First 20 Games....9 wins - 11 losses.

[terrell]

19 hours ago, JTB said:

Trae has nothing to do with that. We have a very incapable front office.

I was talking All Star and media crap

Ive been saying for years Schlenk was horrible.. And was called a "hater"..or whatever.. smh

LF seems no better

Edited December 10, 2023 by terrell

[macdaddy]

Schlenk wasn't horrible.  We had several years where most of our rotation was our own draft picks.  

Hawks never let the GM finish the job.  Ownership gets impatient and starts meddling and then the vision gets sabotaged. 

[Vol4ever]

On 12/9/2023 at 12:25 PM, terrell said:

Utah is worse by far with him on the floor this season.. Check the stats...

Point is we fooled around and didnt move him on time and thus lost any real compensation (gave him away) and this is on the GM/front office.  

4 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

Schlenk wasn't horrible.  We had several years where most of our rotation was our own draft picks.  

Hawks never let the GM finish the job.  Ownership gets impatient and starts meddling and then the vision gets sabotaged. 

Schlenk was terrible.   What did he do for the team?

[JayBirdHawk]

2 minutes ago, Vol4ever said:

Schlenk was terrible.   What did he do for the team?

He built the team that got us the furthest we have ever been as a franchise? That's gotta count for something. No?

[macdaddy]

1 hour ago, Vol4ever said:

Point is we fooled around and didnt move him on time and thus lost any real compensation (gave him away) and this is on the GM/front office.  

Schlenk was terrible.   What did he do for the team?

Built it?  Don't folks remember the drafting of BK and Ferry.  Whether you are happy with how they turned out or not you can't deny that Trae is an all star level player, Hunter, Huerter, JC, OO even Cam are all solid NBA rotation players.  Acquired Gallo and Bogi, two players that had a lot of other interest around the league.  Dumped Rondo for Lou which to me was an underrated key to that season we went to the ECF.

What were his bad moves?  I'd say they started with Murray and Huerter but by all accounts those were ownership driven.  

[AHF]

2 hours ago, macdaddy said:

Ownership gets impatient and starts meddling and then the vision gets sabotaged. 

This is an issue with a lot of teams / owners.  Once they taste success they want to jump right to the finish line instead of completing the original plan.  

Overall I think Schlenk was a pretty good GM and I don't ignore the fact that he constructed the team with the greatest playoff run in Atlanta Hawks history.

Drafting

My grades for Schlenk's first round picks off the top of my head (not the grades I gave at the time of the draft but with the benefit of hindsight):

JC #19 - A

Trae #5 - A

Huerter #19 - A

Hunter #4 - C+

Reddish #10 - F

OO #6 - B

JJ #20 - A

AJ #16 - B+ (haven't given up on him)

I expect nothing from second round picks and Schlenk delivered nothing from his second round picks.  No points earned for him there but I don't slam him either since my bar is so low for these.  Of course it would have been great to get a Brunson or Mitchell but those are outliers among second round picks where the vast, vast majority never do anything of note.

Not every pick to which I've given an A was the best player on the board (that would be an A+) but I feel those were outstanding value at that slot.  The Bs are very good value given who else was on the board even if I would probably lean a different direction with 20/20 hindsight.  The wingstop draft unfortunately was sold to fans as delivering the defensive core of the franchise for the next decade and just hasn't lived up to expectations there due most of all to Cam's failures in a Hawks uniform and his selfish decision to bail on Atlanta to get a higher profile role elsewhere (not realizing how good he already had it with a starting job he didn't earn on the court).

Trades

His trades are subpar on the whole.  He won some (CC / Delon) and lost more of them.  Not a complete black mark but not strong here.

Free Agency / Cap Management

His free agent signings were solid while the contracts he gave his own players tended to be overly generous (with JC's really standing out in a bad way).  Mixed bag here.

 

Compared to our past GMs that is a solid overall resume with his highlight being the success he had on the non-lottery first round picks. 

[Vol4ever]

2 hours ago, JayBirdHawk said:

He built the team that got us the furthest we have ever been as a franchise? That's gotta count for something. No?

We did go to the ECF but after that?  

[JayBirdHawk]

17 minutes ago, Vol4ever said:

We did go to the ECF but after that?  

He was moved out 1 year after that...so unfinished. You also can't discount being hamstrung by ownership to stay under the tax.

[akay]

19 minutes ago, Vol4ever said:

We did go to the ECF but after that?  

Before that we hadn't gone there, so as bad as people are finding Travis, this is our peak for the last 50 years lol. Give man some props for that, we're still figuring out our current situation that'll prolly take at least another year to get through.

[Final_quest]

28 minutes ago, Vol4ever said:

We did go to the ECF but after that?  

They got drunk on their success and extended contracts and signed every rookie to a large deal.  A lot of the people unhappy with our outcome cheered on the decisions to retain everyone. 

 

33 minutes ago, AHF said:

This is an issue with a lot of teams / owners.  Once they taste success they want to jump right to the finish line instead of completing the original plan.  

Overall I think Schlenk was a pretty good GM and I don't ignore the fact that he constructed the team with the greatest playoff run in Atlanta Hawks history.

Drafting

My grades for Schlenk's first round picks off the top of my head (not the grades I gave at the time of the draft but with the benefit of hindsight):

JC #19 - A

Trae #5 - A

Huerter #19 - A

Hunter #4 - C+

Reddish #10 - F

OO #6 - B

JJ #20 - A

AJ #16 - B+ (haven't given up on him)

Compared to our past GMs that is a solid overall resume with his highlight being the success he had on the non-lottery first round picks. 

  Truly one of their big mistakes was incorrectly assessing that the job was done during the ECF.  I can't even fault them for the follow up move of trading for Murray.  

As one of Cam's biggest detractors I still don't see that pick as an F.  Agree with all the other draft grades.  Cam is still in the league, and he's even a starter now.  We at least got the Charlotte pick for him so it was tangible value that helped us land Murray.  I like seeing Cam mature into a positive on the court understanding his role.  

[macdaddy]

1 hour ago, AHF said:

Reddish #10 - F

I can't give him an F on that.  Cam is still a good player in the league and he had enough value for us to get a first back for him.  An F is Sheldon Williams. 

[AHF]

10 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

I can't give him an F on that.  Cam is still a good player in the league and he had enough value for us to get a first back for him.  An F is Sheldon Williams. 

Here is my thought process although as noted below I think the Shelden comparison is a great one:

Cam's time on the floor was garbage.  He netted a total of 0.6 Win Shares during his run with the Hawks.  That is worse than Bruno Fernando's first two seasons with the Hawks (+0.7 win shares for Bruno).  He was gifted a lot of minutes that he hadn't earned and hurt the team in those minutes more than he helped them.  That was an investment in his future.  Then was ungrateful enough to ask for a trade.  Because he asked for a trade it meant that all that investment in his future amounted to nothing.  It isn't a coincidence that after Hunter and Cam underachieved that the team had their best run when they were both injured.  Cam did have some real highlight games but overall we would have been better giving that time to just about anyone else.

The trade for Cam was a separate issue.  That was a good trade even though I hated giving up on his upside.  Trading him at that point and getting real value was like trading Adrein Payne and getting value.  Great trade in retrospect but doesn't make the pick any better.  

The F is because Cam didn't bring us any more value than Shelden did.  As with Shelden, both were used in trades that brought good players to the Hawks.  Shelden was part of the trade that brought Mike Bibby.  The asset we got for Cam was part of what brought in DM.  Good trades.  Bad picks.

I am not judging this based on "how good was the thought process that led to Cam at #10"?  I still feel like his very high upside made it a good gamble and wouldn't criticize a GM for making a similar gamble on a different player in the future (kind of feel like that is what we did with JJ for example).  Gambles can turn out for good or bad.  I am judging this one by how bad it turned out and there is just nothing positive to say for Cam's time in Atlanta much like Shelden's.  

You can make the case that Shelden was actually more productive for the Hawks:

Shelden: 11.8 PER / 2.7 Win Shares / -3.4 BPM / -0.7 VORP

Reddish:  10.1 PER / 0.6 Win Shares / -3.1 BPM / -1.0 VORP

[macdaddy]

12 minutes ago, AHF said:

You I can make the case that Shelden was actually more productive for the Hawks:

I corrected that because in no way would i ever make that case. 

All of what you said makes sense but in my opinion we're grading the GM on his pick not the player on his time here.  So picking Cam, as you said, wasn't a bad pick for Travis as evidenced by the fact that Cam is still in the league and at least right now playing very well.  That was a good pick by Travis.  And let's be honest, Cam might not be the knucklehead everyone makes him out to be.  He may be the smart one that saw this franchise for what it was and wanted a better opportunity.  Careers are short. 

[AHF]

1 minute ago, macdaddy said:

I corrected that because in no way would i ever make that case. 

All of what you said makes sense but in my opinion we're grading the GM on his pick not the player on his time here.  So picking Cam, as you said, wasn't a bad pick for Travis as evidenced by the fact that Cam is still in the league and at least right now playing very well.  That was a good pick by Travis.  And let's be honest, Cam might not be the knucklehead everyone makes him out to be.  He may be the smart one that saw this franchise for what it was and wanted a better opportunity.  Careers are short. 

You wouldn't make that case but you could because the numbers support it.  That is less about how good Shelden was and more about how bad Cam was by the numbers in a Hawks uniform.

As for how he has turned out, still TBD.  He is on his 4th team and has not yet achieved his first season with more than 1 Win Share (but at least is on pace to do it in this his 5th season) a feat that Shelden, OO, AJ, JC, and Huerter accomplished as rookies and which JJ and Hunter accomplished in their second seasons even though neither played much those two years (JJ has already done it this year as well despite being injured).  I've given up on Cam ever achieving the heights that I hoped he could reach but he could have his most significant season this year for sure.  (In which case he will hopefully improve on his woeful shooting YTD). 

[TheBigETrain]

On 12/12/2023 at 5:22 AM, AHF said:

This is an issue with a lot of teams / owners.  Once they taste success they want to jump right to the finish line instead of completing the original plan.  

Overall I think Schlenk was a pretty good GM and I don't ignore the fact that he constructed the team with the greatest playoff run in Atlanta Hawks history.

Drafting

My grades for Schlenk's first round picks off the top of my head (not the grades I gave at the time of the draft but with the benefit of hindsight):

JC #19 - A

Trae #5 - A

Huerter #19 - A

Hunter #4 - C+

Reddish #10 - F

OO #6 - B

JJ #20 - A

AJ #16 - B+ (haven't given up on him)

I expect nothing from second round picks and Schlenk delivered nothing from his second round picks.  No points earned for him there but I don't slam him either since my bar is so low for these.  Of course it would have been great to get a Brunson or Mitchell but those are outliers among second round picks where the vast, vast majority never do anything of note.

Not every pick to which I've given an A was the best player on the board (that would be an A+) but I feel those were outstanding value at that slot.  The Bs are very good value given who else was on the board even if I would probably lean a different direction with 20/20 hindsight.  The wingstop draft unfortunately was sold to fans as delivering the defensive core of the franchise for the next decade and just hasn't lived up to expectations there due most of all to Cam's failures in a Hawks uniform and his selfish decision to bail on Atlanta to get a higher profile role elsewhere (not realizing how good he already had it with a starting job he didn't earn on the court).

Trades

His trades are subpar on the whole.  He won some (CC / Delon) and lost more of them.  Not a complete black mark but not strong here.

Free Agency / Cap Management

His free agent signings were solid while the contracts he gave his own players tended to be overly generous (with JC's really standing out in a bad way).  Mixed bag here.

 

Compared to our past GMs that is a solid overall resume with his highlight being the success he had on the non-lottery first round picks. 

Can't rate drafting Trae as an A when they could of got Doncic. Best grade is a C given Reddish washed out and Doncic is a far superior player than Trae.

[AHF]

40 minutes ago, TheBigETrain said:

Can't rate drafting Trae as an A when they could have got Doncic. Best grade is a C given Reddish washed out and Doncic is a far superior player than Trae.

You are rating the trade not the pick.  The pick was the 5th in the draft and was better than the first pick in the draft by a large margin.  And the second pick.  And more relevantly everyone who was mocked near him who was on the board.

Again, if we missed in the draft like that all the time we would have a team of All-Stars and not one player who has 4 consecutive All-Star invitations and has never played with someone when they were invited.

[Diesel]

On 12/11/2023 at 2:31 PM, macdaddy said:

An F is Sheldon Williams. 

You say we traded Cam and got a first round pick...

Well, we traded Shelden and got Mike Bibby.

 

[macdaddy]

10 hours ago, Diesel said:

You say we traded Cam and got a first round pick...

Well, we traded Shelden and got Mike Bibby.

 

Kings were just dumping salary and tanking.  They just wanted low cost players and we had to send a pick along with him.  Cam's perceived value at the time of their trades from the Hawks was a lot more than Shelden's.