2020 - 2nd half Hawks: Chase for the 8th seed

[macdaddy]

1 minute ago, KB21 said:

The only thing that will absolve him is the Hawks becoming a championship contender by year 5.  Not just a playoff team.  A championship contender. 

Like the Heat last year?

(i'm kidding!!! just having some fun)

[KB21]

5 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

A major move is trading our 1st round pick for Jakob Poeltl. Or trading our young guys for vets. Got it!

A major move is trading to get a player who will make a major difference in the win total on this team.  Capela and Dedmon are nice players, but they are not guys who are going to move the needle.  They aren’t the difference in winning 23 games this season and winning 37 games.

If they had gone out and made a deal for Karl Anthony Towns, that would have been a major move, because he is a guy who could add 8-10 wins to this team.

[JayBirdHawk]

1 minute ago, KB21 said:

A major move is trading to get a player who will make a major difference in the win total on this team.  Capela and Dedmon are nice players, but they are not guys who are going to move the needle.  They aren’t the difference in winning 23 games this season and winning 37 games.

If they had gone out and made a deal for Karl Anthony Towns, that would have been a major move, because he is a guy who could add 8-10 wins to this team.

I only have one question - was he AVAILABLE?

[macdaddy]

Might be easier to just list the guys you'd consider major because I'm guessing there's only 5 in the league.  

[NBASupes]

I realize the best KB is the KB you don't take seriously at all. Just see what he wrote, and if it's trash, move on, if it's good, give him some love and keep it moving. KB will talk in circles if you let him. 

[KB21]

6 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

I only have one question - was he AVAILABLE?

He will be at some point.  He’s not going to just collect a check to play for that organization.  He’s wants to win, and he’s not going to do that with the Timberwolves.  They have spent too much time in the lottery, which should be a cautionary tale to those of you who have supported the way Travis Schenk has gone about his business.

[Thomas]

22 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

Might be easier to just list the guys you'd consider major because I'm guessing there's only 5 in the league.  

Uh....unless we trade for one and then....

[JayBirdHawk]

18 minutes ago, KB21 said:

He will be at some point.  He’s not going to just collect a check to play for that organization.  He’s wants to win, and he’s not going to do that with the Timberwolves.  They have spent too much time in the lottery, which should be a cautionary tale to those of you who have supported the way Travis Schenk has gone about his business.

So we should wait and do nothing until he asked to be traded?   How long will that be?

You should do as @macdaddy suggested and provide your list of major move players that you think would be available at the draft to trade the pick for.

[AHF]

Hey, this is good news people.  KB and I have the bet and one of us will be eating it after next year.  He hasn't lost a single bet yet so while he has been wrong about some predictions this isn't one of those predictions without consequences.  One of us will have to own up to being wrong in a very public way.  

[sturt]

59 minutes ago, KB21 said:

The only thing that will absolve him is the Hawks becoming a championship contender by year 5.  Not just a playoff team.  A championship contender. 

Just when I'd lost interest in reading any further KB posts, this caught my eye. I think we finally have struck some common ground (!)... I believe a 5 year horizon is about right.

I'll grant a teeensy-weensy bit of extra latitude to the Colonel in saying "a budding championship contender" in year 5... that is, we're that up and comer that some so-called experts think is ready to contend, though conventional wisdom is that they need another year of playoff experience before being widely regarded as a legit championship contender.

And I believe that's do-able between this year's FA cohort and the next.

[KB21]

8 minutes ago, sturt said:

Just when I'd lost interest in reading any further KB posts, this caught my eye. I think we finally have struck some common ground (!)... I believe a 5 year horizon is about right.

I'll grant a teeensy-weensy bit of extra latitude to the Colonel in saying "a budding championship contender" in year 5... that is, we're that up and comer that some so-called experts think is ready to contend, though conventional wisdom is that they need another year of playoff experience before being widely regarded as a legit championship contender.

And I believe that's do-able between this year's FA cohort and the next.

Nope.  Being labeled as a budding championship contender is too generic and too subjective of a term.  That label got put on the 76ers, and they are not a championship contending team, currently nor budding.  

No.  The only way Travis’s method of going about this is a success is if this team is actually playing in the Eastern Conference Finals in year 5 of this ordeal.  We are in year three right now with a 14-38 record.

[sturt]

It's a testimony to how hard it is to become a legit contender. So many ways to screw up, so many other teams competing for the same holy grail, and you and everyone else needing a little luck on your side.

So, I don't really care how KB thinks about this, except just to note that our ways of thinking about this are, in this way, at least not so far apart...

Put another way, KB's not as wrong as I previously thought him to be.

Good for him.

To put my own thinking into some more exact terms, I would like to think we are a playoff team next season, and an Eastern Conference finals participant the following year. Mind you, if we'd continued in our hamster wheel ways over these last three years, I don't think we would have greater reason for optimism than we actually have right now.

By the same token, we are at another critical juncture now, and that optimism may all be for nothing if the right moves don't occur... and.... something we haven't talked much about, but I bet we increasingly will... if the head coach fails to assert himself as a championship-caliber coach, and not merely a developmental one.

[REHawksFan]

39 minutes ago, sturt said:

It's a testimony to how hard it is to become a legit contender. So many ways to screw up, so many other teams competing for the same holy grail, and you and everyone else needing a little luck on your side.

So, I don't really care how KB thinks about this, except just to note that our ways of thinking about this are, in this way, at least not so far apart...

Put another way, KB's not as wrong as I previously thought him to be.

Good for him.

To put my own thinking into some more exact terms, I would like to think we are a playoff team next season, and an Eastern Conference finals participant the following year. Mind you, if we'd continued in our hamster wheel ways over these last three years, I don't think we would have greater reason for optimism than we actually have right now.

By the same token, we are at another critical juncture now, and that optimism may all be for nothing if the right moves don't occur... and.... something we haven't talked much about, but I bet we increasingly will... if the head coach fails to assert himself as a championship-caliber coach, and not merely a developmental one.

The real problem with this arbitrary 5-year ultimatum that KB came up with is that his examples of the "right" way to build a title team don't illustrate that a team can do it within 5 years. Consider these examples:

The Miami Heat are in Year 6 this year since LBJ left them and they started to rebuild or retool or whatever you want to call it. No title in 5 years. Haven't even played in the ECF in 5 years. BUT Schlenk is required to do it in 5 years or else the tank is "proven" a bad idea.  

The Pacers have not tanked and have retooled their roster over the last several years. Yet it's 5 years and counting and they haven't played in the ECF. 

The Pistons certainly did not tank after being in the ECF 4 straight years and have certainly not lived in the lottery since then. Yet this is Year 12 of their reset and they aren't even making the playoffs. 

Since the Orlando Magic traded away Dwight Howard, they have been trying to do a rebuild and have never officially "tanked" either. Yet they are in Year 9 with not obvious success. 

The Chicago Bulls lost in the ECF in 2011 to the Miami Heat. Over the next 6 seasons they toiled around the middle of the pack, never winning more than 50 games and never reaching the ECF again. They never "tanked" and were trying to just tweak their roster but they never succeeded. 

All of the above teams went about rebuilding or retooling their rosters the exact way KB wanted the Hawks to and NONE OF THEM were able to get to the ECF in 5 years. Some have been trying for more than a decade. 

So why in the world should anyone take KB's ultimatum of 5 years for the Tank seriously when the alternative way doesn't work that fast either? 

Edited February 6, 2020 by REHawksFan

[AHF]

4 hours ago, KB21 said:

Nope.  Being labeled as a budding championship contender is too generic and too subjective of a term.  That label got put on the 76ers, and they are not a championship contending team, currently nor budding.  

No.  The only way Travis’s method of going about this is a success is if this team is actually playing in the Eastern Conference Finals in year 5 of this ordeal.  We are in year three right now with a 14-38 record.

I don't get how you embrace a dying veteran team that didn't have a prayer or path to becoming a contender (2016-17 Budcox Hawks) but suddenly need someone to be a championship contender to quality as a success.

Half the time being in the playoffs is enough to be a praise worthy team for you and then the other half of the time you need to actually be a true championship contender. 

The Atlanta Hawks have never won a single game in the ECF no matter what method of team building they have applied.    We've had hopes once or twice that we might be true contenders but the "fiery crucible" of the playoffs has always revealed us to be pretenders whether that was Danny Ferry, Bud, Stan Kasten, Billy Knight, Pete Babcock, etc. running the show.  Again, the next time Atlanta wins a game beyond the second round of the playoffs will be the first time in Atlanta history.

Using that as the pass/fail metric means that Bud failed.  I personally don't think he did and won't proclaim TS a failure if we can't win.

This is just an artificial goal so you can claim victory.  By your own method the Golden State Warriors and their 3 championships and 5 appearances in the NBA finals are a failure because they didn't make the conference finals within 5 years.  Just silly.

[KB21]

3 hours ago, AHF said:

I don't get how you embrace a dying veteran team that didn't have a prayer or path to becoming a contender (2016-17 Budcox Hawks) but suddenly need someone to be a championship contender to quality as a success.

Half the time being in the playoffs is enough to be a praise worthy team for you and then the other half of the time you need to actually be a true championship contender. 

The Atlanta Hawks have never won a single game in the ECF no matter what method of team building they have applied.    We've had hopes once or twice that we might be true contenders but the "fiery crucible" of the playoffs has always revealed us to be pretenders whether that was Danny Ferry, Bud, Stan Kasten, Billy Knight, Pete Babcock, etc. running the show.  Again, the next time Atlanta wins a game beyond the second round of the playoffs will be the first time in Atlanta history.

Using that as the pass/fail metric means that Bud failed.  I personally don't think he did and won't proclaim TS a failure if we can't win.

This is just an artificial goal so you can claim victory.  By your own method the Golden State Warriors and their 3 championships and 5 appearances in the NBA finals are a failure because they didn't make the conference finals within 5 years.  Just silly.

The Warriors also didn’t bottom their team out and tank.  

[AHF]

14 hours ago, KB21 said:

The Warriors also didn’t bottom their team out and tank.  

They absolutely tanked during that rebuild and have openly admitted it.  

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1160424-golden-state-warriors-why-the-warriors-tanking-is-hurting-the-nba

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/hawks-gm-says-the-warriors-tanked-the-season-before-drafting-harrison-barnes/

[KB21]

How many top 5 picks did they get in that rebuild.

[macdaddy]

The damn Warriors are tanking right now.  Yesterday they didn't even  have the minimum required players.

[AHF]

49 minutes ago, KB21 said:

How many top 5 picks did they get in that rebuild.

They were in the lottery 17 out of 18 years.  Won 23, 26 and 29 games over the last 4 seasons.  We won 24 and 29 games the last two years.  I guess winning 23, 26 and 29 games is "competing" but winning 24 and 29 games isn't.  Because reasons.

[ShooterSays]

After last night's win over the NYK, we are 7.5 back of the 8th seed with 28 to go. A win tonight in Orlando would cut it to 6.5.