Official Game Thread: Hawks at Knicks

[REHawksFan]

4 hours ago, NBASupes said:

Bro, he ain't what he was last year. His 1v1 game has regressed. He needs a screen for damn near everything like Cam but Cam has a reason, his handles are booty butt cheeks but what about Trae? His three point shot is inconsistent af. His floater is streaky. He was always a streaky shooter but he was always streaky from elite to average. Not very good to bad. He has made improvements. He's much better his Shot IQ. His passing has improved. His ball handling is more crisp. He's smarter and he runs the offense so much better this year than last. Defensively, he's massively improved even if it doesn't seem like much of an impact. He just isn't very good anymore on offense. He relies too much on the refs. His preseason play wasn't anomaly we thought it would be. The Bulls game ended up being that. 

Let's just be real. Trae hasn't been elite on offense this year. He's been very good but we need elite from Trae. Elite Trae would have us into the playoffs regardless of Cam's and Huerter's shit. 

I really hope you're just mega pissed from losing to the NYK cuz this take is absurdly shortsighted. You admit Trae was elite for an entire season last year but say he's regressed to just good for 26 games this year so let's trade him? Really? That's the answer?

We don't have a clue WHY he's regressed. Is he being told to change his style? Is it the players he's playing with? Is he rusty from not playing for 10 months? Is just being a diva cuz LP is a joke of a coach? Did he legit wake up and forget how to play basketball one day?

All are possibilities but only one (the absurd one) would be a legit case to consider a trade. 

This is a ridiculous take. 

[NekiEcko]

Nah, he is just pissed (rightfully so) about this team performance, Trae has fell off but it is because teams is now playing him better and trying to make him one of the other, Passer or a Scorer and it is getting to him.  Outside of Clint and Hunter, everybody else has fallen off alittle bit but injuries plays a big part of this and maybe we need to see them at full power if the same problems is happening then you can fixed.

[REHawksFan]

52 minutes ago, NekiEcko said:

Nah, he is just pissed (rightfully so) about this team performance, Trae has fell off but it is because teams is now playing him better and trying to make him one of the other, Passer or a Scorer and it is getting to him.  Outside of Clint and Hunter, everybody else has fallen off alittle bit but injuries plays a big part of this and maybe we need to see them at full power if the same problems is happening then you can fixed.

I get it.  I was fuming after the two Dal losses and livid after the Pacers loss.  It's a legit reaction cuz this team is maddening right now and part of it is the same ish every night.  But there's no need to throw the baby out with the bath water.  You don't trade your franchise player who has shown to be elite in the past because he's slumping when he's still young and should be improving.  Especially given the circumstances surrounding this year's season.  

Supes is better than this.    

[bleachkit]

We aren't getting blown out night after night like last year. But we can't get stops when we need them, and we can't get buckets when we need them. Trae misses too many shots, he just does. An eFG of .480 isn't going to get it done. He does do a good job of getting to the line, and he should be commended for that. But getting to the line can't be your go to move in crunch time. That's when you need a bucket, and quite frankly, Trae isn't that good at getting buckets. At least not efficiently. Maybe his floater will come back, but he hasn't had it all year. Were getting no production from our shooting guards or small forward position. So looks like our ship is sunk. If Hunter was coming back soon I could see a light at the end of the tunnel. But without him it's going to be Trae spamming lobs, and our shooters bricking threes, along with average defense at best. 

[bleachkit]

5 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

I get it.  I was fuming after the two Dal losses and livid after the Pacers loss.  It's a legit reaction cuz this team is maddening right now and part of it is the same ish every night.  But there's no need to throw the baby out with the bath water.  You don't trade your franchise player who has shown to be elite in the past because he's slumping when he's still young and should be improving.  Especially given the circumstances surrounding this year's season.  

Supes is better than this.    

I have noticed posters that have Trae as their avatar are more likely to go to bat for him. You and @marco102 and some others. It's ok guys. You'll be changing those avatars before long. Well maybe not, we still got folks with Marvin avatars.

[REHawksFan]

12 minutes ago, bleachkit said:

I have noticed posters that have Trae as their avatar are more likely to go to bat for him. You and @marco102 and some others. It's ok guys. You'll be changing those avatars before long. Well maybe not, we still got folks with Marvin avatars.

Ha!  To be fair, I've been plenty critical of Trae.  I truly believe he's THE key to the Hawks winning or losing because the team was literally built around him.  And the numbers all bear that out as I and others have posted ad nauseum. So if he's all of a sudden regressing for some inexplicable reason, they aren't going to win.  I just don't think you torpedo your franchise based on 26 games of data when we can all agree he was ELITE last year on the offensive end.  He has that ability. 

 

Edited February 16, 2021 by REHawksFan

[Carmine]

Collins is empty calories, no max for you.

[bleachkit]

3 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

Ha!  To be fair, I've been plenty critical of Trae.  I truly believe the THE key to the Hawks winning or losing because the team was literally built around him.  And the numbers all bear that out as I and others have posted ad nauseum. So if he's all of a sudden regressing for some inexplicable reason, they aren't going to win.  I just don't think you torpedo your franchise based on 26 games of data when we can all agree he was ELITE last year on the offensive end.  He has that ability. 

 

Well he's missing too many shots right now. Too many 6-19, or 7-22 nights. Those are becoming the norm for him. Some shots are bad and have no chance, but I'd say for the most part he's just missing shots he was hitting last year. So he needs to be better, we better players around him. So no easy answers.

[JayBirdHawk]

8 hours ago, JeffS17 said:

What I hope we are witnessing right now is Trae taking a backseat until the trade deadline because Schlenk isn't done making moves this season.  I am hoping the reason trae has been so passive this season is because we're trying to showcase guys to ship out before the deadline (read: Collins).

This makes LESS than ZERO sense - this is basketball.  Score the ball, stop the other guy from scoring the ball.  Trae is giving up a shot to be an Allstar to showcase his teammates for a trade.  Losing seems to make people say crazy things .  

[REHawksFan]

8 minutes ago, bleachkit said:

Well he's missing too many shots right now. Too many 6-19, or 7-22 nights. Those are becoming the norm for him. Some shots are bad and have no chance, but I'd say for the most part he's just missing shots he was hitting last year. So he needs to be better, we better players around him. So no easy answers.

I've been trying to figure out what's different between last year and this year. How he can go from elite last year to meh this year. And how he's missing so many shots that he routinely made last year.  Here's all I came up with:

1. Being off for 8 months without really playing competitively, he's gotten rusty and out of shape (remember, between his rookie and 2nd year he played ALL SUMMER in those competitive pickup games); no competitive play for so long COULD have an impact
2. Clint Capela - I'm hesitant to say anything negative about Capela and this really isn't on him directly, but rather on his presence in the lane. He poses no threat from the outside so defenders don't have to hedge against a jumper and can camp out in the lane; this has led to defenders being able to break up the lob to Capela AND to Trae having another defender in the lane to disrupt the floater. No idea if this theory has merit, but the presence of Capela in the lane is one difference between last year and this year.
3. Injury; Maybe Trae is nursing some injury that has impacted his shot in some way?  But then he's improved his 3Pt shot this year so that doesn't really make sense. It's really just his floater that is way off. 
4. Rhythm; maybe Trae is a guy that needs a lot of shots to get into a rhythm? He's always been better in the 2nd half than the 1st half so maybe he needs to be more aggressive to get into a rhythm. Maybe trying to distribute to better teammates has actually kept him for getting into a rhythm?  

I don't know. I'm grasping at straws here.  We all want the Hawks to win and, in my opinion, Trae the the biggest X Factor to achieving that goal.  Injuries have played a part, sure. We can blame the regression of Cam and Kevin playing a part too.  But ultimately, the biggest reason the team has sucked the last few weeks is because Trae has not played at the level we have all come to expect him to play.  

[Peoriabird]

12 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

 But ultimately, the biggest reason the team has sucked the last few weeks is because Trae has not played at the level we have all come to expect him to play.  

So its not our defense or our offensive schemes nor is it our coaching staff and its philosophy in the 4th quarter of games...I was worried that we might have to look for another coach.  Thanks for easing my biggest fears!

[JayBirdHawk]

8 hours ago, terrell said:

.Im building around Hunter if Im Travis..

No.  What makes you believe Hunter is a guy to build your team around - he's had a solid season but please tell me what says 'Build around him'.  He's a guy you build WITH!

 

8 hours ago, NBASupes said:

Me too. I think if a team like Minnesota ended up with the 1st, they would consider it. Sadly, we might be in prime position anyway. 

 - I'll give you a pass since I'm gonna assume this is the frustration after a loss.

 

7 hours ago, NBASupes said:

What's sad is this team is not much better than last year's team outside of Capela, JC, and Hunter. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/nba-player-ratings/

 

Trae regression hurts a lot. Worse offense. We need Trae to be the best Trae. 

You talked incessantly about how the offense was going to change since we will have more offensive options besides the  Trae and JC PnR since we added Capela, Gallo, Bogi etc. - well you are seeing it play out.  You were really excited, I guess you only thought it would affect JC, it's also affecting Trae.  He's trying to balance his natural ability to score so easily versus running the team, so far it's not a well balance effort.  EVERYTHING still revolves around him and no one ELSE can get an easy bucket without him or get him an easy bucket.

[JayBirdHawk]

20 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

Clint Capela - I'm hesitant to say anything negative about Capela and this really isn't on him directly, but rather on his presence in the lane. He poses no threat from the outside so defenders don't have to hedge against a jumper and can camp out in the lane; this has led to defenders being able to break up the lob to Capela AND to Trae having another defender in the lane to disrupt the floater. No idea if this theory has merit, but the presence of Capela in the lane is one difference between last year and this year.

There actually was an article I posted that touched on this very thing, with Capela being in the lane so is his defender, which adds another layer of defense for Trae's floater.   Lot's of time I can't tell if Trae is looking to shoot the floater or lob to Capela - lot's of indecision there which I think has disrupted the timing on his floater. Last year we had Len, Dedmon and JC as centers that could stretch the center, leaving the middle open for the floater easier particularly over a non center on defense.

[JayBirdHawk]

27 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

But ultimately, the biggest reason the team has sucked the last few weeks is because Trae has not played at the level we have all come to expect him to play.  

We also have not been able to stop anyone since Hunter went down.  Hunter's ability to guard 1 thru 4 is greatly missed - he's agile enough on the perimeter and still reasonably strong in the post. Not just his individual defense but his team defense as well.  Hunter being unavailable creates a dynamic where we have to rely on Huerter and Cam vs it being  Hunter and Cam or Hunter and Kevin depending on match ups.

 

 

[REHawksFan]

16 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

So its not our defense or our offensive schemes nor is it our coaching staff and its philosophy in the 4th quarter of games.

Defense - Absolutely. It has sucked since Hunter went down

Offensive schemes - Absolutely. LP pretty much has zero ability to draw up anything resembling an offensive gameplan

Coaching staff - Absolutely.  LP needs to be gone.  

All of that is true.  It's also true, in my opinion, that the BIGGEST reason for the Hawks sucking is Trae not playing the way Trae usually plays.  The Hawks have lost close games after having the lead in the 4th how many times now?  11 times? And in nearly all of them Trae was a non-factor in the 4th.  You do the math. 

The problem is, all of those things you mentioned and Trae overlap to some degree.  It all adds up to a cluster.  I'm at the point where I don't think LP is solely to blame, but something needs to change and he's the logical move, imo.  Change the HC, get healthy, and see if someone can snap Trae out of whatever funk he's in.  He needs to be aggressive Trae for the Hawks to have success.   

[JayBirdHawk]

 

 

[marco102]

1 hour ago, bleachkit said:

I have noticed posters that have Trae as their avatar are more likely to go to bat for him. You and @marco102 and some others. It's ok guys. You'll be changing those avatars before long. Well maybe not, we still got folks with Marvin avatars.

I'm a loyalist as long as he is a hawk.

[NBASupes]

This isn't as simple as aggressive Trae. Trae isn't beating people 1v1 anymore. He was constantly doing it last year with Cam on the court, a worse Hunter, and even worse, Parker and Jones. Trae simply doesn't have the same quickness, he is not blowing by defenders this year. Its massively impacting his impact. That's why we are seeing him more than ever get blocked by PGs.

Then add the touch issues on his passes and shot and man, you can see a major dip in his performance. 

What's crazy is we saw signs of this in the preseason and ignored it.

Edited February 16, 2021 by NBASupes

[NBASupes]

9 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

 

Ouch 

 

[JayBirdHawk]

6 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

This isn't as simple as aggressive Trae. Trae isn't beating people 1v1 anymore. He was constantly doing it last with Cam on the court and even worse, Parker and Jones. Trae simply doesn't have the same quickness, he is not blowing by defenders this year. Its massively impacting his impact. That's why we are seeing him more than ever get blocked by PGs.

Then add the touch issues on his passes and shot and man, you can see a major dip in his performance. 

That's just not true since most times Trae is being doubled, teams don't have to guard Capela outside the paint when he sets a screen - they stick with Trae and send a rotation to Capela on a lob (which rarely happens since Trae's passing is usually on point, NYL sniffed those out last night though).