David Aldridge article on Hawks / Ressler / GM

[Sothron]

1 minute ago, Peoriabird said:

So how many title did Paul, Brandon Roy and Williams win or contend for??

Deron almost went to the Finals, Roy was putting together a HOF career before injuries killed his career and Paul is on a team that gets all their best players hurt in the playoffs.

[Sothron]

5 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

Either you don't know your history or this is practice just in case Sean Spicer gets fired

Dirk was a project and a product of a trade

Kobe was a trade involving Divac...The lakers were in the playoff the year before

No one is arguing that having better player improve your chances of winning but tanking doesn't guarantee it.  The Hawks were bad for a long time before this run and ended up with the Williams brothers, Josh Childress, and Acie Law along with Horford so where is the fing superstar after 5 tries at it?????

Cut out the insults or we can stop talking. It is just that simple.

Dirk was a superstar, who cares if he was considered a project? That doesn't change anything.

Kobe was a trade involving Divac...LOL you serious? The lakers knew what Kobe was and Kobe forced his way to the Lakers. Hornets just got in the way and got something out of it.

The Hawks missed up in the years you are talking about with bad GMs picking bad players. That doesn't mean you never try to rebuild again. I feel like I'm repeating myself.

[Peoriabird]

34 minutes ago, Sothron said:

Cut out the insults or we can stop talking. It is just that simple.

Dirk was a superstar, who cares if he was considered a project? That doesn't change anything.

Kobe was a trade involving Divac...LOL you serious? The lakers knew what Kobe was and Kobe forced his way to the Lakers. Hornets just got in the way and got something out of it.

The Hawks missed up in the years you are talking about with bad GMs picking bad players. That doesn't mean you never try to rebuild again. I feel like I'm repeating myself.

Maybe we aren't speaking the same language.  I thought your claim was we had to tank to acquire great players and when I give you example where it wasn't the case i.e. the Lakers with Kobe and Shaq,  It doesn't register with you that those team did not tank to acquire the players that you listed.  Please explain!

[Sothron]

1 minute ago, Peoriabird said:

Maybe we aren't speaking the same language.  I thought your claim was we had to tank to acquire great players and when I give you example where it wasn't the case i.e. the Lakers with Kobe and Shaq,  It doesn't register with you that those team did not tank to acquire the players that you listed.  Please explain!

You gave one example against the several I listed. In this case, the Lakers traded a good big man in Vlade Divac to get a fresh out of high school player. Why? Because they could see he was a superstar. They made the trade necessary to make it work. They simply let another team (Hornets) do the tanking for them. I'd do that in a heartbeat but no one is doing that in 2017.

[Peoriabird]

5 minutes ago, Sothron said:

You gave one example against the several I listed. In this case, the Lakers traded a good big man in Vlade Divac to get a fresh out of high school player. Why? Because they could see he was a superstar. They made the trade necessary to make it work. They simply let another team (Hornets) do the tanking for them. I'd do that in a heartbeat but no one is doing that in 2017.

[thecampster]

1 hour ago, Sothron said:

The Spurs tanked to get Duncan. Cleveland tanked to get Lebron. The older teams in the 80's gutted teams trying to rebuild in the draft and that's how teams like the Bulls got Jordan or the Pistons got Thomas. Again, I can keep pulling examples of how that worked out. Seattle/OKC tanked and got Durant, Westbrook and Harden. There's a ton of examples of teams tanking and it paying off.

You keep using Philly as an example but that's one team that it hasn't worked out for (at least yet). There's no getting around the fact this team is only getting a superstar in the draft. How are going to get a lottery pick to get the best chance to get that guy? Tanking. I'm not proposing we tank just for the hell of it. It offers the most probably route to land a superstar. That is the gold standard that franchises that can't attract superstars as free agent or trade targets has to go by.

The spurs did not tank to get Duncan. David Robinson had a season ending injury and that tanked their season.  You give me any team then add Robinson and Duncan the next year and they're going to be top 4.

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/25/sports/spurs-robinson-breaks-his-foot.html

 

Edited May 10, 2017 by thecampster

[Peoriabird]

This is how disingenuous some people can be...The claim was Golden State specifically tanked for Klay Thompson and Draymond Green.  here is the 2011 draft.  Obviously Klay Thompson wasn't highly regarded as evidence of who was drafted before him.  And the Draymond green pick was a second round pick originally own by another team.  

1	1	CLE	Kyrie Irving	Duke University
2	2	MIN	Derrick Williams	University of Arizona
3	3	UTA	Enes Kanter
4	4	CLE	Tristan Thompson	University of Texas at Austin
5	5	TOR	Jonas Valanciunas
6	6	WAS	Jan Vesely
7	7	SAC	Bismack Biyombo
8	8	DET	Brandon Knight	University of Kentucky
9	9	CHA	Kemba Walker	University of Connecticut
10	10	MIL	Jimmer Fredette	Brigham Young University
11	11	GSW	Klay Thompson	Washington State University
12	12	UTA	Alec Burks	University of Colorado
13	13	PHO	Markieff Morris	University of Kansas
14	14	HOU	Marcus Morris	University of Kansas
15	15	IND	Kawhi Leonard	San Diego State University

[Thomas]

29 minutes ago, thecampster said:

The spurs did not tank to get Duncan. David Robinson had a season ending injury and that tanked their season.

Very true. Dealing with a back situation and later a busted foot only allowed Robinson less than ten games on the floor that year and Sean Elliot missed over half the year leaving a late thirties Dominique as the only scorer on the front line and he missed time as well. They didn't need to tank, they were physically missing in action.

[Guest]

50 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

Yerp, I'm done cause the goal posts are a movin in this discussion. 

[DBac]

2 hours ago, Guard said:

I really don't understand it. This team has had changes with it's roster, front office, and team building philosophy but the results continue to remain the same.  It's illogical to continue on  the same path while expecting different results.

The team will always run into some elite team with more talent in the playoffs and the Hawks won't overcome them. Once James is done, it'll be some other team. 

Exactly. Like who do they think will be contending after Cleveland and Golden State are done holding the league hostage? Washington is younger and better than the Hawks right now. And the Hawks have very few avenues to overcoming them.  Nate Duncan put a good podcast today discussing the Hawks options this offseason, really put a lot of things into perspective.

[Sothron]

You guys are losing the argument and you accuse me of of something to do with a gif I can't see.

Internet rule #1: you know someone  has lost an argument when they resort to insults and images.

[Sothron]

1 hour ago, thecampster said:

The spurs did not tank to get Duncan. David Robinson had a season ending injury and that tanked their season.  You give me any team then add Robinson and Duncan the next year and they're going to be top 4.

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/25/sports/spurs-robinson-breaks-his-foot.html

 

The Spurs absolutely tanked to get him. DRob could have come back before the season was over and they held him out. They didn't even fill out their entire roster that season. They let a broken down Nique do whatever he wanted because they wanted to get a better shot at landing Duncan. And hey, it worked out great for them. DRob was healthy for the next season plus they got Duncan.

[Thomas]

Ran through twenty different players that year according to this, believe the NBA had a thirteen player limit back then. Number of games played by each listed makes sense.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/SAS/1997.html

This on Robinson's injury timeline from wiki. The year before the Spurs won 59 games and took the Midwest division.

Early in the season, Robinson's dreams of becoming a champion seemed to vanish when he hurt his back in the preseason. He finally returned in December, but six games later broke his foot in a home game against the Miami Heat, and ended up missing the rest of the regular season. As a result of the injury to Robinson and other key players (most notably Sean Elliott, who missed more than half the season), the Spurs finished the season with a dismal 20–62 record. However, his injury proved to be a blessing in disguise. Despite having only the third-worst record in the league, the Spurs won the NBA Draft Lottery—and with it, the first pick in the next year's NBA draft. They used that pick to select Tim Duncan out of Wake Forest University, who was, after a few years, the final key to Robinson's quest for an NBA title.

[Guest]

13 hours ago, Sothron said:

You guys are losing the argument and you accuse me of of something to do with a gif I can't see.

Internet rule #1: you know someone  has lost an argument when they resort to insults and images.

lol, whut?

All you're doing is identifying a great player and stating (incorrectly) that the team tanked to obtain said player.

[Watchman]

16 hours ago, Sothron said:

The Spurs absolutely tanked to get him. DRob could have come back before the season was over and they held him out. They didn't even fill out their entire roster that season. They let a broken down Nique do whatever he wanted because they wanted to get a better shot at landing Duncan. And hey, it worked out great for them. DRob was healthy for the next season plus they got Duncan.

A broken foot usually results in an absence of one year or more.  Embiid has made a career of it. Walton, Bowie and the list goes on and on. What evidence is there that they held Robinson back when he could have come back. And made a difference?

[frosgrim]

14 minutes ago, Watchman said:

A broken foot usually results in an absence of one year or more.  Embiid has made a career of it. Walton, Bowie and the list goes on and on. What evidence is there that they held Robinson back when he could have come back. And made a difference?

At the time, it was believed the Spurs deliberately tanked after Robinson went down. I don't think there is truly definitive evidence one way or the other. However, i was attending UCONN at the time and the Boston sports talk was livid about the Spurs "tanking" and winning the lottery. Boston, i think, had the worst record in the NBA that year, or at least worse than the Spurs.

 

For the overall argument, I suggest the Hawks look at what the C's have done twice now. Get bad, collect assets , and then make smart trades and FA signings to get better once the "core" is ready to compete. What Soth is arguing, i think, is that there are ways to get superstars, but the bottom line is you have to have assets to get them (e.g. Divac for Kobe), or have the gravitas to pull in superstar players in FA (e.g., Lakers and Shaq, or GS and Durant). Unfortunately, the Hawks have NONE of this right now.

[Guest]

Just now, frosgrim said:

At the time, it was believed the Spurs deliberately tanked after Robinson went down. I don't think there is truly definitive evidence one way or the other. However, i was attending UCONN at the time and the Boston sports talk was livid about the Spurs "tanking" and winning the lottery. Boston, i think, had the worst record in the NBA that year, or at least worse than the Spurs.

 

For the overall argument, I suggest the Hawks look at what the C's have done twice now. Get bad, collect assets , and then make smart trades and FA signings to get better once the "core" is ready to compete. What Soth is arguing, i think, is that there are ways to get superstars, but the bottom line is you have to have assets to get them (e.g. Divac for Kobe), or have the gravitas to pull in superstar players in FA (e.g., Lakers and Shaq, or GS and Durant). Unfortunately, the Hawks have NONE of this right now.

Agree with trying to go the Shmelts route but you have to admit it was Billy King's stupidity that has them in their current position. We need to find the dumbest GM and make one of those deals.

[hawkman]

9 minutes ago, Spud2Nique said:

Agree with trying to go the Shmelts route but you have to admit it was Billy King's stupidity that has them in their current position. We need to find the dumbest GM and make one of those deals.

That's still a sore spot for me. The Nets fought tooth and nail to scrape into the Playoffs when we were owed their pick. Now that it's going to the Celtics, they literally tanked the season. If Atkinson wasn't there I'd wish the NBA would just contract the Nets.

[Thomas]

What I remember the most on that Spur's season is the outrage from everyone media wise at Pop. Bob Hill had averaged sixty wins per in his two full seasons coaching for them and won their division months before. Robinson was out to start the year and it was incredibly hard to come by wins and Hill was canned before twenty games were up. That was all over the news and ruffled many a feather. 

[frosgrim]

2 hours ago, Spud2Nique said:

Agree with trying to go the Shmelts route but you have to admit it was Billy King's stupidity that has them in their current position. We need to find the dumbest GM and make one of those deals.

Yes, and no.

Yes that Billy King was amazingly stupid to trade for washed up players who, in no way, could have won another championship.

And, no, because those guys had won a championship, but the Hawks don't have that.  Maybe (hopefully), we can find someone who thinks they can make a champ out of DH8.

The roster mismanagement since Ferry left is really sad to see, especially now that we are at the big cross-roads with Millsap.