Game Thread: Suns at Hawks -- 2/23

[peoriabird]

At least Collins is back in the double-double club again even though it was kind of a weak double double

[Nathan2331]

The Suns are weird... Oubre with 19 attempts, Booker with 20 attempts, Johnson with 15 attempts while their 1st pick in the draft has 8 attempts. What gives?

They need a real PG who can actually distribute the ball around evenly. Nobody actively looks to feed Ayton in the post and it's a shame because he's obviously talented.

[peoriabird]

Alex Len with another dud game....What's up with that him now?

[observer1995]

Alex Len with another dud game....What's up with that him now?

Meh, very unlikely to be a part of the future, if he is at all it's as a backup big, jayu70 is right, you're acting like we have the majority of the future players of the next playoff team. Quite possible we do not. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that we might only have 5 players that are a part of that next team, maximum. Very possible it's only 3 and maybe 1 player out of Prince or Bembry. It isn't being a "tanker" when I'm saying this. It's telling the truth.

I didn’t watch all of this game because I was sitting in a car going home for a pretty big portion of it, but for a decently long stretch, I feel we were reminded why the lineup with Prince and Bazemore both starting failed miserably. They would bring up the ball and try to do something themselves instead of deferring to Trae and it worked terribly. I obviously missed Prince’s great first half though. I don’t know, I think if anything leads to 25 wins after all, it probably won’t be him starting but rather Jaylen Adams not really being that good of a backup PG but I’m very far away from being convinced that he’s the answer on the wing. He might be a better talent than somebody else, but even better defense than a focused Prince is needed at SF. If you want to build around both Trae and Collins, it’ll have to involve putting great defenders around them.

[lethalweapon3]

Sorry I missed out! Got stuck film-binging all day @ AJFF. I'll post my meaningless pre(?)game draft later on.

In the meantime, in between time... "It Begins"?

Read on Twitter

~lw3

[peoriabird]

jayu70 is right, you're acting like we have the majority of the future players of the next playoff team..

You have me mixed up with someone else. I've said that the only guy that I see worth anything is Trae Young. John can be too easily neutralized on the boards and isn't efficient now like he was earlier. Huerter could develop later but that's it. I've never had anything good to say about Price or Bembry. Although I do like Dedmon though. Adam is absolute garbage.

[Nathan2331]

That was quick after the game too. Must've been searching his name on Twitter as soon as he started heading to the locker room. You'd think that would be something simple to settle internally, but when you lack leadership I suppose cooler heads won't prevail.

[Jamaaliver]

Read on Twitter

[IheartTHEhurt]

jayu70 is right, you're acting like we have the majority of the future players of the next playoff team..

You have me mixed up with someone else. I've said that the only guy that I see worth anything is Trae Young. John can be too easily neutralized on the boards and isn't efficient now like he was earlier. Huerter could develop later but that's it. I've never had anything good to say about Price or Bembry. Although I do like Dedmon though. Adam is absolute garbage.

This is how I see things in a nutshell to be honest. I mean Young is a future star in my mind, and I think Collins and Huerter are real keepers for the future and could be real impact players. Maybe you are being a little hard on Collins cause talent he has loads to spare. As far as Prince goes he is a sixth man at best and Bembry a defensive specialist at best.

Spell man will never be a factor along with Len.. Sorry bit it is what it is

[ATL Boy]

The Suns are the worst case scenario of what a tankjob could turn into - this is year 4 or 5 of their tank and they just lost their 17th game in a row and are neck and neck with NYK for title of the worst team in the nba.

Squandering a top 5 pick has become a yearly tradition for them and we’re already more advanced than them in year 2 of our rebuild. With their dreadful owner I can’t help but feel bad for that fan base.

[King Ken]

The Suns are the worst case scenario of what a tankjob could turn into - this is year 4 or 5 of their tank and they just lost their 17th game in a row and are neck and neck with NYK for title of the worst team in the nba.

Squandering a top 5 pick has become a yearly tradition for them and we’re already more advanced than them in year 2 of our rebuild. With their dreadful owner I can’t help but feel bad for that fan base.

They are the example of what poor acquisition of quality veterans looks like. You gotta get quality vets.

[Spud2nique]

Devin Melo Booker...

[kg01]

Devin Melo Booker...

You see it now too?

At least young Melo actually won a bit.

Booker don't win nuthin. And he's already been max'd. Yikes.

[Spud2nique]

Devin Melo Booker...

You see it now too?

At least young Melo actually won a bit.

Booker don't win nuthin. And he's already been max'd. Yikes.

Ya a couple year ago I said oh man we missed on Booker....now I say thank god we dodged Booker..



Yes I see it now and it’s scary for the Suns. This kind of fake superstar handcuffs a franchise for 10 years..

Suns and Knicks needs a restart top to bottom..from ownership on down.

[lethalweapon3]

Sorry I missed out! Got stuck film-binging all day @ AJFF. I'll post my meaningless pre(?)game draft later on.

~lw3

Phew! Ahead of tonight’s tanktastic follow-up match with the hurtling Phoenix Suns (7:00 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, Fox Sports Arizona), are our Atlanta Hawks pooped? I know I sure the heck am.

Lob a few million dollars on the table for me, and then tell me I’d have to spend my Friday night chasing around Reggie Jackson for 35 minutes, and then my Saturday evening tracking Devin Booker’s taillights, and I would certainly, definitely, absolutely… consider the offer.

“Young legs!” That’s what folks like me simplistically say to our peers, about the whippersnappers roughly half our ages running around here doing way too much. Running laps up and down the Beltline, workouts involving truck tires, sopping up all the available minutes that come attached to their 24 Hour Fitness keychains. “That’s them young legs, right there!”, we tell each other, met with assuring nods and an occasional “mm-hmm,” as we each look on with our tooshes safely parked somewhere.

Our local WNBA legend Angel McCoughtry has had a star-crossed professional history, but embedded in her likely Hall of Fame legacy was her advocacy to eliminate back-to-backs from her league’s calendar. “Players play too much and too long all year around,” Angel told the AJC in 2016. Those who look only at their 32-game regular-season schedule and tsk-tsk tend to overlook the globetrotting necessary for those hoopsters to make bank year-round once the American campaigns are over.

Throw in the WNBA’s near-religious adherence to shutting down on Mondays, and you have a slate that was too crammed in a five-month window for players to properly recover and recalibrate between games. Longtime Dream fan turned NBA Commissioner Lisa Borders took heed, and within two years, WNBA teams went from around a quarter of their scheduled games on consecutive days to no more than two series.

I don’t know what issues, aside from maybe one-and-done and BRI, that ATLiens turned new NBPA vice presidents Jaylen Brown and Malcolm Brogdon have in mind, but I’d want nixing back-to-backs altogether to be at the forefront. If not games like tonight, where somebody at State Farm Arena is paying absurd money to watch the Hawks, a team that’s a bit fatigued after last night’s wild-and-wooly loss to the Pistons, try not to end the Suns’ record 16-game losing skid, then at least games of the home-and-road or vice-versa variety.

You all pretty much know the Suns (11-49) by now, after Atlanta’s 118-112 win at Talking Stick Resort arena a few weeks ago, so there’s no need belaboring. Phoenix rolls out pretty much the same crew, same coach, similar approach, in hopes of a different result.

One healthy addition that missed the proceedings when these teams last met was Dragan Bender. But the forlorn forward shouldn’t make much difference against John Collins, who is eager to get himself back on double-double track.

GM James Jones has tweaked the team’s philosophy a bit this month. #TheTimeline, a process conceived by the fired regime, was supposed to be a distant memory by now. What Jones is doing to pass the time out in Cactusland is opening up a Second Chance Saloon – adding young adult pros to coach Igor Kokoskov’s stead with dispositions and/or problematic contracts that other teams couldn’t wait to rid themselves of.

The first visitor to the Saloon, Kelly Oubre, has been doing all he can to help similarly undersized Josh Jackson as a power forward, given the extended absence of T.J. Warren and the disutility of Ryan Anderson.

Ryno was shipped to Miami so the next Saloon patron, Tyler Johnson, could saddle up to the bar. Johnson gets the 2018 Elfrid Payton award from the Suns, who hopes he’ll produce enough to make the prickly fanbase forget the club went through the entire offseason without acquiring a ready-for-prime-time point guard to pair with Booker. Jones’ maneuvers before the trade deadline seem tailor-made to entice Booker (5th in Usage%) to trust his teammates enough to play more off-ball.

Jackson, Bender, Oubre, Richaun Holmes, and first-overall pick DeAndre Ayton collectively present poor defensive matchups with Collins (35 points, 10 O-Rebs @PHX on Feb. 2), and there is little reason to expect the Hawks’ struggling rebounder (4.8 RPG last 5 games) won’t re-assert himself and apply his own Baptismal font to tonight’s outcome. Dewayne Dedmon has enough skill on a normal night to confound Ayton, but on a back-to-back he’ll need big minutes out of ex-Sun Alex Len and Omari Spellman to overwhelm the Phoenix frontline.

Both young teams’ mindsets are less on defensive principles and more on just getting back the other way. Trae Young has the “young legs” and the will go tit-for-tat with Booker, helping Atlanta (19-40) neutralize the 25-PPG contributor in the scoring column, although he’s sure to hounded throughout by Spellman’s former Nova teammate, Mikal Bridges.

But Lloyd Pierce will need his wings to make more of a defensive impact – notably in the closing minutes of quarters, which was not the case versus Detroit yesterday – and hit enough open shots to help the Hawks’ backcourt outpoint supplemental scorers Johnson and Jamal Crawford.

As a final note, our Hawks have been displaying an element lately, as demonstrated well last night, that I was not prepared for, nor was I expecting to admire. The Cocky-petty-tank! I’m all for this newfound irrational irascibility.

We started the season with our bench players, notably Vince Carter, doing what he could to fend the trolls (can I say that, here? Okay!) off our fresh-faced rookie star. Now, we’ve got would-be trolls redirecting their venom away from Trae and toward our reserves. Going after Vince is kind of like somebody insulting Gramps. That’s not going to end well for you and your foul mouth, whether you’re a freshly-minted All-Star or not.

Young will have plenty more leeway for Hero Ball tactics, but until that consistently pays off, we have Hater’s Ball here to bide the time. Back ends of back-to-backs, especially versus the likes of the Suns, are exactly the kinds of games where we need more of Justin Anderson on the floor. But until Pierce finds reason to go deeper down the bench, having Anderson join Carter catcalling from the sideline works just fine.

You can tell by the looks on the would-be Trae-trolls that the tactics are getting under opponent’s skins and in their heads. “A 19-win team, out here talking trash? Who do these hotshot young bucks think they are? Devin Booker?”

Go AUC and HBCUs! And Let’s Go Hawks!
~lw3

[lethalweapon3]

Staring into the Suns gets bad for your eyes after awhile.

Read on Twitter

~lw3

[EazyRoc]

The Suns need to try their best to get a Lonzo Ball or Ricky Rubio type PG for sure. D. Book as a lead guard is an obvious failure.

Add Mike Conley to the list. Don’t know their draft pick situation but if they had a mid-1st, I would dangle that and one of their young players for a real PG.