thecampster

Here, let me show you 2 images. 1st image is Josh Childress - #6 overall in 2004 Second is Jalen Johnson's rookie photo Knowing nothing other than both players were drafted at a similar position, height and weight. Look at their shoulders, neck, arms. Who would you say was a better draft selection. People should go back to that 2004 draft and wonder what the hell were we thinking. Taken after Childress but before Josh Smith - Luol Deng, Iggy, Biedrins, Humphries, Al Jefferson.

Given 25 minutes a game, JJ is going to give you 15/6 rolling out of bed. What concerns me is how young he looks, especially on D. But I don't think we've seen an NBA frame this good in a Hawk's jersey in a long time. Its the best frame on the team, he just needs to grow into it.

I do...but not every starter scores 30. Do I think he's a star? Not even close. But he's an NBA starter. You can't roll out nothing but all-stars. The NBA isn't designed that way.

I keep running back to Portis and thinking about that neck grab by Butler game 1 vs Trae. If Bobby Portis is on the floor for the Hawks and Jimmy Butler grabbed Trae by the neck, Butler is getting blindsided by 3 wheel barrels full of crazy. If Steven Adams is at center, he might have been ejected 4 times in this series fighting back. I can go back through every finals winner the last 20 years and there's a bit of goon and crazy on every squad and there's a reason for that. I'm not talking Dellavedova or Grayson Allen dirty play, but a bit of Ivan Johnson level instability making everyone wonder if taking that cheap shot is a good idea.

Oh I think he's on the Julius Randle / Bobby Portis track. Randle just didn't "get it" until late 20's then bam. Portis flipped a switch from gonna get mine to just gonna get filthy. Cam has too much talent to not figure it out eventually.

So the Gallo thing. There's a good chance he takes his 5 mil guaranteed then heads back to Europe. He'd be pretty dominant there, would start and is extremely popular. He might make more going back to the Euro League than signing here. He's also highly valued here and would be considered an excellent MLE, vet min pickup for a top 4-6 team chasing a chip. That's kind of where I see him going.

Call me crazy but being a glue guy was really helpful for the Hawks last year. They (again) had too many people interested in getting theirs, not willing to do the little things. Kev isn't perfect and like I said, there's enough interest out there he might get traded in the off-season. I don't get the hate, Superman praise isn't warranted either. He's a very average NBA starter. It is what it is. But bagging on him at this point isn't really profitable. My 2 cents.

I really don't like the people bashing Huerter's defense. He's constantly asked to guard the hardest cover on the floor when Hunter isn't playing and if not, the 2nd hardest. There was a game with NY where he was constantly being switched between Barrett and Randall so they could hide others and people were bagging on him a few days later. All I could think was:

Its not to say Cam had an open opinion....that's not what I mean. It was just the elephant in the room disrupting everything. Once he was gone, the other issues (the leadership vacuum) came to the front. Its why we saw better play immediately after. It wasn't Cam leaving, we're happy. It was "okay, now that we're past that, let me show everyone why we should be doing it my way" and effort went up.

One last set of thoughts before I put in some actual work this morning. The Cam situation last year had some long term effects on the locker room as did the end of the bench turnover. Although the team played better after he was gone, there was some competition for leadership. The loss of Rondo, Solo, others left the team without internal leadership and some personalities emerged to challenge Trae, Hunter, Bogi. Part of what the team is going to address in the offseason is to get back a harmonious locker room. They aren't knifing each other, don't read too much into this but the Cam situation and Solo going down had some people try to step in to fill the void who had opinions that weren't in unison with what the team was trying to accomplish. You saw some people's playing time come to a halt, seats on the bench change. A lot of the youthful comradery of rookie contracts ended and people started challenging each other and the coaching staff in practice. People testing their alpha voice in an unwilling room. Nate didn't lose the locker room and he navigated what was a natural maturation process of a team fairly well but a lot of these guys aren't going out bowling together on days off. They aren't close. There are factions (for lack of a better word) and part of the move to shake up the roster is going to be trying to create a better cohesion. With each of our previous rookie classes, new bodies were welcomed with open arms. This year's squad was put on blast early they would have to earn floor minutes. They weren't immediately brought into the fold with the vets. Some vets were told "this is your role" and were discontent as they felt they could do more. No one was happy with the covid restrictions, testing (there is an underlying story there about privacy, feeling watched league wide). The whole social dynamic was constantly just off. Again, this isn't/wasn't a violent or angry situation but there was a missing brotherhood feeling. There was more of a "I need to get mine" mentality. Team execs are looking to add by subtraction by getting players more concerned with winning than with their personal brand/next contract/personal ego. Every pack has Alphas, Betas and Thetas. We have a lot of Betas....too many....too many wannabe heir apparent to the alpha crown. Not enough buy in.

The problem there is he gives up as much as gets most nights. His +/- was helped because Gallo and Wright got hot with that second unit at the same time but his defensive effort/(knee's ability) results in a lot of red cape plays. When on the floor and no Hunter, Huerter often drew the toughest defensive assignment. When on the floor and no Trae, Bogi was drawing the easiest most nights. Teams would go directly at Bogi, almost never even using pick n roll to go at him. His defense was a huge liability when on the floor with Trae. The one bright spot with Bogi/Gallo on the floor together was some high efficiency bench offense most nights. This led to a lot of out of bounds sets for the opponent, way less transition. Helped the defense of our second unit.

Its being heavily shopped but with only mild interest at this point.

From the list: Knox might be back. Not a min deal but pretty close. There is interest around the league but not more than a mil or 2 a year for him. The Hawks liked his attitude....last few games helped him out but he liked the city. TLC did like the group but like everyone would like more consistent minutes. Knows his role/value. May get more to go elsewhere. Everyone else on the gone list should be gone. Capela back is 50/50 (Won't be back next to JC). Collins back is 50/50 (Won't be back next to Clint. If both are back I'd be very surprised). Hunter back is 75/25 (trade interest) Huerter back is 75/25 (trade interest) Bogi back is 25/75 (I don't have time to write this out). OO back is 90/10 (he is a trade chip teams would like). JJ back is 90/10 (see above). Wright is a 75/25 back. He could be signed away for the right money but he liked Nate, team, role he settled in to. Coop/Mays could both be back but Coop wants a role, Mays has some interest around the league. Teams see him as a gamer, good end of the bench, emergency fill guy. Hawks like both but there has to be minutes.

Bruno was a good defensive player???

Even if you account for the holds and bargain down to a reasonable resign rate for most (not all), you'll still be north of $160 million.

The problem with just running it back, see below!

Riddle me this @Diesel. How much of Clint's scoring is because of who he's played with (Harden/Trae)? How much of Gobert's scoring is because of who he played with? I would submit that Gobert paired with Trae ups his scoring 3-5 points per game and given Trae's gravity, would probably get another rebound or 2 a game put back. Does Clint command a double in the post? Does Gobert? How does that affect JC/Hunter's scoring? Now given what I said above...how much of an impact does Mitchell provide, a player that needs the ball in his hands to succeed?

For Brooklyn, making that trade and then waiving Gallo saves them about $12 million in salary next year but saves them like $55 million against the LT.

Simmons for Gallo/Bogi would have to happen before the moratorium begins and before June 29th for reasons I won't explain. In that scenario, the cap impact this year is favorable to the Hawks by almost $5 million. The cap difference I pointed out above is based on the value of Bogi + waived Gallo (stretched) vs Simmons this upcoming year.

for 2022-23, $35.45 million and $38.17 million respectively. For 2023-24 I really don't care as the cap/LT will increase more than their increase

I will say that the defensive combo of Gobert, Hunter, Simmons is enticing.

In the above scenario, assuming health, you have much better defense at the 2, improved defense and offense at the 5 and established backup play at the 1. You would also have better team rebounding. You've got much better cuts/drives to the basket, much less outside shooting (unless JC plays the true stretch 4).

A few things for you guys to consider. If we waive Gallo, we can stretch the waiver portion of his salary over 3 years at $1.667 annual. To be fair, this is a highly creative way to free up 3.33 million next year at the cost of gimping us 1.67 million over the next 2 seasons. This could be the difference between the LT or not. A trade out for Gallo effectively only saves you 1.6 to 5 million. Don't expect a trade unless its for someone wanting to dump a $20 million salary so they can waive Gallo and get their own tax savings. Gallo will not be sent out in a sign and trade so any trade would have to be for someone with at least 2 years left on their contract for between (approximately) $15-$22 million or a package trade (like with Bogi) for someone with a $34-$40+ million salary. The perfect fit here is cap relief for Brooklyn (before June 29th) in a trade for Simmons. Brooklyn takes on Gallo/Bogi then waives Bogi immediately. Any such trade raises Atlanta's cap number about $12 to $15.333 million depending on how you do your math. Assuming we waive Gallo, that we accept all player options and assuming we either resign Cooper, Mays, Knox at near their minimum +/ a bit (and or other vets to replace them)....it works out to 12 players under contract at roughly $143 million. A trade for Simmons would put us roughly at $158 million. Bogi's contract after next season has a player's option at $18 million. This could both really help (potential expiring) or really hurt (he plays well earning a bigger pay day) his trade value. Either way, you may be stuck with Bogi on your roster for 2 more seasons (or) you may lose him after next year for nothing if he rejects his player option. Now assuming there is also a trade for a center and our outgoing pieces are Clint + Huerter + 16 for lets say Gobert. This would raise our theoretical cap next year by about $1 million. But the 2 above trades now leave us with a roster of 11 players. You can technically lower this number by $3.45 million using the traded player exceptions for Bruno and Hill. Theoretical world here is where the above would get you at about $154.4 million in salary. 1. No draft pick. Lineup Trae/Wright/Cooper (other) Simmons/Mays (other)/ Hunter/Knox (other) JC/JJ Gobert/OO Assuming the last 4 slots are used on vet minimums and 2nd round picks you're looking at a final roster total of about $160 million, light tax payer status. For all playing fantasy GM, I wanted to give you some real world expectations.

Man....some of you say a lot of words without saying anything at all....