TheNorthCydeRises

One of the things about that 1994 team was that Dominique was wildly inconsistent. At this time, his offensive consistency was more like slightly better version of Carmelo Anthony. The difference is that even when Nique was off, his teammates were good enough offensively and defensively to still win games. The 2014 ( 2015 ) team was a well balanced machine, with a different "hero" emerging every night. But as soon as Thabo got hurt, the 2015 Hawks became a mediocre team. That team needed ALL of their parts playing their role at the highest level, in order to win games. Koncak vs Horford = Big advantadge Horford Willis vs Millsap = Push Nique vs Carroll = Big advantage Nique Augmon vs Korver = Advantage Augmon Blaylock vs Teague = Advantage Blaylock 1994 bench: Whatley ( PG ) - Ehlo ( G ) - Ferrell ( F ) - Lang ( F/C ) 2015 bench: Schröder ( PG ) - Bazemore ( G ) - ( F ) Thabo - ( F ) Scott - ( C ) Antic Advantage: 2015 Bench I think Blaylock and Augmon have the ability to make life hell for the 2015 backcourt. Add Ehlo to the mix, who was also a big defensive guard/forward, you have a set up in which Korver would be choked off by both Augmon and Ehlo. And if you took away the ability for Korver to get 3 point buckets, that would impact the offensive ability of the 2015 Hawks tremendously. Despite Dominique not being known for being consistently great in the playoffs, I'll take the potential of him going off in a playoff game and winning the series, than the "Hawk collective" playing great team basketball and winning. Edge to the 1994 team.

I need video context, specifically to see how the role players were playing. 1994 Hawks 2014 Hawks

So Collins gets 32 min/game now ... If he stays out of foul trouble. Time to ball out.

Which 94 Hawks? Nique's 94 Hawks . . . or Danny Manning's 94 Hawks?

The ray of light for the season. Keep doing your thing man.

Honestly, without that discussion, the site would REALLY slow down. That discussion is the main thing keeping activity going on this site.

The league is going crazy for big men who can shoot threes. Fact is, most of those guys aren't even averaging 2 made threes per game.

Dedmon doesn't have to shoot 3s all the time. 2 a game is fine for me. I personally hate the way that those in the NBA act like all PFs or Cs have to shoot 3s now. His shot chart shows that he's a very good midrange shooter and a corner 3 shooter. Even if that corner 3% goes down to the high 30%, that's still enough to keep defenses honest, as long as he makes his midrange jumpers. The bigger issue is Collins. If he can show that he can make at least 40% of his midrange jumpers, that would be gold for his game.

Maybe they can execute one of the greatest comebacks in Hawk history. Down a whopping 26 points right now though, with the Raptors threatening to hang 70 points on us before halftime.

The issue is that when you completely tear it down, you not only get rid of your assets for pennies on the dollar, the people you do pick up just to fill out a roster are probably not a part of your future as well. This makes the rebuild that much more difficult and longer to take place. And when you do that, you go into desperation mode in a few short years. The other thing not being mentioned about the Hawks, is our frugal nature of doing business. This team has made it a point in recent years, to be "flexible". This means being very cautious to the contracts they dish out, while also trying their best to stay under the Salary Cap at all costs. I THOUGHT this had changed last year, when we acquired Dwight for 3 yrs / 70 million, with Millsap on the eve of a huge payday the following year. That, to me, was a signal that we were going to "go for it" at least for a few years, with a high quality front line, and hope the kids developed in the interim. But they gave up after just one year, and blew it all up together. All of that time developing Millsap and Hardaway Jr . . gone . . down the drain. Partially because they gave a ridiculous deal to Bazemore. And while I HATE his contract, his deal can't be the difference between going for it, and blowing it all up. One of the characteristics of "champions" and "contenders", is that they "pay to play". And that means going over the Salary Cap, and sometimes into the Luxury Tax to achieve the level of success that they want. Teams into the Luxury tax . . which is at 119 million. Current Standings Playoff teams in BOLD Cleveland Golden St Oklahoma City Miami . . . ( only because of Chris Bosh's contract ) Washington Portland New Orleans LA Clippers Teams over the Salary Cap . . . which is at 99 million. Current Standings Playoff teams in BOLD Milwaukee Toronto Houston Charlotte Minnesota Detroit San Antonio Memphis Boston Utah Denver LA Lakers New York Orlando Teams under the Salary Cap . . . less than 99 million. Current Standings Playoff teams in BOLD Atlanta Brooklyn Indiana . . . ( got value from the Paul George trade . . Olidipo is looking great, along with Sabonis being a quality player ) Sacramento Phoenix Dallas Philadelphia . . . ( the young tank squad full of top picks . . . Embiid and Simmons are legit ) Chicago

He played a very good all around game. Very tough defense vs KP in the 2nd half. As much as people loved Zaza, he's twice as good as he was. That's the type of center we needed back in the Joe Johnson days, to play alongside Horford and Smith.

Bembry can't buy a shot around the rim. Gotta finish those dude.

LOL @ Baze . . . don't start man.

Ersan is garbage now.

Because the Minnesota Lynx could probably put up 100 points on the Hawks.

2014 - 15 . . . CHAMPIONSHIP Steve Kerr takes over as coach . . which means that the original coach in 2008 ( Don Nelson ), and the coach that developed the kids ( Mark Jackson ), doesn't get credit for molding the title team. Kerr does. #1 in both offense and defense 67 regular season wins, and a 16 - 5 record in the playoffs. Curry establishes himself as a top 5 player, and the most feared shooter in the NBA Draymond becomes a dominant defensive player, and a high impact offensive player without having to score a ton of points Klay demonstrates to take over games like Curry, and also play elite level defense at times And the bench of Iguodala, Livingston, Lee, Barbosa and Speights were more than good enough to extend leads. 7 year span . . 3 coaches . . 2 potential Hall of Famers drafted WITHOUT being in the top 6 of the draft . . a much needed trade of a star, to improve defensively . . and an unlikely acquisition of a former all-star, that was one of the final pieces to a championship.

2013 - 14 Now they're playoff tested, and ready to add veteran pieces to the squad. The biggest piece was finding a way to add Andre Iguodala to the team. I just saw Diesel's post. This is some of the "luck" he is talking about. https://www.sbnation.com/nba/2013/7/12/4518576/nba-free-agency-2013-andre-iguodala-golden-state-warriors With Curry rising as an offensive superstar, they needed defense in the backcourt, to preserve Curry on defense. Iggy would be the perfect guy to do this. Plus Iggy can act as a secondary facilitator, freeing up Curry at times to be a catch and shoot assassin. They would win 51 games that season, the most in over 20 years. This was one of the big turning points in their season . . and probably illustrated the importance of Klay Thompson and Draymond Green to their future. Unfortunately, they had to play the Clippers, and lost in 7 games. That also marked the end of the Mark Jackson era in Golden State. 2014 draft No draft picks

2012 - 13 . . . ( by the way Tankers, for perspective, this is year 4 since Golden State won 48 games in 2008 - 2009 ) The once youngest team in the league now has an influx of vets to play with the kids. Jarrett Jack becomes the PG off the bench that would enable Curry to play off of the ball at times, and become the lethal scorer. An unsung but decent player like Carl Landry was a solid front line player to bring off the bench. And when healthy, Andrew Bogut was the type of defensive presence that they always needed in the middle and on the defensive boards. Most important, Curry and Thompson were learning to play with, and off of, each other. 47 wins. A 1st round playoff victory over Denver. And they pushed the Spurs to 6 games. LOL . . I wish I would've found this video earlier. It's pretty much a recap of everything I've typed previously, starting with the 2007 upset of the Warriors over the Mavericks. 2013 draft No picks in either round.

2011 - 12 This is the strike shortened season that didn't begin until Christmas Day. By early January, Curry had a sprained ankle that knocked him out for about 2 weeks. Then he sprained it again in Mid March. Don't let Travis Schlenk fool any of you, thinking that Golden State had this master "tank plan". No . . . that tank plan didn't go into effect until Curry got hurt. The Warriors were hovering around .500 at the time of the injury and both Curry and Ellis were logging major minutes, trying to make the playoffs. But as soon as Curry got hurt, they decided to do a complete makeover, and trade Monta Ellis ( who was a fan favorite ). In hindsight, it turned out to be one of the best moves in franchise history, because it completely unleashed the beast shooter/scorer that was inside Curry. But it wasn't some master plan by the Warriors. Here's an interview with Mark Jackson on the day that Ellis got traded, after destroying the Kings without both Ellis and Curry. Pay attention to what Mark Jackson says at 2:00 Stephen Curry's take And last but not least . . . Monta himself This wasn't some "master plan" taking place. Basically Schlenk was protecting is 1st round pick, which they were going to lose if they weren't in the bottom 7 of the league standings. With Curry down, they felt that they had no shot at the playoffs. And with teams already having interest in Ellis, the Warriors pulled the trigger on a trade for Andrew Bogut. If they could finish in the bottom 7 of the league, the pick would be protected. Mission accomplished. 2012 Draft So the narrative is that Golden State "tanked" for these two guys? Nah. Here are the mock drafts for that year http://www.nbadraft.net/2012mock_draft http://www.draftexpress.com/nba-mock-draft/2012/ http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1233721-nba-mock-draft-2012-pick-by-pick-predictions-for-rounds-1-2 https://www.foxsports.com/nba/story/2012-nba-mock-draft-anthony-davis-bradley-beal-michael-kidd-gilchrist-thomas-robinson-062712 https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/goodmans-2012-nba-mock-draft-blazers-take-rising-lillard/ https://athlonsports.com/college-basketball/2012-nba-mock-draft-first-round-tiers We all know that Draymond Green fell like a rock out of the 1st round, due to him being supposedly undersized. So Golden State acquiring him was a combination of pure luck and pure incompetence by the other NBA GMs ( Danny Ferry included . . . we took John Jenkins that year ). But with Barnes, almost every mock, except FOXSports, had him in the top 5. If anything, Golden State may have had their eyes on Andre Drummond. It just so happened that Harrison Barnes fell to them, with Dion Waiters rising into the top 5.

2010 - 11 Still trying to build a team that could at least get back to the playoffs, they traded for David Lee, a nice scoring PF, but not the defensive front line presence they needed. Lee did help to balance the team out though, and they won 36 games. They were a nice team to watch . . the type of "competitive" team that a fan base may pay to watch, even if they didn't make the playoffs. They were 26 - 15 at home. By now though, it was becoming very obvious to anyone who watched basketball, that the Curry - Ellis lineup isn't going to work defensively. Ellis especially was scoring at a high rate at the 2, but getting killed on the defensive end. Warriors finish with the 11th worst record in the league, and that would be their draft position. 2011 draft ( cont... )

2009 - 10 season It's interesting to go back in time, and see the back story for some of the moves that are made. Take for instance the Warriors trading Stephen Jackson 9 games into the season. http://www.espn.com/nba/news/story?id=4659552 Turns out this is one of those "domino effects" that was happening to the Warriors. Stack 5 was unhappy and wanted out. Kelenna Azubuike had tore his ACL and was out for the year. In case people forgot, Azubuike was a guy who definitely had a bright future. This was him a few days before tearing his ACL. Jackson . . gone. Azubuike . . gone. Turiaf and the "great" Andres Biendrins ( remember the hard-on some Hawks fans had for him? ) . . were often injured. They only win 26 games that season. And they have the 6th pick in the draft. Draft night 2010 See . . this is what happens when you draft for need. Warriors needed a big man on the defensive end, due to the oft injured Biendrins. They already had scoring, but needed to be better defensively. So they took Ekpe. Colossal Bust.

Probably. Because even with an injured Millsap, you still have the potential to still get something for him, even if the season goes south without him. I think the losing can be tolerated a lot more in that circumstance, than doing it on purpose. As I'm currently outlining with Golden State right now.

I don't know man. KB may be right when it comes to the Warriors. There was a domino effect that happened to that team, starting with the Baron Davis fiasco in 2008. I would say that the Warriors absolutely looked to make the playoffs from 2008 - until January 2012. This was not a planned tank move in which they tore the team completely down. It was losing by circumstance. When they lost Davis, they traded Al Harrington early in the season, for Jamal Crawford, to try to replicate the high scoring backcourt they had with Davis, Monta Ellis, and Stephen Jackson. The even picked up Corey Maggette, the guy who opted out in LA, that made it possible for the Clippers to sign Baron Davis. That experiment failed miserably for the Warriors, seeing them go from 48 wins to 29 wins. With Crawford not willing to opt out of his contract ( 2 more yrs at 20 million ), the Warriors decided to make a deal. http://www.espn.com/nba/news/story?id=4284512 Despite the article expecting the Warriors to draft Jordan Hill, the Warriors had other ideas . . 2009 draft Just think of that. Had the Warriors gone with what they needed in Hill, instead of the best player available in Curry, there are no championships in the Bay Area. ( Hawks organization . . . remember this on draft night. Don't you DARE draft for need on that night. You get the best player available, even if you are strong at that position ) ( cont... )

Bud with these junk lineups. Still trying to tank with Collins and Dedmon in the game.

Expectations are very low, so people can just sit back and watch their favorite player play. Last year's squad would lock this team up defensively and win by 15. Bud was silly to refuse to play Collins and Dedmon beside each other, until injuries forced his hand.