2023-24 Insider Information Thread

[macdaddy]

2 hours ago, kg01 said:

Did you literally name no teams in the top 6 as proof of your point?

Cmon, Jeffe.  Read what he wrote them we'll give you a re-do. 

Yeah i couldn't figure that out either but he did name good examples of other teams who done basically what we have (nothing, cash savings) and ended up in the same place (lottery). 

[JayBirdHawk]

16 minutes ago, Gray Mule said:

YES! 

Ownership wants to make money with the Hawks.  What better way to make money than having a winning product?  How much did we miss being in the top six?  Not a lot.  Injuries played a big part in the failure.

Decisions made years ago still linger today.  Rome wasn't made in a day.  Neither was the current Hawk team.  What is done this summer will make or break the future of this team.  Not just one season.  Putting the product on the floor includes the Head coach and all his assistants.  Facilities for the use of all come into play.  We're great here.  G League now must be considered.  Hawks have taken advantage of this.  

Finally, none of the players in the NBA are robots.  Some Hawks, I'm sure, didn't turn out like the brain thrust thought that they would.  Some were better and some didn't live up to their projected ability.  Could they have done better?  Every NBA team could answer this with a big yes.  

I disagree that they have used all of their resources that they had available AT THE START of the season if as Ressler kept saying "the intention was to be a top 6 team and AVOID THE PLAY-IN."

These were all the options available at the start of the league year July 1st 2023:

1. The John Collins TPE of $25 million - they used $2 million of it when they traded for Garuba or Tyty

2. The MLE of $12.4 million

3. The Bi-Annual exception of $4.5 million

4. The Huerter TPE of $3.6 million

5. Mo Harkless TPE of $4.6 million

6. The Justin Holiday TPE $6.2 million which they allowed to expire on 02/09/2024

7. The John Collins TPE of $25.3 million - they have since used $2 million of it when they traded for Tyty who they then turned around and traded for another small TPE which expires 07/12/2024.

8. We currently sit $9.1 million under this season's Luxury Tax.

And again, this is not me saying to run head first into the Luxury Tax just to do it.  But when the INTENTION IS ALWAYS TO AVOID IT NO MATTER THE CIRCUMSTANCE it will always leave me wanting more.  (and again just because you start a season over the tax does not mean you end the league year over).  I just want us to have a fighting chance to start the season.  Not behind the 8-ball from the jump.

I live for the day when we start the season with a chance to be considered having a championship worthy team instead of happy to avoid the play-in.

[AHF]

4 hours ago, JeffS17 said:

This comment absolves Trae of any responsibility.  But anyone that understands power dynamics and nuance understands he has influence and should be at least partially accountable.  If Trae wants to leave as soon as things get tough, imo he should just leave.  I'd rather not have a diva/quitter on the team eroding the lock room culture.

 

You are damn right.  Michael Jordan [edit: the play not the owner for clarification] doesn't have responsibility for the rest of the roster.  Trae doesn't have responsibility for the rest of the roster.  Their responsibility is to play their best.  Management's job is to put together the best team through all available avenues:  draft, FA, and trade.

And I'm not claiming Trae has issued an ultimatum.  What he said was pretty bland, imo.  He has been much more a champion of Atlanta than the vast majority of guys who play here, and I think he is genuine when he says he wanted and wants to win in Atlanta and play his career here.

Also let's be real that the NBA is less of a business for owners than an investment.  The big payday comes when they sell the team not from ticket sales on a year to year basis or anything.  You buy in primarily for that big payday and the massive increase in franchise value over time not for the year to year operating profits and you can actually lose money year to year and still end up with a huge profit when you sell.

[AHF]

3 hours ago, JeffS17 said:

Love these suggestions -- I think people here underrate Reaves and how much Trae would elevate him.  

How much difference do you see between Reaves and Bogi?  I don't see much on either end of the floor.

[Final_quest]

3 hours ago, macdaddy said:

We've literally barely done anything but bring DJ in.  

But that’s a huge move.  Best player we got via trade since Joe Johnson.  It cost a lot, didn’t work out, and left us with limited options to improve after we did it.  

They did nothing except trade for a young all star caliber guy in his prime.  Huh?  

That was the move.  

[kg01]

3 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

But that’s a huge move.  Best player we got via trade since Joe Johnson.  It cost a lot, didn’t work out, and left us with limited options to improve after we did it.  

They did nothing except trade for a young all star caliber guy in his prime.  Huh?  

That was the move.  

As is the case with PHX and BKN before us, the league is showing that going to get the 'big name' and doing nothing else is a death knell. 

[KB21]

19 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

But that’s a huge move.  Best player we got via trade since Joe Johnson.  It cost a lot, didn’t work out, and left us with limited options to improve after we did it.  

They did nothing except trade for a young all star caliber guy in his prime.  Huh?  

That was the move.  

The mistake that was made is that the decision to get Murray was based around the idea of getting Trae to play off the ball more. They felt they needed a secondary ball handler when what they really needed was a defensive upgrade to Huerter.  

[AHF]

45 minutes ago, kg01 said:

As is the case with PHX and BKN before us, the league is showing that going to get the 'big name' and doing nothing else is a death knell. 

And I don't blame Booker for Phoenix trading for Beal.  That is on the GM even if Booker tells him he really wants to play with Beal.  The GM is responsible to make those calls and history shows your best chance to retain a player is to put a strong roster around him, not to give a star what he wants when he asks for something that is a bad idea.  What good GM in history has ever turned over personnel decision making to a 23 year old with no front office experience?  The only time the GM should consider ceding authority to a player is with an extreme ultimatum such as LeBron telling Miami that he will only play for the team if they agree to resign Wade and trade for Bosh.  That doesn't let the GM off the hook - it just means that his options were more limited.  The responsibility to make smart decisions is still on him.  So it was smart for Pat Riley to agree to that demand but if LeBron demanded that the Heat give max contracts to Mo Willliams and Jon Koncak instead then Riley should have told LeBron "no" and lived with the fact that LeBron would go play somewhere else because that is a failing approach. 

Chris Grant was a good example of a GM who either made terrible decisions building around LeBron or allowed LeBron to make some stupid demands and then lost LeBron because he went through on those demands.  (Another possibility is that Grant did both.)  For example, trading for Shaq was not a great idea.  Trading for a better player and winning more with LeBron would have been a better choice even if LeBron wasn't as excited about playing with someone less proven at the time like Brook Lopez.  (Grant traded for past their prime big names and big contracts like Ben Wallace and Shaq but did himself no real favors with that approach.  LeBron would have stayed to win if the roster was a contender.)

[terrell]

On 4/30/2024 at 10:47 PM, RedDawg#8 said:

I’m beginning to think none of us actually know how to fix the Hawks.

This...

[Final_quest]

7 hours ago, terrell said:

This...

I think the FO at least had the right idea by going for Siakam.  

[NBASupes]

Austin Reaves sucks to me. Bogi is a lot better. Reaves is a Jordan Clarkson to me or a Kuzma. You can't win with those guys

[Mikey]

12 hours ago, AHF said:

And I don't blame Booker for Phoenix trading for Beal.  That is on the GM even if Booker tells him he really wants to play with Beal.  The GM is responsible to make those calls and history shows your best chance to retain a player is to put a strong roster around him, not to give a star what he wants when he asks for something that is a bad idea.  What good GM in history has ever turned over personnel decision making to a 23 year old with no front office experience?  The only time the GM should consider ceding authority to a player is with an extreme ultimatum such as LeBron telling Miami that he will only play for the team if they agree to resign Wade and trade for Bosh.  That doesn't let the GM off the hook - it just means that his options were more limited.  The responsibility to make smart decisions is still on him.  So it was smart for Pat Riley to agree to that demand but if LeBron demanded that the Heat give max contracts to Mo Willliams and Jon Koncak instead then Riley should have told LeBron "no" and lived with the fact that LeBron would go play somewhere else because that is a failing approach. 

Chris Grant was a good example of a GM who either made terrible decisions building around LeBron or allowed LeBron to make some stupid demands and then lost LeBron because he went through on those demands.  (Another possibility is that Grant did both.)  For example, trading for Shaq was not a great idea.  Trading for a better player and winning more with LeBron would have been a better choice even if LeBron wasn't as excited about playing with someone less proven at the time like Brook Lopez.  (Grant traded for past their prime big names and big contracts like Ben Wallace and Shaq but did himself no real favors with that approach.  LeBron would have stayed to win if the roster was a contender.)

I agree with everything you said but the problem is the landscape of the league today and these stars is you dont give them what they want they will just get up and leave. Especially a player like Booker who has ties to an entire agency and team elsewhere. These stars need to let basketball people do their jobs but culture of the sport now is so cooked it doesn't happen a ton.

Need more steph curry's in this world

[kg01]

7 minutes ago, Mikey said:

I agree with everything you said but the problem is the landscape of the league today and these stars is you dont give them what they want they will just get up and leave. Especially a player like Booker who has ties to an entire agency and team elsewhere. These stars need to let basketball people do their jobs but culture of the sport now is so cooked it doesn't happen a ton.

Need more steph curry's in this world

Good post.

Only thing I'll add, for all the folks that hate Klutch's supposed influence, take a look at what CAA is doing.  Particularly for the Knicks.

[Mikey]

38 minutes ago, kg01 said:

Good post.

Only thing I'll add, for all the folks that hate Klutch's supposed influence, take a look at what CAA is doing.  Particularly for the Knicks.

Yeah thats who I was referencing for Booker. 

[AHF]

1 hour ago, Mikey said:

I agree with everything you said but the problem is the landscape of the league today and these stars is you dont give them what they want they will just get up and leave. Especially a player like Booker who has ties to an entire agency and team elsewhere. These stars need to let basketball people do their jobs but culture of the sport now is so cooked it doesn't happen a ton.

Need more steph curry's in this world

You can't tell me that Booker would have demanded a trade if Phoenix didn't trade for Beal last offseason and have me believe you.  

[Mikey]

Just now, AHF said:

You can't tell me that Booker would have demanded a trade if Phoenix didn't trade for Beal last offseason and have me believe you.  

No i don't think he would. But it certainly leaves a sour taste and is the first domino towards a trade request. Then you get the first round exit and in his head he's probably thinking "if we had someone like beal we could have won". Its a same conundrum the hawks have with DJM.

Our star wants him and despite getting him we still lose first round. But if we didn't get him and the season still played out horribly the star is unhappy entire way and then requests come from that

[AHF]

2 minutes ago, Mikey said:

No i don't think he would. But it certainly leaves a sour taste and is the first domino towards a trade request. Then you get the first round exit and in his head he's probably thinking "if we had someone like beal we could have won". Its a same conundrum the hawks have with DJM.

Our star wants him and despite getting him we still lose first round. But if we didn't get him and the season still played out horribly the star is unhappy entire way and then requests come from that

I think trading for Beal is the first step towards a breakup.  You lock yourself into a massive overpay / underperforming player and you limit what the team can do.  If they used those resources to add more defense and had a better balanced team they would have been more likely to win in the first round.  It is up to management to make the decisions to put together the best team not up to Booker who is under team control for 4 more years.

[kg01]

21 minutes ago, Mikey said:

Yeah thats who I was referencing for Booker. 

I figured.  I just find it funny how Klutch becomes a lightning rod when all major agencies do business the same way as them, if not worse.

I know you get it.  I just used your post to try and educate these ... casuals  ... . Oh no, am I turning into @NBASupes?

You know what they say.  Better to die a hero than live long enough to turn into the villain.

Just messin with you, hotSupes. 

[kg01]

3 minutes ago, AHF said:

I think trading for Beal is the first step towards a breakup.  You lock yourself into a massive overpay / underperforming player and you limit what the team can do.  If they used those resources to add more defense and had a better balanced team they would have been more likely to win in the first round.  It is up to management to make the decisions to put together the best team not up to Booker who is under team control for 4 more years.

Smells like you're talkin' Hawks.  The bolded portion is basically the blueprint for the offseason.

Good job reeling the discussion back on topic, AH. 

[AHF]

3 minutes ago, kg01 said:

Smells like you're talkin' Hawks.  The bolded portion is basically the blueprint for the offseason.

Good job reeling the discussion back on topic, AH. 

The Hawks front office can't have even a little respect from me and abdicate personnel decisions to their 23 year old PG under team control for 4 more years (ala the DJM trade for anyone who believes that was all Trae).  Wholly apart from questions about how much influence a player should have, it is just proven that when you make bad moves that players don't give you a pass because you did what they asked you to do.  They want to win and adding a Beal is less about how much Beal is loved and more about the idea of how good the team could be with him.  The GM needs to evaluate how good the team will actually be and refuse to make moves that will make the team worse.