GT#37 HAWKS @ RAPTORS Jan 5th @ 7:30 PM EST on TSN/590

[tsherkin]

NAW (9th year - 27yr) is a good example of being patience with prospects. (if they can stay healthy)

In fairness, he's been showing the three most of his career to date. He's scored double-digit PPG in two prior seasons. Everything's been trending up for him across his career, and he's made some noteworthy strides since he's been heathy these past few years. He's heavily assisted, crushing it from the corner. A quarter of his FGA come in transition, and they have an absolutely dynamite transition playmaker in JJ. Half of his shots are 3s (a quarter of which come from the corner), and he's horrendous whenever he's actively on-ball.

He's basically a 3+D guy who moves well in transition. You get enough opportunity at tempo, and that's what happens. He's good, don't get me wrong, but 35 games into his season with that specific setup while playing for the 3rd-fastest team in the league, it would be easy to look at his raw volume and mistake him for something else.

[Kingsway_fan]

Raps need to show shrewdness to sign talent below market prices, like this, to balance the overpays that continue to bottleneck the franchise...

[Westside Gunn]

This won't be an easy one might be tight

[HMFFL]

Raptors are favored to win by 2.5 points.

Raptors should have no issues beating the Hawks for the forth time this season.

Raptors have won 5 straight against the Hawks.

[mdenny]

We should have a standings watch thread.

The East seems tight. We have a major 7 games coming up for us too. This game, Hornets, and then Celtics/Philly are major games where we can add distance between us and the others to maintain homecourt in the first round. The 2nd seed seems to be very possible for us and I would expect the Pistons to drop down the standings. That first seed isn't out of the question.

We had some serious injuries this season already. The most notable being Poeltl. Once he's back we should be firing on all cylinders and be able to push for a strong finish to the season.

I really think we should consider a cheap C option even if we need to throw in a 2027 1st rounder. If we could have our back up SGs show up consistently then RJ + 1st for a long term C option would be the ideal trade. Another defensive C that can deter shots at the rim would be incredible for us.

I feel like there is a much bigger chance we finish 8th seed or lower than we do the 1st seed.

Also, after seeing what RJ can do for our team, just throwing him into trades is wild

Our best case scenario this year is Poeltl takes off a month or two and comes back and is like 90% of what we know he can be.

I didnt know we are playing the hawks twice in a row. Gonna have to stay out of the game thread tonight because there's about 6 or 7 posters that are going to fixate on the Barnes v jalen matchup and if Jalen gets the edge.....they're gonna get super grumpy and start throwing all Barnes' teammates under the bus.

Why don't they convert Barnes potential assists? Barnes was wide open on that play. Barnes needs more of this and needs more of that. I bet that's what happened on saturday.

Neither player is at the level wherein their individual stats determine the outcome...it's two top 40 players....so the fixation on it is just purely agenda-driven.

[SFour]

Should get an update on Poeltl soon, it's been a week

[dozo]

NAW (9th year - 27yr) is a good example of being patience with prospects. (if they can stay healthy)

In fairness, he's been showing the three most of his career to date. He's scored double-digit PPG in two prior seasons. Everything's been trending up for him across his career, and he's made some noteworthy strides since he's been heathy these past few years. He's heavily assisted, crushing it from the corner. A quarter of his FGA come in transition, and they have an absolutely dynamite transition playmaker in JJ. Half of his shots are 3s (a quarter of which come from the corner), and he's horrendous whenever he's actively on-ball.

He's basically a 3+D guy who moves well in transition. You get enough opportunity at tempo, and that's what happens. He's good, don't get me wrong, but 35 games into his season with that specific setup while playing for the 3rd-fastest team in the league, it would be easy to look at his raw volume and mistake him for something else.

Fair enough on the shot selection. I’ve only watched four Hawks games this season. From what I’ve seen, he’s clearly capable of dribble penetration and scoring in the paint. From my perspective, he’s become more than just a 3D guard. (His role for the Wolves last year)

Below is link of his last game vs raptors.

https://youtu.be/0nZQn3EOPRU?si=672G9PznicNJuJt0

[Tor_Raps]

Hawks have been a really good team everytime Porgingis is in the lineup. They could easily today it today since its tough to beat a team 4 times in such a short period.

[tsherkin]

Fair enough on the shot selection. I’ve only watched four Hawks games this season. From what I’ve seen, he’s clearly capable of dribble penetration and scoring in the paint. From my perspective, he’s become more than just a 3D guard. (His role for the Wolves last year)

I don't mean to bag on NAW. I think he's slotting in particularly well for Atlanta, and brings some much-needed value to the team. I just wanted to point out that no one really cared about him until that volume increase happened, and 50% of his shot volume is happening because of how Atlanta (and JJ, in particular) runs its offense. So for him to work out in a similar fashion, we'd have to do something similar. And we are presently 21st in the league in terms of pace, you know?

Now, would he be instantly more valuable than most of our bench guys if we could afford to acquire him without destroying our roster? Absolutely, we could use what he brings for sure.

[Tripod]

We should have a standings watch thread.

The East seems tight. We have a major 7 games coming up for us too. This game, Hornets, and then Celtics/Philly are major games where we can add distance between us and the others to maintain homecourt in the first round. The 2nd seed seems to be very possible for us and I would expect the Pistons to drop down the standings. That first seed isn't out of the question.

We had some serious injuries this season already. The most notable being Poeltl. Once he's back we should be firing on all cylinders and be able to push for a strong finish to the season.

I really think we should consider a cheap C option even if we need to throw in a 2027 1st rounder. If we could have our back up SGs show up consistently then RJ + 1st for a long term C option would be the ideal trade. Another defensive C that can deter shots at the rim would be incredible for us.

I feel like there is a much bigger chance we finish 8th seed or lower than we do the 1st seed.

Also, after seeing what RJ can do for our team, just throwing him into trades is wild

Our best case scenario this year is Poeltl takes off a month or two and comes back and is like 90% of what we know he can be.

I didnt know we are playing the hawks twice in a row. Gonna have to stay out of the game thread tonight because there's about 6 or 7 posters that are going to fixate on the Barnes v jalen matchup and if Jalen gets the edge.....they're gonna get super grumpy and start throwing all Barnes' teammates under the bus.

Why don't they convert Barnes potential assists? Barnes was wide open on that play. Barnes needs more of this and needs more of that. I bet that's what happened on saturday.

Neither player is at the level wherein their individual stats determine the outcome...it's two top 40 players....so the fixation on it is just purely agenda-driven.

Barnes lives rent free in your head....lol. And talk about agenda....

[Tripod]

Hawks have been a really good team everytime Porgingis is in the lineup. They could easily today it today since its tough to beat a team 4 times in such a short period.

Yup. He will give them extra shooting from 3 and 2 more long arms inside for BI, Barnes and RJ to deal with.

Hope CMB, Barnes, Mamu don't get dominated in rebounding.

[TheRaptor!]

Raptors are favored to win by 2.5 points.

Raptors should have no issues beating the Hawks for the forth time this season.

Raptors have won 5 straight against the Hawks.

i dont see a win

no one wants to get swept i think we lose

[Spida888]

Porzingis back with Poeltl still out makes this more competitive than the last game. I would like to see Bamba play more outside of garbage minutes to see if he can help with rebounding.

[Tripod]

Fair enough on the shot selection. I’ve only watched four Hawks games this season. From what I’ve seen, he’s clearly capable of dribble penetration and scoring in the paint. From my perspective, he’s become more than just a 3D guard. (His role for the Wolves last year)

I don't mean to bag on NAW. I think he's slotting in particularly well for Atlanta, and brings some much-needed value to the team. I just wanted to point out that no one really cared about him until that volume increase happened, and 50% of his shot volume is happening because of how Atlanta (and JJ, in particular) runs its offense. So for him to work out in a similar fashion, we'd have to do something similar. And we are presently 21st in the league in terms of pace, you know?

Now, would he be instantly more valuable than most of our bench guys if we could afford to acquire him without destroying our roster? Absolutely, we could use what he brings for sure.

Yeah reality is if we grabbed him in the offseason, he would he a good bench guy for us with a Mamu like impact...approx 10 ppg.

NAW is getting 15.8 FGA/game. RJ and Barnes are under 15. He just wouldn't get the opportunity here as he has there...so good for him for taking advantage of the opportunity.

[ash_k]

11-8 at home
10-7 away
is a strange record
then Remove those 4 unacceptable losses against Char2x, BKN and Was
12-7 at home
13-4 away (signs of dominance....)

Anyway so it is ATL, we are supposed to win, Darko, right?!

[tsherkin]

Yeah reality is if we grabbed him in the offseason, he would he a good bench guy for us with a Mamu like impact...approx 10 ppg.

NAW is getting 15.8 FGA/game. RJ and Barnes are under 15. He just wouldn't get the opportunity here as he has there...so good for him for taking advantage of the opportunity.

Indeed. We could use NAW in a role as he'd experienced prior to this season, no problem. But there's a much lower chance that our team as constructed could get him where he is now. He's THRIVING off of what JJ is doing for the Hawks, and we just don't run like that.

[YogurtProducer]

I feel like there is a much bigger chance we finish 8th seed or lower than we do the 1st seed.

Also, after seeing what RJ can do for our team, just throwing him into trades is wild

Our best case scenario this year is Poeltl takes off a month or two and comes back and is like 90% of what we know he can be.

I didnt know we are playing the hawks twice in a row. Gonna have to stay out of the game thread tonight because there's about 6 or 7 posters that are going to fixate on the Barnes v jalen matchup and if Jalen gets the edge.....they're gonna get super grumpy and start throwing all Barnes' teammates under the bus.

Why don't they convert Barnes potential assists? Barnes was wide open on that play. Barnes needs more of this and needs more of that. I bet that's what happened on saturday.

Neither player is at the level wherein their individual stats determine the outcome...it's two top 40 players....so the fixation on it is just purely agenda-driven.

Barnes lives rent free in your head....lol. And talk about agenda....

I am so confused when he quoted me there.. Idk how anything I said had anything to do with what he replied

[Brinbe]

NAW was already doing all this in Minnesota as their key scorer off-the-bench, they just couldn't afford to keep him. But good on the Hawks for bringing him on-board. And it is great to see him rmake good on his potential after things looked a bit shaky early on with the Pels and Jazz.

[CazOnReal]

Hawks have been a really good team everytime Porgingis is in the lineup. They could easily today it today since its tough to beat a team 4 times in such a short period.

Have you seen Tingus Pingus play for the Hawks this season?

[TravisScott55]

very hard to sweep a team like this