ATL Boy wrote:This team is not in a better position right now having stood pat with Millsap, letting Horford walk and paying Bazemore $70 million when (so far) the production has not been there rather than getting a couple of young pieces for Millsap, paying Horford, and not signing Bazemore to that contract. While we lose Millsap, like you said, we still would have kept Horford.
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Wishing,
and hoping,
and praying.
You are presenting
your ideal scenario even if it flies in the face of all the facts and logic that occurred over the summer with cherry picked revisionist history.
1) Al Horford did not leave the Atlanta Hawks over money. This is revisionist history part 1. If you hear him tell it "Boston gave him the best chance at a championship" over playing with both Millsap and Dwight or whatever package could have been coupled together for Millsap. If an All Star frontcourt or an All Star Center with young players didn't make Al budge then certainly Oladipo, Sabonis (whom the Hawks surely would have selected as well as being as that's who their target at 12 was) and Ilyasova wouldn't have. You hear his family tell it, Atlanta sucks.
The money was a ruse, you do not get offered 20 million more than any other team to be secure through the age of 35 where you are heavily unlikely to recoup that money and then quibble over 6 million.
2) Revisionist history part 2 is your belief that Kent Bazemore had any factor in the Hawks refusal to go all in in a full max offer for Horford. It didn't, but if it did then certainly you would have to accept that, following that logic, trading for a player seeking a full max himself but in hindsight ending up with 85 million would have drastically impacted any max offer made to Horford. Read this as: the Hawks would have been even less likely to offer Horf his money.
3) Revisionist history part 3, the decision to resign Bazemore, a G-F who started at SF is highly unlikely to have been impacted by the arrival of Oladipo, a combo guard. Having Sabonis in tow and a new roster crunch of having 3 incoming players for 1 I'd say there's a good chance the Hawks even change their draft plans, perhaps trade one if not both of the 12 and 21 picks, right? Because if you're intention is bringing back Horford and going out for a Dwight you'd feel comfortable selling them on a roster with three rookies and two 4th year players to go along with Korver and Thabo as the vets, right? Read this as: why are you so confident Horford would have resigned to a rebuilding roster or Dwight for that matter?
4) If you feel sick paying a guy 70 million after a season of 13.4 PER, TS% of 55% and WS/48 of .94 then you should feel especially sick knowing that a guy having a season of 13.5 PER, TS% of 54% and WS/48 of .84 is due 85 million. Oladipo is not very good, he's a ball dominant combo that was allowed to chuck away on a lotto team but has struggled to make an impact beyond being a role player next to a superior ball dominant scoring point guard. That sounds a lot similar to Dennis, doesn't it? Age be damned, Oladipo has to reconstruct his game if the expectation is some star impact. Bazemore may have regressed considerably as a role player but Oladipo is developing into a highly overpaid one.
But if age is such a factor, Look at this
http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&hint=Victor+Oladipo&player_id1_select=Victor+Oladipo&y1=2017&player_id1=oladivi01&hint=Tim+Hardaway&player_id2_select=Tim+Hardaway&y2=2017&player_id2=hardati02I don't know what people are seeing, they killed trading the 15th pick for Hardaway but have been dying to move Teague and now Millsap for the same version of a player. This is why I take opinions on "value" and the team "being in a better position" with a grain of salt.
