De'Andre Hunter Signs Extension:4yrs/$95 million

[Peoriabird]

Just now, macdaddy said:

But he had the skills to do it the whole time. That's the obvious difference.  

Who Bridges?  Bridges wasn't even a double digit scorer until his 3rd season.

[macdaddy]

Just now, Peoriabird said:

Who Bridges?  Bridges wasn't even a double digit scorer until his 3rd season.

Talking about basketball skills.  The original premise was give Hunter the ball more and he'll be a 20+ scorer and go to offensive weapon like we've seen briefly for Bridges.  I just don't believe that.  The reason that worked for Bridges is that he was a better ball handler and passer when he came into the league than Hunter.  It wasn't that he was bad at those things and developed them.  

[JayBirdHawk]

16 minutes ago, warcore said:

Someone made a Boris Diaw joke the other day.....

And it just got me thinking... the way Boris sucked with us because they were making him play the 1, when he wasn't a great ball handler. 
Then he goes to PHO and is played at the 5 and he blows up. 

It might be time to move Dre to the 4 and see what happens.... his handles just aren't good enough for a 3. 

I thought it was the opposite, He did play the PG, but Woody wanted him to be more of a scorer while he was more playmaker and facilitator and that was what he was more comfortable with.

[macdaddy]

Diaw was 21/22 years old as a Hawk and couldn't shoot at all at the time.  Moving to PHX under D'antoni and playing the frontcourt was huge for him.  

He was new to the country and the south too and thought he could get away with bringing in Dunkin Donuts to the locker room so needless to say he had a lot to learn when he was with Atlanta. 

[NBASupes]

1 hour ago, RedDawg#8 said:

Hunters deal was based on him having potential to do what Mikal just did when he got sent to Brooklyn.

MIkal's deal was very generous for a guy who, at the time of signing it before the 2021 season, had only just averaged double digits for the first time (13.5 ppg)

Mikal was still seen as a defensive specialist who could space the floor. He was, in 2021, viewed as more limited than Dre, who had just flashed the potential to be a star player. Coming in to this season, I would wager that both were viewed equally, with Bridges the more established defender. 

I doubt the Suns truly saw a go to 20+ ppg player in Bridges, because if they did, they wouldn't have shipped him and other assets off for KD leaving them without any depth.

Dre could realistically have a similar explosion if given the ball and the keys to an offense. But that won't happen here, just like it would not have happened for Bridges in PHX.

In the end we are talking about 4/90mil versus 4/95. 

 

Mikal was always seen in a higher light than Dre. I've been saying, Mikal is the wing Horford. Only people not watching him don't realize he's special. Ayton got a contract that really should have went to Mikal

[warcore]

1 hour ago, JayBirdHawk said:

I thought it was the opposite, He did play the PG, but Woody wanted him to be more of a scorer while he was more playmaker and facilitator and that was what he was more comfortable with.

I'm not sure what you mean by the opposite. We both agree they asked him to play PG, which is a position that requires ball handling skills. 

I recall him having trepidation about it and the brass having to encourage him to be "aggressive" or something like that.... but whether they were asking him to be a scorer PG or a playmaker PG -- he was still being asked to be a PG which was not his strong suit. 

[AHF]

2 hours ago, RedDawg#8 said:

Hunters deal was based on him having potential to do what Mikal just did when he got sent to Brooklyn.

MIkal's deal was very generous for a guy who, at the time of signing it before the 2021 season, had only just averaged double digits for the first time (13.5 ppg)

Mikal was still seen as a defensive specialist who could space the floor. He was, in 2021, viewed as more limited than Dre, who had just flashed the potential to be a star player. Coming in to this season, I would wager that both were viewed equally, with Bridges the more established defender. 

I doubt the Suns truly saw a go to 20+ ppg player in Bridges, because if they did, they wouldn't have shipped him and other assets off for KD leaving them without any depth.

Dre could realistically have a similar explosion if given the ball and the keys to an offense. But that won't happen here, just like it would not have happened for Bridges in PHX.

In the end we are talking about 4/90mil versus 4/95. 

 

I fully disagree.  Mikal already earned his contract:

He was coming off his third season where he had produced 8.0 Win shares and a .164WS/48 number.  Those are fantastic numbers.  

He was 14th best in the entire NBA in total Win Shares in 2020-21.  

Look at the company he was keeping after his 3rd year!

You seriously think Phoenix was betting on unseen improvement to justify Bridges' contract?  Please.  If Hunter has a single season in his career where he earns 8.0 Win Shares I will be thrilled.  Phoenix should have felt great if he never improved a bit over his third year numbers and kept cranking out that kind of production.

Compare that to Hunter who still doesn't have 8.0 win shares for his entire career.

Today Hunter has 5.4 career Win Shares which is worse than Bridges had after his rookie and sophmore years let alone the 32.1 Win Shares Bridges has today

2 hours ago, Peoriabird said:

Is the contract too rich because of his health or his play? if is his health, should we be concerned about other Hawk's contracts and health like Bogdanovic?.  Capela always seems to me nicked up as well.

Yes.  His health and his play at the point he signed the agreement made it a risky agreement.  Both are true.  I felt like the health risk outweighed the risk that Hunter would suddenly blow up and become Kawhi Leonard and force us to max him out.  If he only played 46 games this season (his career average when we gave  him the deal), his free agent price would have been much lower than what we committed to pay him.  I'm not super upset by his contract, just feel like it was meaningfully risk weighted rather than return weighted and that we would have signed or matched a similar contract with him this offseason based on the season he just played.

Should we be concerned about Bogi's health with his contract?  Yes!  That was the exact concern I expressed when we signed him to his extension.  Capela does have some health risk to him as well but I'll note that in 7 of the last 8 years he has played roughly the same number of games or more games than Hunter has in his career best year (for health but I also think this year was his best season period).  So I'd say the concern for me is higher with Hunter than with CC but I would only pencil in CC for around 65-70 games a season the next couple years based on his history.

[JayBirdHawk]

24 minutes ago, warcore said:

I'm not sure what you mean by the opposite. We both agree they asked him to play PG, which is a position that requires ball handling skills. 

I recall him having trepidation about it and the brass having to encourage him to be "aggressive" or something like that.... but whether they were asking him to be a scorer PG or a playmaker PG -- he was still being asked to be a PG which was not his strong suit. 

He did fine with Stotts being a play maker, things fell apart when they switched to Woody's ISO ball:

He was also difficult to coach in Atlanta, where he told isolation-favoring coach Mike Woodson he couldn’t play for him. [I always laugh at this].

The common theme: Both coaches wanted Diaw to score more. [that was the trepidation he had]

“I’m not that,” Diaw said. “I need teammates and good teammates. I need a system where the ball is moving, where it’s team basketball.”

 

[AHF]

1 hour ago, NBASupes said:

Mikal was always seen in a higher light than Dre. I've been saying, Mikal is the wing Horford. Only people not watching him don't realize he's special. Ayton got a contract that really should have went to Mikal

I feel like if he was a Hawk, we would have paid a lot more for him and would have maxed Ayton based on how we negotiated JC's and AH's contracts.  

[warcore]

10 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

He did fine with Stotts being a play maker, things fell apart when they switched to Woody's ISO ball:

He was also difficult to coach in Atlanta, where he told isolation-favoring coach Mike Woodson he couldn’t play for him. [I always laugh at this].

The common theme: Both coaches wanted Diaw to score more. [that was the trepidation he had]

“I’m not that,” Diaw said. “I need teammates and good teammates. I need a system where the ball is moving, where it’s team basketball.”

 

Kinda funny reading that again...

The original point is, people are clamoring to give Dre more touches on offense. And in my opinion, that's similar to Woody asking Diaw to be a scorer. Some people just don't have the skill set. 

Dre doesn't have the skill set to be a go-to scoring threat at the 3..... he might be a lot more efficient at the 4 getting those corner 3s JC's been missing. 

[AHF]

4 minutes ago, warcore said:

Kinda funny reading that again...

The original point is, people are clamoring to give Dre more touches on offense. And in my opinion, that's similar to Woody asking Diaw to be a scorer. Some people just don't have the skill set. 

Dre doesn't have the skill set to be a go-to scoring threat at the 3..... he might be a lot more efficient at the 4 getting those corner 3s JC's been missing. 

I think what you can ask for from Dre on offense is punishing teams who leave him alone and being a nice 3rd or 4th option on a good team.  He will never be the leading scorer for a playoff team at any point in his career.

[warcore]

37 minutes ago, AHF said:

I think what you can ask for from Dre on offense is punishing teams who leave him alone and being a nice 3rd or 4th option on a good team.  He will never be the leading scorer for a playoff team at any point in his career.

Yes -- exactly. I'm not sure why people want him to get more touches.... cuz most of us know... after the touch, comes the fumble. 

[Final_quest]

21 minutes ago, warcore said:

Yes -- exactly. I'm not sure why people want him to get more touches.... cuz most of us know... after the touch, comes the fumble. 

Because he is our most versatile defender they want to leverage hope into convincing themselves and others that he could also be a scorer.  

[Peoriabird]

2 hours ago, AHF said:

 He will never be the leading scorer for a playoff team at any point in his career.

He already has in the playoffs 2 years ago against the Heat.

[Peoriabird]

2 hours ago, AHF said:

  So I'd say the concern for me is higher with Hunter than with CC but I would only pencil in CC for around 65-70 games a season the next couple years based on his history.

CC plays in many of those games but looks like sh-t because he has no explosiveness because of some nagging injury

[AHF]

16 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

He already has in the playoffs 2 years ago against the Heat.

Do you not know what I was talking about?  I'll try to be more precise in my wording in case any ambiguity in my language caused us to misunderstand one another.

If Hunter is the top scorer in the regular season that team is competing for the top lottery pick, not the playoffs.

Here are the stats from that team as they worked to make the playoffs:

I'm obviously not saying that if we have several players injured and Trae gets triple teamed that Hunter can't lead us in scoring over a couple games when the opposing team gives him a lot of open shots and doesn't gameplan to stop him.  We obviously saw that debacle of a series.  I was glad to see Hunter at least taking some degree of advantage of the opening that were allowed for him.

Just to be clear, this was the intended focus on my original post:  Any team that features Hunter as their top scorer won't make the playoffs and will be playing for the lottery. 

I would also be comfortable going one step further and say that any team with Hunter as their top scorer in the playoffs will not be competitive in that series.  As he will never be the top scorer over the course of a regular season on a team that makes the playoffs, his leading a team in scoring over the course of a playoff series means his teammates have either been taken off the court due to injury or they are having such a horrific series that it opened the door to his leading the team in which case the team will be pretty terrible.  (You will note that the only game the Hawks won was one where Trae led the team in scoring.)  But I wasn't really trying to address what might happen over 5 games in the playoffs so much as what it would say about a team's chances of making the playoffs if Hunter is their leading scorer over 82 games.

 

[Peoriabird]

12 minutes ago, AHF said:

I'm obviously not saying that if we have several players injured and Trae gets triple teamed that Hunter can't lead us in scoring over a couple games when the opposing team gives him a lot of open shots and doesn't gameplan to stop him.  We obviously saw that debacle of a series.  I was glad to see Hunter at least taking some degree of advantage of the opening that were allowed for him

 

No matte how you slice it... he did it while no one else on the team could.  Not even the board's beloved Bogie or Huerter.  And he did it while being heavily counted on to defend the point of attack.  In other words, the only 2 way player on that team.  But Carry on

[AHF]

1 hour ago, Peoriabird said:

No matte how you slice it... he did it while no one else on the team could.  Not even the board's beloved Bogie or Huerter.  And he did it while being heavily counted on to defend the point of attack.  In other words, the only 2 way player on that team.  But Carry on

We can talk about how much to expect from him vs an injured Bogi or injured JC or an uninjured but more closely marked Huerter (who he is better than anyway which is why he was the #4 pick and not the #19 pick) but there is no doubt Hunter was our leading scorer that series and we lost every game he led us in scoring.  But I don't think we need to be there because none of this has anything to do with what we are talking about which is how good a team would be if he was their leading scorer.  That is the idea behind the claim that he would be a scorer in the mold of Mikal Bridges on the playoff Nets team.  I don't think he could duplicate Bridge's production and fundamentally believe that no team with Hunter as their leading scorer will ever make the playoffs.  If he is a team's leading scorer in the regular season, they are lottery bound.

[Peoriabird]

26 minutes ago, AHF said:

We can talk about how much to expect from him vs an injured Bogi or injured JC or an uninjured but more closely marked Huerter (who he is better than anyway which is why he was the #4 pick and not the #19 pick) but there is no doubt Hunter was our leading scorer that series and we lost every game he led us in scoring.  But I don't think we need to be there because none of this has anything to do with what we are talking about which is how good a team would be if he was their leading scorer.  That is the idea behind the claim that he would be a scorer in the mold of Mikal Bridges on the playoff Nets team.  I don't think he could duplicate Bridge's production and fundamentally believe that no team with Hunter as their leading scorer will ever make the playoffs.  If he is a team's leading scorer in the regular season, they are lottery bound.

Can we somehow save this thread or this quote somewhere?

[NBASupes]

4 hours ago, AHF said:

I feel like if he was a Hawk, we would have paid a lot more for him and would have maxed Ayton based on how we negotiated JC's and AH's contracts.  

We tend to give contracts that are either industry average or loyalty overpay like JC. Kevin was the only player they signed and it was cheaper than the industry willing price.