Official Game Thread: Magic at Hawks

[sturt]

25 minutes ago, JTB said:

seriously consider signing a true backup defensive center like Whiteside

Is it the front office or is it Ressler standing in the way of a move?

Dunno, but if you believe what Kirschner was selling, then you believe it's Ressler.

 

Is the allergy to adding additional salary objectively justified?

For as long as there is some chance that DJ and/or Capela are likely to earn unlikely bonuses in their contracts (w/o going back to double-check, I believe CC would be getting a $500k bonus if the season ended today), then the math is the math... yes... but it's close. We have just short of $1.8m of leeway below the LT line, and making room for that bonus leaves $1.3-ish room. The vet min salary at this point in the season (pro-rated) would take about that amount.

So, that to say, yes, it has been objectively justified, but with every day that passes, it's less so since the pro-rated vet minimum decreases. Still, there's a question of how much risk tolerance Ressler would be ready to accept, ie, other bonuses that still could conceivably have to be paid.

 

If they added someone, would it be a 7-footer?

Realistically, just judging from recent history, this front office is looking for bigs with some mobility. That tends to translate to smaller bigs than bigger bigs. So, I personally wouldn't bet on it, me.

 

 

[Spud2nique]

Almost one of the worst collapses in Hawks history. What the heck happened there late. We should stopped putting point on the board and they kept scoring and our D went away. If this dude, #7 on the Magic doesn’t pull a BEN SIMMONS and puts in the layup they win. 

 

Luckily we pulled it out but wow. Didn’t love the play call to trap DM in the corner either but Blanchero bailed us out!
 

Trae was a superstar with crazy numbers as usual and had it going on tonight. I liked this one from “death range”!

 

 

 Welcome back Bob! We missed you! 

GO HAWKS! 
 

 

 

Edited December 20, 2022 by Spud2nique

[Spud2nique]

Also felt the balance tonight was great as far as scoring.

Aaannnnddd AJ with a devilish smile  

 

Superstar ️ 

[MarylandHawk]

Great Hawks basketball. Bogi and Griff make a huge difference with Trae and Murray. Everything seemed to flow better. Amazing what happens when you have shooting and ball movement. 

[Final_quest]

Almost losing this game really kills the good vibes that could have been.  These are the kind of games where Trae shows why he starts all star games.  Here is a screen shot from all the games where a player has had a game of 37 points or more with 13 assists or more from the past few seasons:

Lebron James hasn't had this stat line since 2019.  Since Trae entered the league here is the breakdown of number of games for all players:

Trae- 9 games
Harden- 6 games
Dame- 2 games
Luka- 2 games
Lebron- 1
Booker- 1
Beal- 1
Fox- 1
Garland- 1

If that's not enough guess who has the top scoring games with 13 assists since Trae entered the NBA?  

Trae- 56
Dame- 50
Trae- 49
Trae- 48

Why? Ask me why Trae has a long leash with me and so many fans?  Last night is a career best night for most players and we barely mention it here.  Trae haters need help.  They need therapy.  Do they actually just hate themselves and project it onto Trae?  

Here's the link: https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/players-with-37-points-or-more-and-13-assists-or-more-in-a-game

[MarylandHawk]

9 hours ago, terrell said:

This kid should be our starting 2 guard next season..We max Murray and AJ comes off the bench for years.. No way im letting that happen.. Either Murray or Dre has to go...Preferably Dre..Especially if hes gonna let players just blow by him at the end of games.. But Murray might get us a star BIG.. Not getting much for Dre imo.. Good problem to have at least.. lol

In Dre’s defense Fultz held his arm and pulled him away from him. Savvy vet move. 

[MarylandHawk]

12 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

Almost losing this game really kills the good vibes that could have been.  These are the kind of games where Trae shows why he starts all star games.  Here is a screen shot from all the games where a player has had a game of 37 points or more with 13 assists or more from the past few seasons:

Lebron James hasn't had this stat line since 2019.  Since Trae entered the league here is the breakdown of number of games for all players:

Trae- 9 games
Harden- 6 games
Dame- 2 games
Luka- 2 games
Lebron- 1
Booker- 1
Beal- 1
Fox- 1
Garland- 1

If that's not enough guess who has the top scoring games with 13 assists since Trae entered the NBA?  

Trae- 56
Dame- 50
Trae- 49
Trae- 48

Why? Ask me why Trae has a long leash with me and so many fans?  Last night is a career best night for most players and we barely mention it here.  Trae haters need help.  They need therapy.  Do they actually just hate themselves and project it onto Trae?  

Here's the link: https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/players-with-37-points-or-more-and-13-assists-or-more-in-a-game

Bump this. Did i see the graphic correctly that he is about to pass Magic Johnson with 30 and 10 games?  Only Jerry West to beat after that. In less than 5 years. Wow just wow. He has earned homerism. 

[Jody23]

A win is a win.  However, the lack of a reliable scheme to execute, especially at the end of games, will continue to be problematic.

[Final_quest]

5 minutes ago, MarylandHawk said:

Bump this. Did i see the graphic correctly that he is about to pass Magic Johnson with 30 and 10 games?  Only Jerry West to beat after that. In less than 5 years. Wow just wow. He has earned homerism. 

I just posted in the Trae thread.  He is now 4th all time on that list.  At his current pace he will be #1 all time by the end of his 9th season.  

[Gray Mule]

Most posters believe this Hawk team needs a 7' player to help protece the goal, especially with our starting center, Capela, out with an injury.

We have to wonder, if such a player was available to Nate, would he make use of him?  There is such a player that is available and it might be possible that Atlanta ould add him to their roster without destroyng their payroll.  See this player below.  Have any of you ever heard of him?

Frank Kaminsky - AKA The Tank - AKA Big Frank.  7' - 240 lbs.

Sure would have been nice to have such a player last night.  Too many opponents made themselves at home under the goal on our end of the court.  The question remains, if Atlanta had such a player would Nate use him?  Guess we will never know.

 

[sturt]

8 hours ago, sturt said:

If they added someone, would it be a 7-footer?

Realistically, just judging from recent history, this front office is looking for bigs with some mobility. That tends to translate to smaller bigs than bigger bigs. So, I personally wouldn't bet on it, me.

 

17 minutes ago, Gray Mule said:

We have to wonder, if such a player was available to Nate, would he make use of him?  There is such a player that is available and it might be possible that Atlanta ould add him to their roster without destroyng their payroll.  See this player below.  Have any of you ever heard of him?

Frank Kaminsky - AKA The Tank - AKA Big Frank.  7' - 240 lbs.

Sure would have been nice to have such a player last night.  Too many opponents made themselves at home under the goal on our end of the court.  The question remains, if Atlanta had such a player would Nate use him?  Guess we will never know.

 

Me, I've dreamed of an NBA team that would take the attitude that if we have a 10-15 lead with 2-3 minutes left, we're going to treat those 2-3 minutes like any run-of-the-mill baseball team would treat going to the 9th inning with a 2-3 run lead...

That is, we're going to deploy our "closer 5-man," and some of those if not all of those are going to be players with the highest defensive regard on the roster.

Thing is, I don't know that that will work. I think it would, but I've never seen anyone try it at any level of the game.

Other thing is, even if it would work, I concur that we have a head coach who seemingly would not be particularly inclined to try it himself.

 

So, given that state of play, and circling back to @Gray Mule's question, I don't get the impression Nate would (use such a player)... for as long as a game is in doubt, he's shown himself committed to his first 9 or 10 guys exclusively, unless injury or foul trouble has made that impossible.

And again, I don't even get the impression that the front office is inclined to obtain such a player...

Kaminsky may be 7 ft, but he's the rare 7 ft player who has some mobility (... likely because he was 6-10 or so through his college years, and hit a very late growth spurt after he got in the league).

 

Thing is, Big2O was drafted on the premise that he is mobile and a rim protector. He's not failed at that, but he's certainly not been consistent in that. It's his 3rd year, and thankfully, for the first time, he's been able to go to training camp and start the year healthy.

This time while CC is out, no better time than the present for Big2O to make a statement that he's who Schlenk thought he was. He's becomes so familiar to us that it feels like he ought to be 25 years old by now, but of course, he literally just turned 22 about a week ago. Hoping he's able to rise to this occasion in spite of his being the 3rd youngest guy still on the roster.

[macdaddy]

I'll take it!   Glad Trae took responsibility for sucking at the end.  What a great 46 minutes he had though.  

Murray had zero chance of making that shot.  Anyone know why the Magic didn't challenge?  didn't seem like a lot of contact there.   Kudos for knocking down the FTs

JC only 20 minutes was that because he was winded?  Murray played 38 LOL.

Trae was the only starter to register a positive +/-.  

it was almost a 7 man rotation with Jalen and Aaron only getting a little over 10 minutes.  Think i'd rather have Forrest than Aaron though.   Although the shooting is better with Aaron.

Would like to see JJ be more selfish and take it to the hoop rather than kicking out.  

Nate has been more creative with rotations the last month or so even taking injuries into account.    Griffin, Bogi, OO are cemented as the normal 6,7,8 but finding that 9,10 seems to still be in progress. 

[bleachkit]

Nearly had a devastating collapse to an 11-20 team that was playing on the second night of a back to back, and at home no less. A win is a win, but we are not closing out games the way we need to be. 

[macdaddy]

6 minutes ago, bleachkit said:

Nearly had a devastating collapse to an 11-20 team that was playing on the second night of a back to back, and at home no less. A win is a win, but we are not closing out games the way we need to be. 

We got to quit trying to run clock at the 3 minute mark.   Orlando is good though.  They've figured some stuff out and who thought Fultz would end up making this comeback in his career?  

[macdaddy]

Great to get Bob back but has anyone noticed that the production on the Bally broadcast has been really crummy all year.   They try to play that 5 second free throw commercial but always miss their chance.   Last night JC is in a scrap with the Orlando bench and the camera is stuck on random players on the Hawks bench for 10 seconds while Bob has to describe what's going on.   Sometimes they play side commercials during actual game action.   I'm begging to see relevant replays.  There'll be some questionable call and they're like "let's watch that JC dunk from the first quarter again".  

 

[sturt]

13 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

who thought Fultz would end up making this comeback in his career

[MarylandHawk]

1 hour ago, Final_quest said:

I just posted in the Trae thread.  He is now 4th all time on that list.  At his current pace he will be #1 all time by the end of his 9th season.  

That is crazy. If anyone on that list had been playing on pace like that it would have been pandemonium back in the day. 

[macdaddy]

Just now, sturt said:

Is this link broken for anyone else?  I've been getting a lot of this but starting to think it's on my end.   (so i don't know what you posted @sturt)

[sturt]

7 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

Is this link broken for anyone else?  I've been getting a lot of this but starting to think it's on my end.   (so i don't know what you posted @sturt)

Are you running an ad blocker? I have one that I've found suppresses images sometimes on some pages for whatever reason.

Here's the static image...

 

[JayBirdHawk]

1 hour ago, macdaddy said:

JC only 20 minutes was that because he was winded?  Murray played 38 LOL.

JC was on a minutes restriction, DJ was not - so said Nate.