RealGM: Atlanta [possibly] interested in Greg Monroe [as FA in 2015]

[Admin]

Wouldn't be disappointed if the Hawks picked up Monroe. He would certainly help with rebounding and interior D.

Maybe move Al to 4 and Sap to 3? That could be killer. We could always run the "smaller" lineup we have now against faster teams.

Yeah his 0.2 per game would really be an upgrade over... Al? Nope. Sap? Nope. Korver? Nope. Teague? Nope. Moose? Nope. Baze? Nope. Thabo? Nope. Pero? Nope. Brand? Nope.

DMC? Yes. 0.2 to 0.1

And some of you think he's a good defender lmao Monroe has 4 blocks ALL SEASON. For his career he averages half a block per game, which is barely better than our PG.

[JTB]

Yeah his 0.2 per game would really be an upgrade over... Al? Nope. Sap? Nope. Korver? Nope. Teague? Nope. Moose? Nope. Baze? Nope. Thabo? Nope. Pero? Nope. Brand? Nope.

DMC? Yes. 0.2 to 0.1

And some of you think he's a good defender lmao Monroe has 4 blocks ALL SEASON. For his career he averages half a block per game, which is barely better than our PG.

Players can improve ya know! You act like the Hawks get established players....knowing we never do! We all agree that the Hawks need a BIG but we happen to need a big that can do it all and since that's the case "pick your poison!"

I say add Monroe to the mix with sap and horford. No he's not the best defender on the pistons but He can improve on the Hawks though he hasn't on the Pistons in that area. Monroe no doubt gives us the back to back post scoring we need, he doesn't have to drop 20 as we are too talented on offense as it is we just lack the post scorer but on games like against the 76ers last night we needed that post scorer to get us some easy buckets.

Dolf...I feel like you want some already established Big and I'm sure we all do but again you know the Hawks never get established or what we call star players in the off season. Monroe coming to ATL is just more of a realistic thing happening....you continue to bash Monroe on his defense as if you believe Marc Gasol the most complete Big in free agency this off season coming up would actually pick the Hawks to sign with, it just ain't happening...mind as well welcome Monroes back to back scoring/rebounding and pray his defense will get better if he becomes a hawk cause we ain't getting no COMPLETE CENTER who can do it all.

[Admin]

Players can improve ya know! You act like the Hawks get established players....knowing we never do! We all agree that the Hawks need a BIG but we happen to need a big that can do it all and since that's the case "pick your poison!"

I say add Monroe to the mix with sap and horford. No he's not the best defender on the pistons but He can improve on the Hawks though he hasn't on the Pistons in that area. Monroe no doubt gives us the back to back post scoring we need, he doesn't have to drop 20 as we are too talented on offense as it is we just lack the post scorer but on games like against the 76ers last night we needed that post scorer to get us some easy buckets.

Dolf...I feel like you want some already established Big and I'm sure we all do but again you know the Hawks never get established or what we call star players in the off season. Monroe coming to ATL is just more of a realistic thing happening....you continue to bash Monroe on his defense as if you believe Marc Gasol the most complete Big in free agency this off season coming up would actually pick the Hawks to sign with, it just ain't happening...mind as well welcome Monroes back to back scoring/rebounding and pray his defense will get better if he becomes a hawk cause we ain't getting no COMPLETE CENTER who can do it all.

 

Players can improve? Sure they can. But guys don't go from not blocking shots to all of a sudden becoming a shot blocker.  If I'm "picking my poison" it's not going to be a C who doesn't play defense and can't block shots. Guys here already complain about our defense and y'all want to actually downgrade the D? Can't have it both ways. 

 

Do I want an already established big? Yeah if we're paying $15 million or likely more per season for a guy going into his 6th season in the league, damn right I want him to already be established. Overpaying a limited C like Monroe just because "he'd pick the Hawks" is a terrible, terrible idea. I would rather stick with what we have than overpay for him. You get him for 8-10 million and ADD him to Horford and Sap then that's ok, but a team will severely regret signing him for 15+ million and I pray it's not the Hawks. 

 

By the way Monroe is shooting 47% this season. 47 freaking percent. That's atrocious! Korver shoots almost 10 points higher from 3 than Monroe does overall. 

[nathan2331]

Tell you what, I wouldn't mind getting Monroe this year if all it would take is Brand/Jenkins/2 2nd rounders and some cash.

[Admin]

Tell you what, I wouldn't mind getting Monroe this year if all it would take is Brand/Jenkins/2 2nd rounders and some cash.

 

I would certainly be okay with that, at least we could get a look at him in our system. Personally I don't think he's smart enough to run this system but I'd love to be proven wrong. 

[NBASupes]

Players can improve? Sure they can. But guys don't go from not blocking shots to all of a sudden becoming a shot blocker.  If I'm "picking my poison" it's not going to be a C who doesn't play defense and can't block shots. Guys here already complain about our defense and y'all want to actually downgrade the D? Can't have it both ways. 

 

Do I want an already established big? Yeah if we're paying $15 million or likely more per season for a guy going into his 6th season in the league, damn right I want him to already be established. Overpaying a limited C like Monroe just because "he'd pick the Hawks" is a terrible, terrible idea. I would rather stick with what we have than overpay for him. You get him for 8-10 million and ADD him to Horford and Sap then that's ok, but a team will severely regret signing him for 15+ million and I pray it's not the Hawks. 

 

By the way Monroe is shooting 47% this season. 47 freaking percent. That's atrocious! Korver shoots almost 10 points higher from 3 than Monroe does overall. 

If Monroe was playing up to his potential, the Hawks wouldn't have a shot at signing him. 

[AHF]

Funny you mention Horford when he's put up 17/11 for his career vs Monroe. I guess Monroe's terrific D wasn't able to stop a player with actual quick feet. And I believe Monroe's numbers (posted earlier in this thread) vs Horford are 10/7. Oh that's just scary good against a guy who's notorious around here for struggling with big athletic C's.

 

Just for the sake of clarity and starting off by saying that Horford has had the better of this 10 game set no matter which way you slice it, the minutes controlled numbers are not as bad:

 

Here are the per 36s:

 

Horford  16.3 points, 10 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 2.2 turnovers, 0.8 steals, 1.3 blocks

Monroe  12.8 points, 9 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 2.0 turnovers, 1.5 steals, 0.5 blocks

[AHF]

If Monroe was playing up to his potential, the Hawks wouldn't have a shot at signing him. 

 

That is kind of the angle I am viewing this at as well.  If we can get a discount on him based on the bad fit and the Pistons' train wreck of a season, then it makes a lot of sense to look at Monroe and see if we can get a price that works.  

[nathan2331]

If Monroe was playing up to his potential, the Hawks wouldn't have a shot at signing him.

But he isn't playing to his potential. So the question is how good do we think Monroe can get on this team. IMO, he could become a 20-10 big with average defense, if he had Bud to develop him.

[Admin]

Just for the sake of clarity and starting off by saying that Horford has had the better of this 10 game set no matter which way you slice it, the minutes controlled numbers are not as bad:

 

Here are the per 36s:

 

Horford  16.3 points, 10 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 2.2 turnovers, 0.8 steals, 1.3 blocks

Monroe  12.8 points, 9 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 2.0 turnovers, 1.5 steals, 0.5 blocks

 

Per 36 makes him look better but I'm not impressed with a guy who can't out rebound or outscore a guy he's got a size advantage on. Certainly not willing to pay that player 25% more than I'm paying the guy who outplayed him. 

[Admin]

But he isn't playing to his potential. So the question is how good do we think Monroe can get on this team. IMO, he could become a 20-10 big with average defense, if he had Bud to develop him.

 

That's the problem is thinking that a guy 5 years into his career is all of a sudden going to blossom like that. It's an unrealistic expectation that is most likely going to fail because this guy isn't skilled enough as a scorer to put up 20 on average and I truly don't think he's got he basketball smarts to play in our system. There's no room for being lazy on defense on our team and he suffers from that mightily and always has. If this season was some aberration for him and we could get him cheap then by all means go for it but when this season is pretty much in line with his career there's a point where you realize that this is who the guy is. As mentioned above if we could trade peanuts for him to give him a 3/4 season tryout then I'd be all for it, but if we have to give up anything of real value then I'm out as there's very little chance I'd be willing to give him 15+ million in free agency that he's going to likely get from someone desperate.

[Guest]

I can't believe this gain, we went through this debate during the offseason and it's still going....

 

 

 

 

[Admin]

Just because some have forgotten... and I know I know "but we'd play him at C" but guess what he'd still be attacked in the PnR. 
 

http://grantland.com/features/josh-smith-future-detroit-pistons/

Monroe is a very good offensive player, but he’s a glaring liability on defense in a league getting smaller and quicker. He’s a turnstile trying to contain the pick-and-roll out on the floor — a mess of bad footwork, poor timing, lazy reaches, and bad choices. When Detroit has him hang back at the foul line, ball handlers can zip around him with an easy crossover or launch wide-open jumpers as Monroe, petrified at giving up a rim run, retreats a step farther than most bigs would dare — often with his arms down. Pistons fans complained, with some justification, about Lawrence Frank’s reluctance to play Monroe and Drummond together for much of last season, but Monroe’s total inability to guard stretchier power forwards factored into that choice — just as it should factor into Detroit’s evaluation of things now.
 
When the Pistons asked Monroe to attack the ball higher on the floor, the mess was almost worse. Point guards can juke Monroe with laughable ease by faking toward a screener, watching Monroe lurch in that direction, and then crossing over the other way and into an unpatrolled lane. Monroe is often late in jumping out above a screen, meaning his momentum is going too hard the wrong way (toward half court) as the opposing point guard revs up to turn the corner. And when Detroit has asked him to hedge sideways, as in the still below, Monroe often arrives too late to cut off the ball handler.



His off-ball defense is similarly unintuitive. Monroe wants to help and has a rudimentary sense of where he should be as the chess pieces move around the floor, but he’s unsure of himself and prone to fatal hesitations and bouts of confusion. He has struggled to develop any chemistry with his big-man partners, so that a lot of Detroit possessions end with late help rotations or both bigs chasing one opposing big man — each under the impression the other would be elsewhere on the floor. Watching film of Detroit’s defense basically amounts to sitting through an hours-long reel of dunks, shrugged shoulders, and inattentive help; only eight teams allowed more shots at the rim last season, and only three allowed opponents to shoot a higher percentage than the ghastly 61.1 percent Detroit allowed.
 
To use one example of a simple play with which Detroit and Monroe had depressingly chronic issues: Monroe in the below photo (standing at the right edge of the paint) is only just realizing Nicolas Batum, having caught the ball after flying around a Joel Freeland screen and drawing Freeland’s man onto him, is about to hit Freeland for an easy dunk.



Most of Monroe’s issues are common among young big men. Drummond shares some of the same poor habits. But Monroe has three years under his belt, he’s up for a big-money extension, he’s shown very little (if any) improvement as a defender in the NBA, and he lacks Drummond’s motor or athleticism.

Added to the original post is more from the article:
 

But Drummond projects as a game-changing defender. Monroe does not, and offense-only big men on their second NBA contracts tend to become drains on a team’s salary cap who also place limits on their team’s ceiling.

Bottom line: Knight does not look like a point guard, and Monroe, though quite polished on offense and especially as a passer, does not look like a max-level player — not with Drummond and Smith there. And David Falk, Monroe’s agent, does not enjoy settling for sub-max deals in markets flush with cap space.

And you guys want to sign this guy to the huge contract it's going to require?

[NBASupes]

This is going to be good. I will respond later. So far, we got good posting from nathan, AHF and Dolf.

[NBASupes]

Just because some have forgotten... and I know I know "but we'd play him at C" but guess what he'd still be attacked in the PnR. 

 

Added to the original post is more from the article:

 

And you guys want to sign this guy to the huge contract it's going to require?

To keep it short since I got work to do. We would use him on defense like Elton Brand. Use him like a center. We won't use him to hedge like Antić or Horf or to play the lanes like Sap. We will use him to his strengths like we do with Elton. 

[Admin]

To keep it short since I got work to do. We would use him on defense like Elton Brand. Use him like a center. We won't use him to hedge like Antić or Horf or to play the lanes like Sap. We will use him to his strengths like we do with Elton. 

 

A good team can force him out of the paint. With EB that's not a problem because he's got incredibly long arms, quick feet and tremendous instincts and intelligence. He's like the opposite of Monroe in those regards. 

 

On top of that you don't give a max contract to a guy that you have to scheme to protect. That's exactly what that Grantland article was talking about. 

[NBASupes]

A good team can force him out of the paint. With EB that's not a problem because he's got incredibly long arms, quick feet and tremendous instincts and intelligence. He's like the opposite of Monroe in those regards. 

 

On top of that you don't give a max contract to a guy that you have to scheme to protect. That's exactly what that Grantland article was talking about. 

What good team is forcing him out of the paint? 

GS? 

Dallas?

Portland?

Chicago?

Cleveland?

Memphis? 

[AHF]

Per 36 makes him look better but I'm not impressed with a guy who can't out rebound or outscore a guy he's got a size advantage on. Certainly not willing to pay that player 25% more than I'm paying the guy who outplayed him. 

 

If Horford is healthy, he is definitely the better and more valuable player.  I would rely on a 10 game head-to-head sample to make that determination, though.  H2H can give you some distorted comparisons based on sample size and matchup.  

 

H2H definitely makes it look like Bogut is worth max dollars if Al is worth 12+:

 

Horford 12.6 ppg, 7.7 rpg, 0.7 bpg

Bogut 16.1 ppg, 10.4 rpg, 2.4 bpg

[Admin]

What good team is forcing him out of the paint? 

GS? 

Dallas?

Portland?

Chicago?

Cleveland?

Memphis? 

 

Yes any of those teams can scheme to force him out of the paint, to cover the PnR, to cover a stretch big. Did you not see what the Spurs did to the Thunder by putting Matt Bonner out there at C in the playoffs and forcing Perk to defend him? 

[Admin]

If Horford is healthy, he is definitely the better and more valuable player.  I would rely on a 10 game head-to-head sample to make that determination, though.  H2H can give you some distorted comparisons based on sample size and matchup.  

 

H2H definitely makes it look like Bogut is worth max dollars if Al is worth 12+:

 

Horford 12.6 ppg, 7.7 rpg, 0.7 bpg

Bogut 16.1 ppg, 10.4 rpg, 2.4 bpg

 

I'm not relying on it to make my argument, I'm using it as a supplement. The point being that most talented bigs put up big numbers on Horford because he's not a top tier defensive C but even Monroe couldn't do that much against Al. 

 

And a healthy Bogut is a better player than Al. Not by the margin that I believe Al is better than Monroe but Bogut is better than Al.