Hawks -- State of the Franchise

[tbhawksfan1]

No reason to trade OO unless you get an offer you can't refuse.

[Jamaaliver]

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Now Atlanta is struggling to stay afloat and looks like they’re about ready to start over. If they do go ahead and trade Murray, Young’s request shouldn’t be far behind. Young is just 25 years old and already has six years in the association. Why should he waste any more time on an organization that can’t figure it out? He loves the city and fan base, but he’s got to do what’s right for his career. Sitting around scoring a bunch of points and barely making the playoffs for the next three to five years doesn’t sound appealing.

[dms269]

While I can see Young requesting a trade, I also see him not liking to share the ball/attention with another top player. Trae is selfish and wants to be the center of any offense.

[Geaux_Hawks]

While I can see Young requesting a trade, I also see him not liking to share the ball/attention with another top player. Trae is selfish and wants to be the center of any offense.

Selfish?! How? I've never seen him do anything or display the characteristics of someone that's selfish.

[Geaux_Hawks]

Other than those two OO seems like a keeper.

NOTE: I really like OO, but he is an undersized Center in a lineup featuring an undersized PG. That makes it really difficult to build defensive lineups against big teams.

OO is a keeper in the sense that you play JJ at the 3, and you put OO next to a big that can score and provides length/size. No matter how we slice it, losing Clint is going to hurt a lot in terms of rebounding and defensive awareness. So keeping OO will be a step in the right direction moving forward considering his salary is dirt cheap for the impact he could provide with more minutes.

That said, I wouldn't be opposed to keeping CC instead of OO "IF" we went all in for Lauri or something similar. I just go back to when we had Gallo in the big lineups we played against Philly. It worked because you had someone like a Gallo, with a diverse skill set and giving you size in the FC. The kicker here is, we replace an overlapping player(Collins) with a more versatile skill set(JJ).

[Jamaaliver]

Selfish?! How? I've never seen him do anything or display the characteristics of someone that's selfish.

There have been definite signs of immaturity that border on selfishness.

The video room criticism of Trae's play by Collins that led to Trae pouting and playing timidly in response.

Code: Select all

Collins talked about the need to get into offensive sets more quickly and to limit all those early shot-clock attempts that leave his teammates on the outside looking in.

While there was no back-and-forth between the two players, the effects of that situation were certainly felt in the Hawks' next game, as Young finished with just seven points on only nine shot attempts in the loss to the Hornets...

The All-Star guard was viewed as disengaged from the offense during the game against Charlotte, oftentimes giving up the ball to other teammates to make plays and standing in one spot while he didn't have the ball in his hands.

Plus, whatever argument occurred between Trae and Nate that saw Trae not even attend a home game last season.

[Jamaaliver]

A phenomenal read:

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[Geaux_Hawks]

Selfish?! How? I've never seen him do anything or display the characteristics of someone that's selfish.

There have been definite signs of immaturity that border on selfishness.

The video room criticism of Trae's play by Collins that led to Trae pouting and playing timidly in response.

Code: Select all

Collins talked about the need to get into offensive sets more quickly and to limit all those early shot-clock attempts that leave his teammates on the outside looking in.

While there was no back-and-forth between the two players, the effects of that situation were certainly felt in the Hawks' next game, as Young finished with just seven points on only nine shot attempts in the loss to the Hornets...

The All-Star guard was viewed as disengaged from the offense during the game against Charlotte, oftentimes giving up the ball to other teammates to make plays and standing in one spot while he didn't have the ball in his hands.

Plus, whatever argument occurred between Trae and Nate that saw Trae not even attend a home game last season.

I remember that, but felt as though Trae was proving a point(Immature). Considering Nate basically looked for mismatches or iso-esque plays, Trae was the offense.

I mean I guess if you can use that for an example, but it's a tough buy for me. Trae's like any other star player. They're gonna take their shots whenever can. John Collins of all people critiquing the way Trae runs the offense isn't saying much to me. It sounded like he was just mad he wasn't getting the action he use to get.

[HMFFL]

The premise that this staff are essentially holding auditions for their system and JJ + Trae are the only ones excelling so far makes more sense everyday. Other than those two OO seems like a keeper.

I've been thinking about this DJ trade speculationand the why.

The biggest takeaway I'm getting is that in the 20 games that Quin took over last year he determined that DJ wasn't a fit since he was in the early trade talks for Pascal and wanted to move him. This would have been  around the draft and before FAcy started.

DJ then agreed to the contract extension July 6th and spend time with Trae and Quin working out over the summer (we saw the reports) to try and make it work.

I speculated previously, that the change in coaching from Nate to Quin had a ripple effect of what was discussed at the time of the trade from SAS. With DJ expecting more PG duties? Doesn't seem to be the case under Quin.

That's exactly it and is what I believe is the case too.
DJ was expecting to be more of a point man but it hasn't worked out that way. I can only hope we receive a package similar to what we gave for him.

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[HMFFL]

While I can see Young requesting a trade, I also see him not liking to share the ball/attention with another top player. Trae is selfish and wants to be the center of any offense.

Selfish and needs to mature is what I'm heading from management personnel that work at the area for all events.

Sent from my SM-N975U using RealGM mobile app

[Jamaaliver]

Ignoring the fact we barely won against the Embiid-less 76ers, is it possibly too soon to give up on the Dejountrae pairing?

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[D21]

While I can see Young requesting a trade, I also see him not liking to share the ball/attention with another top player. Trae is selfish and wants to be the center of any offense.

Selfish?! How? I've never seen him do anything or display the characteristics of someone that's selfish.

I saw him selfish sometimes, and one have to look over his assists numbers to see why he can be selfish.
Fro example, I remember last season two games Vs ORL where he clearly played like this:
scoring a bit but mainly getting 10 AST, and once there, no more or almost no more AST but focusing on getting 30pts. And only once the 30/10 were reached, he played as the team needed.

Did you look at the 7 games series he's done recently: if it was done playing 32min like he should, or a little bit more, but no, playing more than 40min two games in a row, on a back-to-back?... seriously? it was not to win the game, but for a personal stat record
Since this series, there's at least two games where he needed one basket or one AST to get the 30/10, and he will plays as much as he can to get it.

There would no problem if this team was built correctly, because if opponents defense has to focus on all players, he would get his 30/10 easily.
The 30/10 would be a consequence of the team playing right.
But as it's right now, it's a goal, and not a consequence, and when he's around this goal, it doesn't mean the team is winning or playing it's best bball.

[Geaux_Hawks]

While I can see Young requesting a trade, I also see him not liking to share the ball/attention with another top player. Trae is selfish and wants to be the center of any offense.

Selfish?! How? I've never seen him do anything or display the characteristics of someone that's selfish.

I saw him selfish sometimes, and one have to look over his assists numbers to see why he can be selfish.
Fro example, I remember last season two games Vs ORL where he clearly played like this:
scoring a bit but mainly getting 10 AST, and once there, no more or almost no more AST but focusing on getting 30pts. And only once the 30/10 were reached, he played as the team needed.

Did you look at the 7 games series he's done recently: if it was done playing 32min like he should, or a little bit more, but no, playing more than 40min two games in a row, on a back-to-back?... seriously? it was not to win the game, but for a personal stat record
Since this series, there's at least two games where he needed one basket or one AST to get the 30/10, and he will plays as much as he can to get it.

There would no problem if this team was built correctly, because if opponents defense has to focus on all players, he would get his 30/10 easily.
The 30/10 would be a consequence of the team playing right.
But as it's right now, it's a goal, and not a consequence, and when he's around this goal, it doesn't mean the team is winning or playing it's best bball.

I think the misconception lies in that we are a poorly built team, that's an amalgamation of middling talent, not so great fits, and inconsistency. Because of this, we have to rely so much on Trae to begin with. Trae has to set the table and then turn around and whip up 5 course meals because he's practically the only one capable.

That's changing somewhat with the rise of JJ, and i'm not saying guys like DJM or Bogi can't handle the load, but the latter 2 are part of the inconsistencies we see, while JJ just recently got the opportunity to shine after the Collins trade. So imo, what has appeared to be selfish play, is more like what other choice does he have? I don't think Nate's style of coaching helped either, and Quinn's having to break the bad habits that Nate instilled(whether it was done intentionally or not).

IDK if i'm making a big deal out of something that's not necessarily needed to defend, but I do believe selfish is a bit harsh. Trae definitely has his fair share of mistakes and bad decisions, but I wouldn't hold that against him a whole lot.

[Jamaaliver]

NBA Power Rankings

23. Atlanta Hawks (15-21)

Previous Rank: 22
Net Rating: -1.4

The Atlanta Hawks may finally be crawling out of their season-long rut, thanks in large part to Trae Young.

If you shave the seven-game cold start off his numbers, Young's averaging 29.5 points, 11.2 assists and 3.8 threes, while shooting 38.0 percent from deep.

And that production is finally translating to some wins.

The Hawks are 3-2 in their last five, with both losses coming on the road and two of the wins coming over the Oklahoma City Thunder and Philadelphia 76ers (who were without Joel Embiid, but still).

Bleacher Report

[Jamaaliver]

[Jamaaliver]

The Atlanta Hawks have hit bottom

Can their season be saved?



Washington 127, Atlanta 99.

Yikes. The Hawks have hit rock bottom … right? Right?!

Well, things can always get worse, but if this isn’t the exact bottom, the Hawks can certainly see it from there.

The least bad move for the Hawks from this point would probably be to pivot to a soft tanking that generates a relatively high pick in the 2024 draft (they still have that pick), which could yield either young talent (although this draft isn’t well-regarded) or a trade chip.

Otherwise, the pressure is on the front office of Landry Fields to remake this team, and on Snyder to shape it into something better than what we’ve seen thus far.

Young is an offensive maestro with clear defensive weaknesses that must be masked by the rest of the roster, but the 2021 run showed how this is possible. Johnson is a rising force who is still under a team-friendly rookie contract for another season and is the other obvious keeper. After that, everything should be on the table, and league sources say that is indeed the case. (My spies say the Hawks also have described rookie guard Kobe Bufkin as untouchable, but would they walk away from a deal over him?)

If the Hawks plan to pivot toward a focus of next season, it would help if some of their younger players got some run. Bufkin was injured last week but had been killing it in the G League before then. It seems like playing him should be a higher priority than sending out 25-year-old two-way Trent Forrest.

Similarly, 2022 first-rounder AJ Griffin has been nailed to the bench while the Hawks trot out veteran retreads...that might have been defensible when the goals were loftier earlier this season, but we’re long past that point.

The Athletic

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