tydett wrote:emunney wrote:Pachinko_ wrote:And just like that the Hawks are dead last in the East. Say what you want about them being happy with the Young/Doncic trade, they should not be happy with the Young/Doncic trade.
It was never that Young is bad, it was always that Doncic is special and what a gift that two teams passed on him and they **** blew it. Really went out of their way to aggressively **** it up.
And, perhaps unfairly so, they'll get more criticism than the Kings and the Suns, who also picked other guys instead of the special player, but the Hawks 1). knew that Dallas was trading for the pick for Doncic and 2). said "k, fine, we'll take this guy and hope you're bad but not too bad so we can take another swing next year at a guy who's also not going to be a generational prospect." Both pretty egregious.
Eh I think the Hawks identified Young as a generational prospect (and it seems they were right). Teams try to figure out who the best player is and the vast majority isn't always right. In 2017 Fultz and Ball where the consensual 1 and 2 and Boston got flak for selecting Tatum at 3 while Phoenix was praised for selecting Jackson at 4. And look where we are now. I can't blame anyone for having Young over Doncic pre draft. While Doncic did unprecedented things, so did Young. Schlenk was quoted later that they would have drafted Doncic if it weren't for the trade that makes it look a bit wierd, but the Hawks did fine in the draft. Getting a potential superstar and another lottery ticket out of a #3 pick is tremendous.
Could they have done better looking back? Sure. But if you look back at teams holding the #3 pick, the Hawks did exceptionally well. That to me gets lost in the discussion. The Hawks should get flak for not identifying Doncic as the generational prospect he is, but they did have a very good grasp on the draft, more so than Phoenix and to a lesser extent Sacramento.