4 pts )

Muscala - Millsap ( +2.2 pts )

 

 

 

Who plays the worst alongside each other?

 

Schröder - Muscala ( -10.7 pts )

Bazemore - Muscala ( -14.2 pts )

Thabo - Muscala ( -13.9 pts )

Millsap - Bazemore ( -1.3 pts )

Howard - Muscala ( -11.2 pts )

 

Hardaway - Muscala ( +1.8 )

Delaney - Bazemore ( -2.6 pts )

Ilyasova - not enough Hawk data

Prince - Howard ( -10.9 pts ) 

Muscala - Bazemore ( -14.2 pts )

 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

4 hours ago, JTB said:

Dwight isn't a back up on a real contender. Dwight get unfair blame and still to this day I don't understand it. While he isn't perfect he definitely helps the Hawks out in many ways. 

He'd be better if our starting  wings could at least be avg 3pt shooters.

also I noticed you didn't mention Thabo...Thabo much like Baze is a bench player at best yet Thabo for some odd reason continues to get overlooked as the majority of the board wants to blame Baze and Howard ....when in reality and this is just my opinion of course the BIGGEST problems the Hawks have are specifically due to Baze and Thabo more so offensively than defensively. 

I don't care if Baze and Thabo played a perfect defense game , they are so horrible offensively it completely puts ALL pressure on Sap, Dennis to create for everyone....Howard was only supposed to be here for easy shots and put backs and rebounding (by the way Howard's offensive boards are remarkable this year) but lack of offense from our so called elite defenders as bud likes to refer them to (speaking of Baze, Thabo) it really puts pressure on Howard doing more than expected offensively.

 

YOU DON'T GET DWIGHT AND NOT PUT SHOOTERS AROUND HIM....PERIOD!

Dead on the money.

As of this moment, when looking at our top 20 2-man groupings, Thabo and Baze is THE WORST grouping, at ( -5.2 pts per 100 possessions ).  The best 2-man group is Hardaway Jr + Dennis or Dwight at ( +6.9 pts per 100 possessions )

With the way Ilyasova can take charges, Bud might consider inserting him in the starting lineup, and go with a big frontline, with Ersan being the space shooter, and Millsap doing the all around scoring.

 

PG - Schröder

G - Hardaway Jr

F - Ilyasova

PF - Millsap

C - Howard

 

At the minimum, the minutes Baze and Thabo play with each other, should be significantly limited.   Thabo's impact on defense is becoming less and less.  And Baze's defense isn't improving at all.  Prince, as of right now, looks like a better defender than both of them.  But Bud won't put him in the starting lineup.

 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2017 by TheNorthCydeRises

[Lurker]

Even if you swap Bazemore and Hardaway, the team still isn't talented enough to overcome Dwight PNR defense. For all the complaints with Dennis's defense (and saying that he had one of the worst games of his career yesterday is very warranted), honestly the only perimeter player that we've seen proof can fight over a screen on the team about 50% of the time at least is Sefolosha (we haven't seen enough of Prince to really tell). And Sefolosha isn't right atm, and he's only really GREAT defensively when he's 100% right.

It starts and ends with this. It's not going to matter what is done defensively if three of your perimeter players definitely can't fight over screens successfully, the other isn't a great defender unless he's totally right, and we don't have enough data on the other.

Play straight man without trapping with what we saw in the game last night of Dwight sitting back on the PNR will not work because no one on the team can fight over screens.
Blitzing and trapping the PNR will not work because Dwight is not mobile enough to do this (after a bad stretch defensively, more long term players asked Bud to go back to this defense and it worked for a while but is starting to fail again).
Switching everything will not work because of the same reason seen above.

It's easy to say "Get better perimeter players on defense", but it's not as easy as that. Teams for the most part are just going hard at Dwight in PNR in defense, knowing they'll get open looks every time.

You're basically picking between three bad options here. We saw the first one at the start of the season, and it actually worked for a short stretch, but the league adjusted to Dwight on the Hawks after a short time period, and then we saw the second option not long after things calmed down after the 1-10 stretch, this also worked for a time period but the league adjusted again to the defense. And now the Hawks are pretty much SOL. There is no other option they can try.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

13 minutes ago, Lurker said:

Even if you swap Bazemore and Hardaway, the team still isn't talented enough to overcome Dwight PNR defense. For all the complaints with Dennis's defense (and saying that he had one of the worst games of his career yesterday is very warranted), honestly the only perimeter player that we've seen proof can fight over a screen on the team about 50% of the time at least is Sefolosha (we haven't seen enough of Prince to really tell). And Sefolosha isn't right atm, and he's only really GREAT defensively when he's 100% right.

It starts and ends with this. It's not going to matter what is done defensively if three of your perimeter players definitely can't fight over screens successfully, the other isn't a great defender unless he's totally right, and we don't have enough data on the other.

Play straight man without trapping with what we saw in the game last night of Dwight sitting back on the PNR will not work because no one on the team can fight over screens.
Blitzing and trapping the PNR will not work because Dwight is not mobile enough to do this (after a bad stretch defensively, more long term players asked Bud to go back to this defense and it worked for a while but is starting to fail again).
Switching everything will not work because of the same reason seen above.

It's easy to say "Get better perimeter players on defense", but it's not as easy as that. Teams for the most part are just going hard at Dwight in PNR in defense, knowing they'll get open looks every time.

You're basically picking between three bad options here. We saw the first one at the start of the season, and it actually worked for a short stretch, but the league adjusted to Dwight on the Hawks after a short time period, and then we saw the second option not long after things calmed down after the 1-10 stretch, this also worked for a time period but the league adjusted again to the defense. And now the Hawks are pretty much SOL. There is no other option they can try.

You swap Baze and Hardaway, you put another scorer on the floor with your best defensive wing ( Thabo ), your all around best player ( Millsap ), your best PG ( Dennis ), and your best center ( Dwight ).   This is the reason why that particular lineup has been the most successful this season.

Baze is the guy who most of the Hawks problems stem from.  With him as the starter, we not only need him to keep defensive honest by scoring the basketball, we also need him to be able to play solid defense on his man.   He's only an average defender, so that will come and go.  But when his offense is off as well, that's a double negative.

At the rate we give up 3s, I don't see how people can keep harping on the pick and roll defense.  Guys need to stick with shooters and fight through picks.  If we give up the 15 footer, so be it.

Charlotte, a few years ago, employed that same tactic with a so-called notorious bad pick and roll defender in Al Jefferson.  He sagged back, preventing the drive to the hole, while the guards and wings stuck with the shooters and forced them to take midrange jumpers.  The result saw Charlotte become a top 5 defense.  

Our wings be all over the place, leaving open shooters everywhere.  That's not Dwight's fault.

He had 14 points - 10 rebs - 5 steals - 3 assists yesterday . . . but was a whopping -19 on the floor because Dennis shot 2 - 14 . . . Thabo shot 0 - 6 . . . and the combination of Lillard and McCullom scored 49 points on 19 - 36 FG shooting

But yeah . . . let's blame Dwight.

[Lurker]

27 minutes ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

Charlotte, a few years ago, employed that same tactic with a so-called notorious bad pick and roll defender in Al Jefferson.  He sagged back, preventing the drive to the hole, while the guards and wings stuck with the shooters and forced them to take midrange jumpers.  The result saw Charlotte become a top 5 defense.  

This is what the Hawks tried yesterday and uhhh.