Hawks looking to trade

[theheroatl]

18 minutes ago, deester11 said:

You keep saying this. We get it. But if I want to poo poo...bytch, whine and complain, I'll do so.  Thank you very much.  The Hawks have given me PTSD.  2 military services didn't . 

LOL

[AHF]

41 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

 

Let's look at the actual MLE signings instead of just reductively saying we should have used the $12M.  What from below actually makes sense for the Hawks?  I bolded the only realistic targets.

• Jevon Carter: 3 years $6M a year guaranteed.  Maybe we could have offered him more to come to ATL(?).  Worth it?  I don't know because we just drafted Kobe and it's a three year deal.  Probably not.
• Georges Niang: 3 years at $8M a year.  Probably would have been worth pursuing -- maybe we did?
• Reggie Jackson: 2 years $5M a year, signed with Nuggets.  Doubt we had a shot at him.
• Gabe Vincent: 3 years $11M/year with Lakers.  Doubt we had a shot.
• Bismack Biyombo: 1 year $5M.  We don't need another backup center.
• Shake Milton: 1 year $5M (second year non-guaranteed).  Should have targeted him if we didn't, although we don't have much room in the rotation for another SG.
• Done DiVincenzo: no chance at him, 4 years $11-12M per, signed with Knicks
• Dennis Schröder: Already have a squeeze at PG for minutes, which is causing the DJ issues -- would not make sense to lock him in for 2 years at $13M per.

It's very easy to be dismissive of the FO and Landry for not using the MLE, but what were the actual options?  There they are.  We could have outbid teams for those players, assuming they'd even be open to coming to Atlanta which is highly questionable.  And for veteran minimum players, being upset we didn't sign better vet min guys is just accusing Landry of GM malpractice.  Do you think there were high value vet mins that wanted to come to Atlanta and we just rejected them?  That take doesn't even pass the sniff test.

There's a reason there are so few MLE targets available, and that's because really useful wing archetypes and backup PFs (what we really need) are locked into decent deals.  They aren't lingering around waiting for MLE bids.  There's nothing above that actually makes a difference in our rotations, with the exception of maybe Niang.

There are more targets than that.  One I flagged earlier this year was Matisse Thybulle a 2x All-NBA Defense who has had success defending SGs and SFs.  We could have given him more than he got and still been under the line.

We might have pursued someone like him or Niang, etc. and no one wanted to take more money to play with us but I'm a bit skeptical about that.  Most people will happily take a 2 year $15M deal over a 3 year $18M deal, for example. Someone like Milton probably takes a fully guaranteed contract without any additional money.  

I just feel like the ball was dropped on our roster after the first 8 spots.  No need to rehash my diatribes around that.  I'm not satisfied with Matthews, Mathews, Forrest, Mills, etc. as our alternatives.

[Spud2nique]

37 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

Yes, exactly.  This isn't 2K.

I’m about to take on the Lakers in our city unis you let me be Jeffrey!!!!  

[Spud2nique]

3 minutes ago, AHF said:

Matisse Thybulle a 2x All-NBA Defense who has had success defending SGs and SFs.  We could have given him more than he got and still been under the line.

Not bad. He reminds me of Batum without offense but better D. Ya, I’d take a shot I guess because it fills a definite need.

[Gray Mule]

HOOPSHYPE continues to say that the Lakers are still hot after Murray.  They just can't come up with a satisfactory trade.  They are still working on it.  Bey, who has an expiring contract and a cheaper "want" from the Hawks, is a hot topic.

[Final_quest]

Portland matched Thybulle.  It’s a ton of speculation to suggest adding an extra $2M to the contract and a 4th year would have prevented them from matching.

He’s playing 20 minutes for Portland averaging 5 points.  I just believe long term contracts for guys like this at that price hold you back.  Was he our missing piece?  

It’s the exact type of move that got us into our situation.  Handing out big salaries to low impact players.  

 

[JeffS17]

46 minutes ago, AHF said:

There are more targets than that.  One I flagged earlier this year was Matisse Thybulle a 2x All-NBA Defense who has had success defending SGs and SFs.  We could have given him more than he got and still been under the line.

We might have pursued someone like him or Niang, etc. and no one wanted to take more money to play with us but I'm a bit skeptical about that.  Most people will happily take a 2 year $15M deal over a 3 year $18M deal, for example. Someone like Milton probably takes a fully guaranteed contract without any additional money.  

I just feel like the ball was dropped on our roster after the first 8 spots.  No need to rehash my diatribes around that.  I'm not satisfied with Matthews, Mathews, Forrest, Mills, etc. as our alternatives.

Not being satisfied is one thing, but blaming Landry is a leap.  Thybulle would have been matched regardless, as POR has no reason to let him walk over $2M, for the same reasons you want him on our roster.  We did aggressively pursue RFA Bogi when we had the chance but there's nothing we can do for a MLE to make it hard to match.  And POR is ~$10M under the luxury so would have matched.  That ship has sailed and it makes no sense to ding our FO for that.  If you want them to put the offer out officially and have it matched, just so that they can show optically to the fans they're trying, we just have fundamentally different expectations for how our FO should spend their time.

There's opportunity cost to just filling out your roster immediately with MLEs and vet mins as soon as the offseason starts (as @Final_quest has reiterated multiple times), and I imagine if we went that route and grabbed Milton or someone, and we still sucked (because we would), everyone would be mad we didn't land a big fish and be demonizing Milton instead.  We had a strategy going into the offseason to land Siakam and it didn't work out.  It is what it is.  I agree with how we approached this past off season.

[JeffS17]

To add to this, we have to prioritize finding the core for this team.  Trying to be aggressive filling out MLEs and the best possible vet mins is not something we have the luxury to do right now.  Once we get another core piece (was almost Siakam), then it's time to be aggressive with the MLE.  Last thing you want to do is hamstring yourself with some 6-8 rotation guy contracts and not be able to bring in a big fish or worse, end up in a position you have to salary dump to extend JJ.  Sure, argue that Ressler should just pay the tax, but he's never gonna do that for a team that's not even sniffing .500 ball

[AHF]

34 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

Portland matched Thybulle.  It’s a ton of speculation to suggest adding an extra $2M to the contract and a 4th year would have prevented them from matching.

He’s playing 20 minutes for Portland averaging 5 points.  I just believe long term contracts for guys like this at that price hold you back.  Was he our missing piece?  

It’s the exact type of move that got us into our situation.  Handing out big salaries to low impact players.  

 

I'm not speculating that they wouldn't have matched.  I'm saying we never offered which is a fact.  I'm speculating that we didn't make a serious effort to get better players so it was a failure to recognize that we needed more talent on the roster beyond what a 37 year old Matthews could give us.  If we signed and someone matched, then I would know that wasn't the case and we took our best shot and it simply didn't happen. 

I have a hard time concluding that Wesley Matthews was the greatest player in the entire world we could have signed.  If that was the case, then a C rating would be appropriate because there was literally not a single useful player available to us and so we had no agency in the outcome.  At that point, signing a vet who was basically filling roster space or a young player who would do the same is immaterial so who cares which useless player you sign.

[AHF]

Just now, JeffS17 said:

To add to this, we have to prioritize finding the core for this team.  Trying to be aggressive filling out MLEs and the best possible vet mins is not something we have the luxury to do right now.  Once we get another core piece (was almost Siakam), then it's time to be aggressive with the MLE.  Last thing you want to do is hamstring yourself with some 6-8 rotation guy contracts and not be able to bring in a big fish or worse, end up in a position you have to salary dump to extend JJ.  Sure, argue that Ressler should just pay the tax, but he's never gonna do that for a team that's not even sniffing .500 ball

You could have done better than Matthews just signing people to one year agreements that wouldn't tie up long-term salary.  You gave examples of guys who we could have signed that were all better than Matthews.

[JeffS17]

3 minutes ago, AHF said:

You gave examples of guys who we could have signed that were all better than Matthews.

And you're making an assumption we could have signed them, which is exactly my point... Dallas doesn't have a better GM than we do because they went and formally offered Thybulle an offer sheet.  I think you have to use judgement to understand when to judge based on process/motive/effort and when to be results oritented.  I could care less if we're making offer sheets that we know will get matched.  Milton isn't making a difference with this team.  He's not better than anyone we've given minutes, including both Matthews.  That's not even accounting for off-court qualities.  Niang wasn't an option because he signed so early, as already outlined.  Unless you're suggesting we should have signed him immediately and forgone any pretense of trying to materially improve the team, inwhich case we just fundamentally disagree on priorities.

So you keep reiterating you're unhappy, but haven't laid out any realistic scenario where we have a better roster.  If it's Shake Milton you're upset about, I'm fine ending the conversation because I could not care less if we have Milton or Matthews.  In fact, I'd take both Matthews over him.

[Gray Mule]

If you were given the choice:

1- An old veteran who once was

2- A young rookie who may become

Which one do you choose?  Does it really matter if the coach will play neither one?

Our GM may face this question every summer!!

[AHF]

22 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

And you're making an assumption we could have signed them, which is exactly my point...

I don't know how to be more clear about this.  I'm not assuming we could have signed them.  My point is that I see zero evidence we tried to sign them.  It looks to me like we were ok with a roster that included almost half a dozen players I consider to be not worthy of having on a 2024 roster.

With $12M available, we could have outbid the contracts that a lot of these players ended up signing.  I'm obviously not in the front office so I don't know how many of these guys we went after but I think most players follow the money so my working assumption is that we weren't out there making offers that guys chose to reject so they could sign elsewhere for less.  We know for a fact that no team matched an offer we made.  We don't have the same visibility elsewhere.  I fully acknowledge I could be wrong and that numerous players chose less money over our offer but in the absence of some evidence that guys turned down our offers to take less elsewhere I'm left with the fact that the most reasonable explanation is that we didn't really try to land them in which case settling for a roster with depth this bad is not a good look for a GM of a team that wants to win in the playoffs.

[Final_quest]

19 minutes ago, AHF said:

I don't know how to be more clear about this.  I'm not assuming we could have signed them.  My point is that I see zero evidence we tried to sign them.  It looks to me like we were ok with a roster that included almost half a dozen players I consider to be not worthy of having on a 2024 roster.

With $12M available, we could have outbid the contracts that a lot of these players ended up signing.  I'm obviously not in the front office so I don't know how many of these guys we went after but I think most players follow the money so my working assumption is that we weren't out there making offers that guys chose to reject so they could sign elsewhere for less.  We know for a fact that no team matched an offer we made.  We don't have the same visibility elsewhere.  I fully acknowledge I could be wrong and that numerous players chose less money over our offer but in the absence of some evidence that guys turned down our offers to take less elsewhere I'm left with the fact that the most reasonable explanation is that we didn't really try to land them in which case settling for a roster with depth this bad is not a good look for a GM of a team that wants to win in the playoffs.

What you are failing to acknowledge is that because our FO strategy was to put our chips in for Siakam virtually none of these offers you wanted us to make were possible.  They were already signed by the time we gave up.

You can talk about a better alternate option than Wes Matthews, but it doesn’t involve the guys on either list made by you or Jeff.  We can’t sign Niang for $10M/year on June 30 AND pursue Siakam.  

You also aren’t acknowledging that any decent player available AFTER missing on Siakam would require either trading future draft picks or a guy like Bufkin or AJ.  We couldn’t sign a valued player at that point.  Everyone was off the board.

[AHF]

Just now, Final_quest said:

What you are failing to acknowledge is that because our FO strategy was to put our chips in for Siakam virtually none of these offers you wanted us to make were possible.  They were already signed by the time we gave up.

You can talk about a better alternate option than Wes Matthews, but it doesn’t involve the guys on either list made by you or Jeff.  We can’t sign Niang for $10M/year on June 30 AND pursue Siakam.  

You also aren’t acknowledging that any decent player available AFTER missing on Siakam would require either trading future draft picks or a guy like Bufkin or AJ.  We couldn’t sign a valued player at that point.  Everyone was off the board.

Why would it make sense to get Siakam but not have any roster depth because you sat on your MLE waiting for him?

First, if we simply matched salaries to get Siakam we could sign anyone we want and still not pay the tax this year so that is hardly a reason not to have working depth on the roster. 

Second, is your working assumption that if we traded for Siakam we weren't going to be doing so with the intention of becoming a tax paying team?  I've seen some posters take the view that if we got Siakam we were ok to pay the tax in which case you'd want to have already signed that useful player while he was available. 

So what is the circumstance where signing someone harms us this season if we did it before resolving whether we'd get Siakam?  I'm failing to see how use of the MLE is tied to Siakam if either Ressler was not going to avoid the tax after we got Pascal or the Hawks were open to a deal that matched salary instead of taking back more salary.  Either we don't get him in which case you are still under the tax line or we get him and are either intending to pay the tax or can construct the deal to avoid the tax.  

[Final_quest]

13 minutes ago, AHF said:

Why would it make sense to get Siakam but not have any roster depth because you sat on your MLE waiting for him?

First, if we simply matched salaries to get Siakam we could sign anyone we want and still not pay the tax this year so that is hardly a reason not to have working depth on the roster. 

Second, is your working assumption that if we traded for Siakam we weren't going to be doing so with the intention of becoming a tax paying team?  I've seen some posters take the view that if we got Siakam we were ok to pay the tax in which case you'd want to have already signed that useful player while he was available. 

So what is the circumstance where signing someone harms us this season if we did it before resolving whether we'd get Siakam?  I'm failing to see how use of the MLE is tied to Siakam if either Ressler was not going to avoid the tax after we got Pascal or the Hawks were open to a deal that matched salary instead of taking back more salary.  Either we don't get him in which case you are still under the tax line or we get him and are either intending to pay the tax or can construct the deal to avoid the tax.  

My assumption is you’re not gonna get into a bidding war for Niang AND pursue Siakam while also having Jalen and Bey.  Especially when you just had to cut long term salaries because your future commitments are so bloated you gave away Collins.

The tax number for this year is a side issue.  Niang shouldn’t hardly get PT if we land Siakam.  Why overpay for a guy in that case?

[Wretch]

1 hour ago, JeffS17 said:

To add to this, we have to prioritize finding the core for this team.  Trying to be aggressive filling out MLEs and the best possible vet mins is not something we have the luxury to do right now.  Once we get another core piece (was almost Siakam), then it's time to be aggressive with the MLE.  Last thing you want to do is hamstring yourself with some 6-8 rotation guy contracts and not be able to bring in a big fish or worse, end up in a position you have to salary dump to extend JJ.  Sure, argue that Ressler should just pay the tax, but he's never gonna do that for a team that's not even sniffing .500 ball

Dude, this is MY JAM right here.  Like...I felt this in my SOUL.  I don't know if I wholly agree with the urgency of adding quality rotational players, but the primary goal of any FO that is not in contention should be to establish an elite core of players.  Over the years, the Squawk has had a real tendency to overemphasize the importance of complimentary players.  To the point that we were actually debating whether or not we could contend with a team full of JUST complimentary players.

...which, strangely enough, we did and I looked very foolish in the wake of it.

[JeffS17]

2 minutes ago, Wretch said:

...which, strangely enough, we did and I looked very foolish in the wake of it.

lol yeah, we did -- definitely reached the ceiling of what that roster could achieve which was incredible.  If we had one more elite core piece though, could have been the difference between a finals appearance -- or championship -- over an ECF appearance.  That year was also very unique in that Trae/JC/Heurter/Cam/Dre were all on rookie scale deals.  Lots of cheap rotation players that isn't tenable long term

[Jody23]

 

[theheroatl]

4 minutes ago, Jody23 said:

 

Why trade the non problem on the team…

Trae and JJ and DJ are good talents and something you build on

our front court sucks

 

 

I never thought we should’ve traded DJ… only the closet laker and Knicks fans on this forum did. He is good enough for them but not for us.

Edited January 29 by theheroatl