Official Game Thread: Hawks at Pistons (Wednesday)

[JayBirdHawk]

2 hours ago, REHawksFan said:

Can we talk about the lack of effective offense from the bench and, really, the units without Trae?  This was supposed to be fixed by adding DJM but that unit has been BAD offensively.  

Trae's ON/OFF are crazy through 4 games: 

• 116.3 OFF Rtg with Trae vs 97.8 OFF Rtg when Trae sits.  
• eFG% 53.1% with Trae vs 45.4% without
• +8.7 NET Rtg with Trae vs -17.4 NET Rtg when Trae sits

I realize this is a bit of a small sample size, but still. The offense when Trae sits is no bueno. 

As much as it frustrates me with Nate's rotations, I have to remind myself it's an entirely new bench group with DJ, The Holidaze, JJ and OO with OO being the only returning player from last season. It's going to take some time for them to gel.

[Atlantaholic]

2 hours ago, REHawksFan said:

Can we talk about the lack of effective offense from the bench and, really, the units without Trae?  This was supposed to be fixed by adding DJM but that unit has been BAD offensively.  

Trae's ON/OFF are crazy through 4 games: 

• 116.3 OFF Rtg with Trae vs 97.8 OFF Rtg when Trae sits.  
• eFG% 53.1% with Trae vs 45.4% without
• +8.7 NET Rtg with Trae vs -17.4 NET Rtg when Trae sits

I realize this is a bit of a small sample size, but still. The offense when Trae sits is no bueno. 

I didn't think we would need Bogi this badly, but it looks like we do. Still, he single-handedly won't change this though he should help. We are going to need to make some moves I think. 

Also I think it's kinda funny last year we were crucifying Nate for not playing JJ. Maybe he was right about that one, dude has been trash. 

[DS5]

JJ may be worse than Bogi on defense. It’s really bad how easy players get by him. I don’t think it’s lack of effort, he just looks completely lost on d and not much better on offense. He doesn’t know where to stand on either side of the ball. I’d rather see Kaminski (not many options there) next to OO. I don’t think he’d be worse defensively and at least he gives you something on offense. We need shooters. If we could get Crowder for JHol and JJ, I’d be all over that. 

[Spud2nique]

46 minutes ago, Diesel said:

You have to understand that JJ have not had a lot of formal team play.    He's had a lot of one on one play and you see it in his game.   He goes out there and plays IsoJoe ball.   That's because he didn't play in his senior year.   He played on an AAU team that at the time didn't have pro prospects but him.  He didn't play a lot in college due to injury.   And he's been a project since he's been here. 

I think he can overcome his lack of training and that's what the G-League was supposed to do.  However, it's still in his game. 

 

You always quote me. Like a post.  I mean here and there, it keeps a nga engaged. 

[DS5]

I saw a stat that hawks are +31 with JC on the floor and -23 when JC sits. I think that’s indicative of JC taking his game to the next level but also of how bad JJ is. I know it’s only a few games but we need a back up plan for the back up 4 position. 

[Diesel]

44 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

As much as it frustrates me with Nate's rotations, I have to remind myself it's an entirely new bench group with DJ, The Holidaze, JJ and OO with OO being the only returning player from last season. It's going to take some time for them to gel.

Yep..  When you watch, you see there's a lot of timing and general knowledge lapses.   That can be fixed with time playing with each other.   It's different from when we had guys who just couldn't physically do it (Sorry Gallo and hurt knee bogi and plantar F. JC) .   Or guys who lacked the basketball IQ (Sorry Knox and Cam).   Right now, we just have guys who just need to learn each other... that's evident by all the times we're shooting last second shots.   We got to get into our offense quicker on that second team. 

[Diesel]

6 minutes ago, DS5 said:

I saw a stat that hawks are +31 with JC on the floor and -23 when JC sits. I think that’s indicative of JC taking his game to the next level but also of how bad JJ is. I know it’s only a few games but we need a back up plan for the back up 4 position. 

Stat aside, we should bring Whiteside in and move OO to PF on the second unit.   Let OO and JJ platoon that 2nd Unit PF until we figure out which one is a keeper. 

 

[REHawksFan]

40 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

As much as it frustrates me with Nate's rotations, I have to remind myself it's an entirely new bench group with DJ, The Holidaze, JJ and OO with OO being the only returning player from last season. It's going to take some time for them to gel.

You're right of course. But to me, if you are going to break in new guys and a new rotation anyway, I'd just as soon break in AJ at the same time since he at least has the ability to give us a threat from the perimeter to assist in the offensive production while Trae sits.  

Regarding DJM, I'm super excited about him and think he will be a huge positive by the end of the season, but through 4 games when he's not on the court with Trae, he has a net rating of -18.2 per 100 poss (he's logged 94 non-Trae possessions).  I've been a bit surprised he hasn't been able to create offense at a higher level.  We know his defense is very very good. But that just underscores how bad the offense has been.  

[JayBirdHawk]

29 minutes ago, Atlantaholic said:

Also I think it's kinda funny last year we were crucifying Nate for not playing JJ. Maybe he was right about that one, dude has been trash. 

We were asking for him to play spot minutes (in lieu of playing TLC), if he played well in his first minutes in the first half, he'd get additional minutes in the 2nd half.  Doing that would have ideally would have prepared him for a backup role this season.

Here's my main issue, from the moment we signed Gallo and the last year of his contract was not fully guaranteed - I assumed he would not be on the team for the final year of his contract- we should have been grooming his replacement last year (particularly since he was also a trade candidate) and we would not be having to through JJ to the wolves this year (which I'm fine with at the moment).

[bleachkit]

Can we trade for Bojan? The man can flat out shoot. We would have both Bogdanovic's, which would be kinda cool. 

 

[JayBirdHawk]

12 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

You're right of course. But to me, if you are going to break in new guys and a new rotation anyway, I'd just as soon break in AJ at the same time since he at least has the ability to give us a threat from the perimeter to assist in the offensive production while Trae sits.  

You'll get no argument from me on that one.  Particularly when the offense is as stagnant as it has been.  

[JayBirdHawk]

14 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

Regarding DJM, I'm super excited about him and think he will be a huge positive by the end of the season, but through 4 games when he's not on the court with Trae, he has a net rating of -18.2 per 100 poss (he's logged 94 non-Trae possessions).

I think he's deferring too much to the Holidaze to run the offense.  His best move is 2/3 dribbles and pull up shot or drive and finish or kick to an open shooter.  The Holidaze aren't CnS they are attempting to dribble and mucking up the offense.  DJ is also overdribbling and going nowhere. Part of that is he has no idea where JJ and OO are going to be.  OO needs more touches, and they are still developing chemistry

[BangHolman]

5 minutes ago, bleachkit said:

Can we trade for Bojan? The man can flat out shoot. We would have both Bogdanovic's, which would be kinda cool. 

 

It only took Olynyk from Detroit to get him.

[AtLaS]

Happy with the win, but we have major depth problems. 

Capela looks washed.  He made some key plays late but he looks slow and less athletic.  I'm hoping he is just out of shape, probably didn't work as hard this summer since he got the extension.  If this is true, then he should get better throughout the season.  

We lost ALL of our depth.  I feel like we are a better team overall b/c of defense, but we lost 4 key guys from last year.  Any injuries and this team is going to be in serious trouble.  If Trae or DJM miss any time, who will be our backup PG?  If Capella/OO miss any time, who is our backup big?  With Bogi being out, this means we have to play both AH and JH a ton, and they have been pretty bad.

 

My observations.  We need to get Hunter the ball more.  He has improved and he can handle some more scoring burden.  We need to post Collins more 10-12 feet area.  Collins is efficient on the square up jumper, turnaround jumper, can make the hook over the top, or dribble drive past his man.  Good things happen when we get him the ball here.  

I didn't really want to play AJ this season, but after watching AH/JH it's obvious he needs to play.  If he can average 8-9ppg and shoot 40% from 3 that would be huge, even if he isn't great on D.

[theheroatl]

My takeaways after 4 games.. I’m ready to trade Justin Holiday for Jae Crowder.

We need another big body but Cade has record games against us. I think the rotations might need to be tweaked because putting the holidays plus JJ doesn’t get it done.

[AtLaS]

1 hour ago, Atlantaholic said:

I didn't think we would need Bogi this badly, but it looks like we do. Still, he single-handedly won't change this though he should help. We are going to need to make some moves I think. 

It's not that Bogi is that great, it's that our depth behind him is atrocious.  If we had Huerter or even Reddish, missing Bogi wouldn't hurt as much.  But since AH/JH are getting significant minutes it hurts badly.

We have no depth currently, so the same will happen if we lose any of our starters.  We are screwed if we have any major injuries. 

[BangHolman]

8 minutes ago, theheroatl said:

My takeaways after 4 games.. I’m ready to trade Justin Holiday for Jae Crowder.

We need another big body but Cade has record games against us. I think the rotations might need to be tweaked because putting the holidays plus JJ doesn’t get it done.

We did try to tweak the rotation last night when we played DJM with the 2nd unit instead of Trae and everything stalled on offense. 

[JayBirdHawk]

25 minutes ago, bleachkit said:

Can we trade for Bojan? The man can flat out shoot. We would have both Bogdanovic's, which would be kinda cool. 

 

He's making $19.5 million so only Bogi's salary would match.

19 minutes ago, BangHolman said:

It only took Olynyk from Detroit to get him.

Detroit had capspace to absorb the salary difference.

[JayBirdHawk]

2 minutes ago, BangHolman said:

We did try to tweak the rotation last night when we played DJM with the 2nd unit instead of Trae and everything stalled on offense. 

That is how Nate has run the rotation in every game so far.  Trae and the bench to end the first quarter for about 3+ minutes.  Then he starts the 2nd quarter with DJ and the bench.

[BangHolman]

2 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

That is how Nate has run the rotation in every game so far.  Trae and the bench to end the first quarter for about 3+ minutes.  Then he starts the 2nd quarter with DJ and the bench.

Well, last night it stuck out even worse than the first 3 games.