thecampster

Here, adjusted to a failed trade so you can see what I'm talking about http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=jnstdjk "The aggregate outgoing salaries are greater than $9.8 million. Therefore the incoming aggregate salaries must be withing $5 million of the aggregate outgoing salaries. The incoming salaries exceed $5 million in this trade. Cut $6,526,677 from the Hawks incoming trade value to make this trade successful." Effectively, The Hawks can send as little as $13.1 million in salary to make it happen. Dunleavy can't be moved because of trade restrictions, neither can Humprhries (1 year bird rights). And you said no Baze. So here is what you have left. Splitter -$9.5 mil Sefolosha - $3.85 mil Scott -$3.33 mill Delaney - $2.5 mill Prince - $2.3 mil THj - $2.282 mil Bembrey - $1.5 mil Muscala - $1 mil So start adding what you think Indy will take to get to $13.1 million or more and then realize that for every extra player Indy must simultaneously waive someone to complete the trade. If THj is in the trade, it takes no less than 3 players to make this happen. Probably Splitter, Prince, THj +2 picks. Bare minimum.

Yes but because the Hawks are over the cap, the salaries must be close and you can't get there by just giving 5 players for 1 because Indy has a full roster already and we'd need to add some to get to 13.

http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=hmr3cpd Okay so to show what I'm saying, here is a trade for George/Ellis for Splitter/Baze/THj. This would obviously include 1 to 3 picks to make it happen and would require Indy to wave someone (I believe). I suppose this is possible as Timmy has been playing out of his mind and if you let Tiago walk at season's end it creates 10 million in cap flexibility for Indy. But it effectively means giving up on a season where they are currently the 6th seed.

But just a cursory look, the pieces don't add up. Indiana is only 2.5 games behind Atlanta in the standings. George is a 22/6/3 player, an impact player shooting 38% from 3. He is not yet 27 years old. He makes 18.1 million this year and is signed through the next. in this market, at his position, and his performance, his salary is below average. The Pacer's team salary is 87 mil with almost no contracts they want to dump. The Hawks trade commodities include, Prince, Bembrey, Hardaway, Splitter, Sefolosha, Bazemore and picks. Their team salary is 98 mil. Bazemore's terrible season has made him virtually worthless. Given that his last year is a player option, he is signed through 19/20. That contract is an albatross if not producing 15/5. He is currently at 11/3 (both rounded up). Baze is a non-starter for Indy in this trade. Additionally, Splitter's injury makes him only attractive to teams wanting to clear salary for next season. All of the Hawk assets are very low salary, so any package for George that didn't include Baze would need to package players which Indy doesn't have roster room for. So any Indy trade for multiple low priced assets means Indy must wave players to make room or cut the incoming assets. There is no logical trade here that doesn't include Baze and well...Indy isn't taking Baze.

True, except the article is clear that Indiana is looking to add, not subtract, even offering their upcoming #1

" Chicago’s Jimmy Butler, Indiana’s Paul George and Sacramento’s DeMarcus Cousins are three players who on paper at least, would meet that criteria. Multiple league sources this weekend confirmed that each of their respective teams isn’t making a push to trade them. But like every team in the league, they will certainly listen to any and all offers. "Only Indiana and Sacramento have come out publicly to say they are not planning to trade their players, with the Pacers indicating they’re willing to give up their first-round pick in order to add a stable, proven talent to the mix in order to help George going forward." 17 hours ago – via CSNNE.com " Completely unsubstantiated rumor.

Rise up! I miss Barry Sanders....best back to ever suit up.

Well Shanahan is wrong. The Seahawks put up 31.

Teams the Falcons put up 33 points or more against this year. Oakland - 35 New Orleans - 45, 38 Carolina - 48, 33 Tampa Bay - 43 Arizona 38 LA- 42 SF - 41 Seattle - 36 Green Bay - 44 The last time the Falcons were held under 28 points, Nov 13.

Let me try again to persuade you as I do not think you understand how dynamic this team really is. The Patriot's offense scored 51 touchdowns this year for 306 points. They also kicked 31 (of 36) field goals for 93 points. NE quarterbacks were sacked only 24 times. They held the ball for 31:03 minutes per game. Lastly, the defense racked up 2 safeties for 4 points. They lost 12 fumbles and threw only 2 interceptions. The Falcons offense scored 58 touchdowns for 348 points. They also kicked 34 (of 37) field goals for 102 points. Matt Ryan was sacked 37 times. They held the ball for 30.31 minutes per game. The defense did not have a safety but scored 5 defensive touchdowns. The lost 6 fumbles and threw 7 interceptions. The Pats win by limiting the other team's offense, while not turning the ball over and creating turnovers. However, the Falcons do not turn the ball over. They had 1 less turnover than the Pats. Despite having the ball 32 seconds less per game and not having the ball 5 times due to defensive tds, the Falcons offense scored 8 more times during the regular season. Meanwhile, the Patriots are another team that wins by holding the ball and going on sustained drives. The Falcons were very adept the second half of the season at taking the ball away and stunting drives. Their defense is opportunistic. In order to win, the Pats need the football. Atlanta doesn't give it up and scores when they have it. Going back to the defensive argument. Below are the by quarter defensive ratings of the 2 teams. Pats 1- 1st 2 - 5th 3 - 5th 4 - 5th Falcons 1 - 10th 2 - 17th 3 - 11th 4 - 31st Now notice the numbers....Pats consistent, Falcons average 12 to 13th best defense 1st 3 quarters then bam, 31st in the 4th. This is because they were often up 2 + scores in almost every game. This is not the 22nd defense in yards per game. It is much better. The numbers are heavily skewed due to the prevent. The Pats were not in the prevent near as often as Atlanta. There were a couple of games this year that the Falcons broke out the prevent in the 3rd quarter. Really have to think about this, despite giving up lots of time on the clock to 5 defensive tds (not getting the ball back), the Falcons still held time of possession close to the Pats. The team attempted 1 more field goal and scored 12 more touchdowns. It wasn't just a good offense, it was disturbing. Then consider that 6 of those games, they had to go up against Cam Newton, Jameis Winston and Drew Brees. They also faced Carr, Wilson, Rivers. There were games that the defense really wasn't even a factor because the offense just outscored some of the best quarterbacks in the game. This team is special. The offense is scary. They dominate much like the 85 Bears defense dominated. Their offensive stats by quarter ranked 2nd 1st, 1st 10th. Again, notice the theme. only the pats outscored them in the 1st quarter and this is due to Atlanta deferring to the second half in every game they won the coin toss. Then bam, 4th quarter they drop to 10th because they just sit on the football. The offense is scary good, just scary.

In their last 8 games, they are 7-1. Over that stretch, they have averaged 37.5 ppg on offense. Now mind you, in 4 of those games, they took the foot off the accelerator in the 4th and tried to just run out the game. 3 times they opted not to score and just sit on it. In that same time period, the defense has given up 20.5 ppg. However, many of those points were scored against a prevent defense in the 4th. That was the story all year really except for the Philly game. It is the only game they laid an egg. The offense has scored 40 or more 6 out of 18 games (33% of the time) and 13 out of 18 times (72% of the time). The last 6 games of the season + playoffs, no team has been better with their only loss coming when Matt Ryan threw an interception on a 2 point conversion (returned by KC for 2) trying to push the lead to 3. It backfired granting KC the 1 point victory. The 5 Falcon losses were by 1, 2, 3, 7 and 9 points. 1 can be solely blamed on Ryan. 1 on Quinn, 2 of the refs (see Seattle no call pass interference). The only legitimate loss on the season was the 9 point loss to Philly who exploited a problem in run coverage (since fixed). Dolfan, you may want to rethink this. This was the most dominant 5 loss team in recent history and they are just now starting to peak. The games against Seattle and Green Bay were man-handlings. I am thinking 35-21 Falcons.

The first 2 pages of this thread is the funniest collection of nonsense I've ever seen. Glad to see you all came around. :)

Look, I love Sap, but Love > Sap. Look at Love's stats before Lebron. Last year in Minny, 26/12.5. Seriously, he's down 6 points and 2 rebounds playing with Lebron. I'd trade Sap in a New York minute for Love.

Its just a 10 day to get them closer to the trade deadline. This team is not sitting pat at the deadline. The Mike Scott contract, Thabo, Prince, Delaney, Baze, Bembry and Splitter are all on the market the week before the deadline. Somebody is going to do a 3 for 1 with us to dump a contract and then the roster will get finalized. For example Splitter +Bazemore and Cleveland's 1st for Melo + Plumlee works. Expect some deal like this at the minimum, maybe 2.

Dude!!! I thought the same thing the whole time I was driving into work last night and listening to the game. I have refused to say anything positive or negative about the Falcons to anyone this week and just in case the universe can read. "I am not in favor of or against any possible outcome involving or not involving the Atlanta Falcons or any other football team this week or any other group of 11 or so men playing with an oblong or not leather ball"

You completely misunderstand my post, which is evident by your not understanding what a PG is. The PG's job is to breakdown the defense. This means to make others move from their defensive assignments to give help. Thereby creating an open shot through initiating a passing set. Nobody is saying Dennis can't or shouldn't shoot. What we are saying is that PGs get shots in the flow of the offense when openings develop because their passing is a greater threat than their shot creation. Because a pg is a threat to get to the rack and to dish to a big, wings collapse to offer help, this creates passes to the wings. When defensive wings must respect this, they hesitate and this creates opportunities for bigs to receive on drives for easy baskets and +1's. When opposing bigs respect this and hesitate, an opening appears for the PG to score. The criticism with Dennis is that instead of thinking draw, kick, dump, shoot. During this bad stretch, Dennis was thinking drive, shoot, kick, dump. This led to easy turnovers, passes at the ankles of Dwight/Paul and easy close outs on shooters. The difference is small but the effect on the court is huge. The pg gets the same number of shots in both circumstances, but the quality of shots for everyone goes up. The problem with the Hawks during the 1-10 stretch was defensive efficiency. This was caused by problems with offensive efficiency leading to transition baskets at the other end. Dennis is fixing this. It's a mindset, not a talent thing. A realistic evaluation of Dennis is that he is still learning and will only get better. There is no problem with identifying flaws in his game, especially by him. It will only help him improve. Funny add-on....while trying to find videos to support my point, I came up on this Mookie Blaylock highlight reel. Nostalgia kicked in....I miss Mookie. Look at how quickly Mookie gives the ball up, how his eyes are up. Mookie had eons less talent than Dennis but his BBIQ was off the chart. Or if you prefer, a true PG who got his points but always had eyes up looking to pass Or perhaps the best passing PG of our time averaging over 10 apg for his career.

A whole lot of talk during this season about "is Dwight working", where is Paul going, is Dennis good enough, who told Muscala a man bun was a good idea and misty-eyed Korver fans. So I thought I'd add my very odd take. In the middle of this season, Paul Millsap began playing hurt, Dennis went through an experimental phase and the world discovered that Kyle Korver couldn't close out on a girl-scout selling cookies at Kroger if she was selling them in 3 boxed sets. During this stretch, the Hawks when 1-10. We are exactly 1/2 of the way through the season. Our current record is 24-17. When you take the 1-10 fiasco out of the mix, the Hawks' record is an extremely respectable 23-7, a pace of 63 wins and a 76%+ winning percentage. Are the Hawks that 63 win team? Probably not, but they are better than their current pace of 48 wins. When you consider that the Cavs are 29-11 and winning at a 71% clip, it is not the time to blow this team up and I think cooler heads prevailed at Phillips. This "team" is much better than people/writers have given them credit for because of the 1-10 blip. I predict we will be buyers, not sellers at the trade deadline and this team is much better designed to compete in May than in November. Playoff basketball relies on rebounding above every other metric to win. IMHO, we are one player away from competing for a championship and that player is already on the roster. The season is in the hands of Dennis. Maturation on the part of Dennis into a complete point guard, one who is always thinking of setting up a teammate first, is the key to November.

There is a difference between Dennis hate and Dennis criticism. During our losing streak, there was an obvious difference between how Dennis got his. He approached possessions with a shoot first mentality, driving to the basket and only passing when every option to score evaporated. It's subtle but small hesitations in your drive, eyes left and right instead of straight ahead keep opposing defenses honest. About 3 games before the win streak began, Dennis improved in this area. He is still not a pg every time down the floor, but he has improved. Dennis spent the first 30 games of the year being a scorer first. Now, he's a distributor about 40% of the time. If he can flip that 40/60 to 60/40 his scoring will stay the same but his assists will explode.

I posted the below in the other thread on this. " There is a benefit in this trade to Denver. http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm The Salary Cap this year is $94.143 million. But there is also a minimum salary a team must spend (cap floor) $84.73 million. Any money under the cap floor is surcharged to the team and distributed to the players. Denver's current salary sits at $75,614,323. Regardless of any salary they bring in, they still will have to pay out $84.73 million. So there is no cost to Denver to take on the extra 50% (1/2 a season) of Mo's $2.2 million. However, the Hawks are forwarding on part of the cash considerations from the Korver deal. So Denver is getting money to take on Mo and waive him. There is no cost to Denver, but they get paid. NBA rules require something for something, so they send on the draft right to Cenk to fulfill that. Denver loses nothing to do the deal and get cash. The Hawks get a roster spot and cap space to either sign Neal or do a 2 for 1 trade at the deadline. " From Wikipedia NBA[edit] Akyol was drafted 59th overall in the 2005 NBA Draft by the Atlanta Hawks. On February 20, 2014, the Atlanta Hawks traded Akyol's draft rights to the Los Angeles Clippers in exchange for Antawn Jamison[3] and on January 7, 2015 the Clippers traded his rights to the Philadelphia 76ers, along with Jared Cunningham and cash for the rights to Sergei Lishouk.[4] On February 19, 2015, he was again traded to the Denver Nuggets for Javale McGee and the rights to Chukwudiebere Maduabum.[5]

There is a benefit in this trade to Denver. http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm The Salary Cap this year is $94.143 million. But there is also a minimum salary a team must spend (cap floor) $84.73 million. Any money under the cap floor is surcharged to the team and distributed to the players. Denver's current salary sits at $75,614,323. Regardless of any salary they bring in, they still will have to pay out $84.73 million. So there is no cost to Denver to take on the extra 50% (1/2 a season) of Mo's $2.2 million. However, the Hawks are forwarding on part of the cash considerations from the Korver deal. So Denver is money to take on Mo and waive him. There is no cost to Denver, but they get paid. NBA rules require something for something, so they send on the draft right to Cenk to fulfill that. Denver loses nothing to do the deal and get cash. The Hawks get a roster spot and cap space to either sign Neal or do a 2 for 1 trade at the deadline.

There is this great scene in the movie Concussion where the Doc's girlfriend(wife) is watching Football for the first time and says something like "when you get past the violence, it is really quite beautiful". I love pure basketball. I hate superstars and 30 pt / game players. I like do it all players. Players that can pass, see the opening before it happens. When basketball is played like its drawn on the erase board, it is truly beautiful. It was for this reason, when I was younger I was drawn to watching tennis, and more specifically Michael Chang. What that guy did on Tennis Court was magic. Not the biggest hitter, very average serve. But he could set people up, wear them down with long rallies, chase down everything and then bam....pass you on the left before you realize he did it. He was an artist. Best pound for pound tennis player I ever saw. Just wasn't tall enough/a big enough hitter to be an all time great. But it was beautiful.

Best plays in that highlight were the backdoor cut at 1:05 and the assist to Delaney. Delaney blew attempt 1 but Dunleavy's basketball smarts naturally trusting team mates....that crap is infective. The back door cut was off the chart BBIQ recognizing the play before it happened.

See my post from this page, page 2 and read the link I inserted.

FYI, I've never soured on Smoove and I really feel he would have fit this system. To understand that very crazy statement, you need to understand the system from the whole perspective. Players in this system must pass the ball. Players in this system, must be able to handle the ball. Players in this system must play good defense. Players in this system must be able to shoot. 3 out of 4 ain't bad. While others got hung up on Josh's ability to dunk the ball, it is what he brought to the table at the defensive end and off the ball that I always appreciated and it still bothers me that Josh doesn't get his due for what he brought to the team. Josh and Paul for example shot the same FG% for their Hawks career, almost identical numbers for rebounds, assists, points, steal, blocks. Statistically, they are nearly identical players. Josh might be a bad comparison. I think a better comparison for a guy people drool over but who never pay off is Carmelo Anthony. His shoot first attitude and lazy defense has almost never led his teams anywhere. What I like about Bud's system is the basketball purity at the offensive end. After Jordan's Bulls, the game changed dramatically to feature ISO heavy offense over designed sets. Bud's system doesn't just use sets, it demands them. 1/2 of the possessions begin with motion and 3 passes just to see what develops. It makes the opposing defense work. I hate watching a basketball game and seeing the opposition get a 15 second break on defense while a Joe Johnson type pounds the ball deciding what to do and I agree with Diesel. I would buy season tickets for the first time in my life to see what Bud could do with Cousins. I honestly think 90% of the problem with Cousins is his frustration with his teammates. I've watched that guy put up 28 points shooting only 46% because every possession features the entire opposing defense trying to stop him. What could he do on a team that actually shares the ball?

The Horford hate is 2 fold. 1. The offer he took in Boston is realistically not different. He took 2 million more a year to go to Boston. When you factor in the higher taxes there, the agent's cut and the totality of the contract, it was a fairly small amount. 2. He dissed Atlanta by calling Boston a better team. He dissed the fans, organization and his former teammates. That is hate worthy. In Millsap's case, the contract difference will be substantial and his lifetime earnings are significantly less. Millsap has also stated a desire to be here. He likes the city, fans and organization. A Millsap choice to leave will be to set himself up for life. I can't fault a guy for that. I liken it to Josh leaving. Josh was walked out the door. You can't hate on Josh for not being wanted. You can argue with his inability to adapt his game, reliance on shooting outside. But you can't argue him leaving for more money. The organization no longer wanted him. In Millsap's case, the organization will want him, but there may be a team out there that offers him 20+ million more than the Hawks in full contract. I can't hate on him for that. The Hawks chose Baze over Millsap when you look at the numbers. The Hawks didn't choose Howard or Horford. They tried to fit both and Horford balked.