The Picks.. The Picks... The Picks... Atlanta Hawks fanbase just don't get it?

[Diesel]

I am so tired of hearing so many Hawks fans bitching about the fact that we traded  3 first rounders with San Antonio for Dejounte Murray. 

That was literally the trade.  Gallo was added for Salary matching and San Antonio immediately dropped him.   So the trade was DJ for 3 picks.  One of those picks was a pick from Charlotte that may not never be cashed in... So really we're talking 2 picks and some second round picks..

So for this intelligent fanbase..

How much do you think it cost to get an Allstar?

We got an Allstar guard in his prime... for 2 FRPs and a pair of 2nd rounders.   What did you want to spend?  Let me guess... 1 1st round pick??

The truth is had this worked out, that pick would have been late twenties.   Trae = Allstar;  DJ = Allstar...  + Young Playoff team...  should have been late picks.. somewhere around 26 in the draft.   What do you think they should get at 26?  I'll tell you.. Bullshit and nothing of consequence. 

So in other words, you wanted an Allstar player for Free?

And now you're bitching because San Antonio said, we're just not giving away our Allstar player?

 

I often Joke... half seriously about you guys crying about missing your draft parties.   I think it's real.   You guys are bitching because you miss your draft parties.    Even saw somebody asking San Antonio to reverse the trade?

San Antonio isn't the ones that blew it.  We blew it. 

We blew it by...

1. Not bringing in the right Front Office.
2. Not making good decisions to bring in good players to surround DJ with. 
3. Making dumb trades. 
4. Picking the wrong coach. 

Stop bitching about the picks.   The trade, like it or not, was fair.  We were foolish for not capitalizing from the trade.   We didn't do what was needed when we brought in DJ... That's on us.  Because had we done the right things...

 We'd be a better team, top 4 in the East... and those picks would be late round picks that are meaningless.

 

 

 

 

[JeffS17]

DJ isnt an allstar which is why hes never made an allstar team, with the exception of the year he replaced Draymond.  With that said, I agree with you two firsts for him is fair enough imo, but we also gave a swap and a third first that still have value

[Diesel]

10 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

DJ isnt an allstar which is why hes never made an allstar team, with the exception of the year he replaced Draymond.  With that said, I agree with you two firsts for him is fair enough imo, but we also gave a swap and a third first that still have value

The Charlotte First will be devalued down to 2 2nd round picks because they will never leave the lottery. 

So it's 2 FRPs...  2 2nd Round picks and a Pick Swap.

At the time of the trade, we had been to the ECFs and to the Playoffs and we were getting a player who had averaged 21, 9, and 8 in his prime.

What does that cost?

What is a reasonable expectation for a player that's 21, 9, and 8..  and although not a voted in Allstar, he was an allstar by replacement.   Meaning that he was considered.  They just don't take anybody. 

What should that cost?

Hawks fans would have you to believe that we gave up something valuable.   IF we had done what we were supposed to do and put the right players around DJ and Trae, then we'd would have been a top team for years to come and those picks would have been nothing. 

But to listen to all the crying, you would think that we lost Wimby?

 

[AHF]

My comment at the time was that we should have had protection of some kind on one or more of our picks or swaps.  We could end up giving three elite lottery picks if things jump the rails here.  That would be a brutal overpay.  The picks we have were based on the assumption that we would be a playoff team but there is no protection aligned with that,  If we aren’t a playoff team, then SA gets a huge windfall.

[ShooterSays]

If we were a top 4 team in the East, a contender, no one would really care about transferring 2 FRP’s in the 20’s to the Spurs and a pick swap that wasn’t going to happen.

BUT…

The problem is, the pieces don’t fit right. We’re too small. We can’t defend. We’re a cluster f*** and it looks like 3 top 10 picks are about to go to a team that just got Wemby.

[Wretch]

So, it's not a bad trade as much as it looks poorly negotiated.  IE - The car is great, we just paid the sticker price for it.

Same as the Joe Johnson trade IMO. 

[Diesel]

14 hours ago, AHF said:

My comment at the time was that we should have had protection of some kind on one or more of our picks or swaps.  We could end up giving three elite lottery picks if things jump the rails here.  That would be a brutal overpay.  The picks we have were based on the assumption that we would be a playoff team but there is no protection aligned with that,  If we aren’t a playoff team, then SA gets a huge windfall.

That's true.  However, there was nothing that said that we wouldn't be a playoff team.   But you're right... there could have been injury and we should have prepared for that.  But still .. everybody talks as though it was an overpay.  At the time, even having the protections off doesn't make it an overpay.  You don't get good players in their prime for nothing. 

 

[Diesel]

4 hours ago, ShooterSays said:

BUT…

The problem is, the pieces don’t fit right. We’re too small. We can’t defend. We’re a cluster f*** and it looks like 3 top 10 picks are about to go to a team that just got Wemby.

This is not San Antonio's fault.. and honestly it's not the deal's fault either.   IT'S OUR FAULT.

This is where we like to put on the Blinders.  When we made the move to get DJ... Every move after that should have been a move to make sure that we have the right pieces to compete.   

We did the opposite.  OUR FAULT.

We traded off players for Cap Space.  OUR FAULT.

We traded away size for nothing.  OUR FAULT.

We pick the wrong coaches.  OUR FAULT.

Stop blaming the deal. 

 

 

[Wretch]

2 minutes ago, Diesel said:

This is not San Antonio's fault.. and honestly it's not the deal's fault either.   IT'S OUR FAULT.

This is where we like to put on the Blinders.  When we made the move to get DJ... Every move after that should have been a move to make sure that we have the right pieces to compete.   

We did the opposite.  OUR FAULT.

We traded off players for Cap Space.  OUR FAULT.

We traded away size for nothing.  OUR FAULT.

We pick the wrong coaches.  OUR FAULT.

Stop blaming the deal. 

 

 

These are fair points, but it honestly feels like we're talking past each other here.  The "overpay" (for lack of a better word) and mismanagement you're drawing attention to have areas of overlap. 

[Diesel]

3 minutes ago, Wretch said:

These are fair points, but it honestly feels like we're talking past each other here.  The "overpay" (for lack of a better word) and mismanagement you're drawing attention to have areas of overlap. 

It's cause and effect really.

The mismanagement leads us to where we are and thus, instead of talking about a 25, and 26th pick in the draft, we're talking about something higher...  maybe 13 and 15. 

So the mismanagement leads to "Overpay"... but 13th and 15th.. I don't consider overpay for what we got.   We got a 21, 9, 8 player at age 26... who had just played in the Allstar game.   We got him for what could be the 13 and 15th pick in the draft and possibly a pick swap.   I don't call that an overpay.   But let's say you do..

The "overpay" is because of the mismanagement.  Better would have been putting protections on the picks. 

 

It's like... Somebody buying a new truck to help with their business.   They got this 2024 Ford F150 for 33k.

2025, they go out of business because the business went Belly up. 

At that point, the Truck has very little use to the owner.  It's still a good truck.  He can still drive it.  It will still get him from point a to point b...   There's nothing wrong with the truck.

But the Owner is spending day and night crying that he spent 33k for the truck and saying it was a bad deal. 

The deal wasn't bad when you bought the truck.  Honestly, it was a steal.  It's a very good truck.  It's your fault that the business went belly up. You can still use the truck.  You would have to restart the business.   But now, you're trying to trade the truck for a 2007 Honda civic and 5k.   The civic is approaching 200k miles but you don't care because you will have 5k in hand. 

 

STOP BLAMING THE DEAL.

 

[AHF]

It is an overpay if you don’t protect picks that should have been protected.  It isn’t like an injury to Trae doesn’t basically guarantee a high lottery pick.  This is foreseeable that it could happen in a variety of ways.  And it was a risk that was foreseen by posters at the time we made the trade.

[NBASupes]

On 1/14/2024 at 9:56 AM, Wretch said:

So, it's not a bad trade as much as it looks poorly negotiated.  IE - The car is great, we just paid the sticker price for it.

Same as the Joe Johnson trade IMO. 

The Joe trade was an overpay but this has the making to be a worse overpay than Billy King's Brooklyn/Celtics deal. We don't have a Kyrie or Kevin Durant to save us either. 

[Diesel]

On 1/16/2024 at 11:52 AM, NBASupes said:

The Joe trade was an overpay but this has the making to be a worse overpay than Billy King's Brooklyn/Celtics deal. We don't have a Kyrie or Kevin Durant to save us either. 

This was a very foolish take.

Joe Johnson made 7 allstar teams as a Hawk.  This helps the reader to understand the skewed valuation mentioned in this post.   A player that made 7 allstar teams and who will be a Hall of Famer and did most of his work with this franchise was an "overpay" because it costed Boris Diaw and 2 1st round picks.   Boris Diaw + Robin Lopez + Taylor Griffin  > Joe Johnson?

If this is what is believed to be an overpay....  Don't speak on DJ.

 

[Wretch]

17 hours ago, Diesel said:

This was a very foolish take.

Joe Johnson made 7 allstar teams as a Hawk.  This helps the reader to understand the skewed valuation mentioned in this post.   A player that made 7 allstar teams and who will be a Hall of Famer and did most of his work with this franchise was an "overpay" because it costed Boris Diaw and 2 1st round picks.   Boris Diaw + Robin Lopez + Taylor Griffin  > Joe Johnson?

If this is what is believed to be an overpay....  Don't speak on DJ.

 

You know what's crazy about this...?  The fact that we protected our picks. Had we not, it's pretty eye opening evaluating what the deal could have been.

We gave them the Lakers pick in the 2006 NBA draft - that became Rajon Rondo.  We took Shelden Williams, but there's a lot of talent from 1-14 they could have selected from LaMarcus Aldridge, Brandon Roy, Rudy Gay, JJ Riddick, or Thabo Sefalosha. 
Diaw + Rondo + the lesser of the talent pool available is an even swap. The higher side of that talent pool makes this a better deal for Phoenix.

But say we only protected the pick in 2006 though. Now that package is Diaw + Rajon Rondo + Kevin Durant, Al Horford, or Mike Conley (asset since Pho already has a PG).  Joe Johnson is not worth that.

There are a couple other considerations here.  First, all of the lottery picks have "potential" value as an asset.  So while in hindsight we can see the total valuation, if you look at these as assets in the context of the timeframe...there's no telling how they could have been used. 

More importantly though, Sarver kept a tight payroll.  Although JJ was a breakout player, he was still a 4th option in Phoenix.  There was a strong belief that Phoenix would not match a max contract offer.  There was no negotiation from our end though because Billy Knight was enamored with Joe Johnson.  JJ was to be the point guard in BK's all 6'8" vision and why we passed on all of the fantastic PG options when everyone in the world knew that we needed one. He would have paid any price and he did.

Also in our favor was the fact that Joe Johnson asked out.  There was no competition for him.  Clevlend was the only other real suitor.  They got cold feet and went after Jerry Brickhouse.  Boris Diaw + 1 declining protected pick is a fair deal (and unnecessary IMO) and less risky deal than we gave up.  We could have been singing a different tune had there been no protection and Durant or Horford landed in Phoenix.

Yes Joe Johnson was an amazing signing for us.  Yes we overpaid for it.  The two points are not mutually exclusive and there is never a reason not to negotiate a deal as best you can.  In both cases, we failed.

[Diesel]

27 minutes ago, Wretch said:

You know what's crazy about this...?  The fact that we protected our picks. Had we not, it's pretty eye opening evaluating what the deal could have been.

We gave them the Lakers pick in the 2006 NBA draft - that became Rajon Rondo.  We took Shelden Williams, but there's a lot of talent from 1-14 they could have selected from LaMarcus Aldridge, Brandon Roy, Rudy Gay, JJ Riddick, or Thabo Sefalosha. 
Diaw + Rondo + the lesser of the talent pool available is an even swap. The higher side of that talent pool makes this a better deal for Phoenix.

But say we only protected the pick in 2006 though. Now that package is Diaw + Rajon Rondo + Kevin Durant, Al Horford, or Mike Conley (asset since Pho already has a PG).  Joe Johnson is not worth that.

There are a couple other considerations here.  First, all of the lottery picks have "potential" value as an asset.  So while in hindsight we can see the total valuation, if you look at these as assets in the context of the timeframe...there's no telling how they could have been used. 

More importantly though, Sarver kept a tight payroll.  Although JJ was a breakout player, he was still a 4th option in Phoenix.  There was a strong belief that Phoenix would not match a max contract offer.  There was no negotiation from our end though because Billy Knight was enamored with Joe Johnson.  JJ was to be the point guard in BK's all 6'8" vision and why we passed on all of the fantastic PG options when everyone in the world knew that we needed one. He would have paid any price and he did.

Also in our favor was the fact that Joe Johnson asked out.  There was no competition for him.  Clevlend was the only other real suitor.  They got cold feet and went after Jerry Brickhouse.  Boris Diaw + 1 declining protected pick is a fair deal (and unnecessary IMO) and less risky deal than we gave up.  We could have been singing a different tune had there been no protection and Durant or Horford landed in Phoenix.

Yes Joe Johnson was an amazing signing for us.  Yes we overpaid for it.  The two points are not mutually exclusive and there is never a reason not to negotiate a deal as best you can.  In both cases, we failed.

Even though we negotiated against ourselves... the deal is still a good one because the picks were protected.

Joe Johnson > Diaw, Robin Lopez, and whatever they got for Rondo.. which was Rudy Fernandez. 

 

[AHF]

3 hours ago, Wretch said:

You know what's crazy about this...?  The fact that we protected our picks. Had we not, it's pretty eye opening evaluating what the deal could have been.

We gave them the Lakers pick in the 2006 NBA draft - that became Rajon Rondo.  We took Shelden Williams, but there's a lot of talent from 1-14 they could have selected from LaMarcus Aldridge, Brandon Roy, Rudy Gay, JJ Riddick, or Thabo Sefalosha. 
Diaw + Rondo + the lesser of the talent pool available is an even swap. The higher side of that talent pool makes this a better deal for Phoenix.

But say we only protected the pick in 2006 though. Now that package is Diaw + Rajon Rondo + Kevin Durant, Al Horford, or Mike Conley (asset since Pho already has a PG).  Joe Johnson is not worth that.

There are a couple other considerations here.  First, all of the lottery picks have "potential" value as an asset.  So while in hindsight we can see the total valuation, if you look at these as assets in the context of the timeframe...there's no telling how they could have been used. 

More importantly though, Sarver kept a tight payroll.  Although JJ was a breakout player, he was still a 4th option in Phoenix.  There was a strong belief that Phoenix would not match a max contract offer.  There was no negotiation from our end though because Billy Knight was enamored with Joe Johnson.  JJ was to be the point guard in BK's all 6'8" vision and why we passed on all of the fantastic PG options when everyone in the world knew that we needed one. He would have paid any price and he did.

Also in our favor was the fact that Joe Johnson asked out.  There was no competition for him.  Clevlend was the only other real suitor.  They got cold feet and went after Jerry Brickhouse.  Boris Diaw + 1 declining protected pick is a fair deal (and unnecessary IMO) and less risky deal than we gave up.  We could have been singing a different tune had there been no protection and Durant or Horford landed in Phoenix.

Yes Joe Johnson was an amazing signing for us.  Yes we overpaid for it.  The two points are not mutually exclusive and there is never a reason not to negotiate a deal as best you can.  In both cases, we failed.

Fully agree with this take.  I do feel like the JJ was less of an overpay due to those protections but whether it was an overpay or not comes down not to whether it was worth it but whether you got the best deal you can.  

I'll give an imperfect analogy.  Imagine the 2018 Draft happening and two guys we are targeting are Nic Claxton and Cameron Johnson.  We could trade the #8 pick, the #17 pick and our 2021 future second round pick for the #4 pick and then take:

Cameron Johnson at #4 

Nic Claxton at #10

 

Or we could do the following.  Don't trade at all.

Take Cameron Johnson at #8

Take Tyler Herro at #10

Take Nic Claxton at #17

Then take Herbert Jones with the future 2nd round pick we traded (yes he was actually drafted by NO using that pick).

 

When you consider what could have been had we struck a better deal or made better use of our assets, that is where you can fairly term this as an "overpay" imo.  

 

But, again, the protections on the picks in the JJ trade at least helped cap the downside risk.  Figures we might have learned from that when we did the DM trade but apparently not.

[Diesel]

17 minutes ago, AHF said:

Fully agree with this take.  I do feel like the JJ was less of an overpay due to those protections but whether it was an overpay or not comes down not to whether it was worth it but whether you got the best deal you can.  

I'll give an imperfect analogy.  Imagine the 2018 Draft happening and two guys we are targeting are Nic Claxton and Cameron Johnson.  We could trade the #8 pick, the #17 pick and our 2021 future second round pick for the #4 pick and then take:

Cameron Johnson at #4 

Nic Claxton at #10

 

Or we could do the following.  Don't trade at all.

Take Cameron Johnson at #8

Take Tyler Herro at #10

Take Nic Claxton at #17

Then take Herbert Jones with the future 2nd round pick we traded (yes he was actually drafted by NO using that pick).

 

When you consider what could have been had we struck a better deal or made better use of our assets, that is where you can fairly term this as an "overpay" imo.  

 

But, again, the protections on the picks in the JJ trade at least helped cap the downside risk.  Figures we might have learned from that when we did the DM trade but apparently not.

You can't make an evaluation on any deal without consider the value of what was given up vs. the value of what was brought in.   You guys are playing too much of the coulda shoulda woulda game.   The coulda woulda shoulda game can allow you to always go back and reevaluate based on hypothetical stuff that didn't happen.

Next thing you know somebody will say.. But we could have traded that #10 and #17 for a #2 overall.. and it would have been more valuable.  That's not the proper way to do an evaluation.   This is how yall sound to me...

Spoiler

 

 

 

[AHF]

9 minutes ago, Diesel said:

You can't make an evaluation on any deal without consider the value of what was given up vs. the value of what was brought in.   You guys are playing too much of the coulda shoulda woulda game.   The coulda woulda shoulda game can allow you to always go back and reevaluate based on hypothetical stuff that didn't happen.

Next thing you know somebody will say.. But we could have traded that #10 and #17 for a #2 overall.. and it would have been more valuable.  That's not the proper way to do an evaluation.   This is how yall sound to me...

  Hide contents

 

 

 

If we trade DM for the #55 pick in this draft and he turns out to Manu Ginobili that will not make it a good trade.  People complained that we overpaid at the time of the trade.  It was the subject of a fight among our ownership.  This is not an after the fact theoretical issue.  It was very much a debate at the time just as I raised the question of the protection of DM's picks at the time of the trade.

[Diesel]

8 hours ago, AHF said:

If we trade DM for the #55 pick in this draft and he turns out to Manu Ginobili that will not make it a good trade.  People complained that we overpaid at the time of the trade.  It was the subject of a fight among our ownership.  This is not an after the fact theoretical issue.  It was very much a debate at the time just as I raised the question of the protection of DM's picks at the time of the trade.

The pick is the unknown.  The player is the known.  Joe Johnson was a very good player when we traded for him.  He became an even better player with us.   Those picks were just picks.   Could have been Durant, Could have been Roy Marble.   What they became was Robin Lopez and Rudy Fernandez.   You can't say that because they have potential..it's an overpay.  Just like they have potential to get you a good player, they had just as much potential to get you crap. 

[Final_quest]

I don’t think Murray was our big mistake.  Should have made a bigger move after the ECF run when the league valued our players.