Will the Atlanta Hawks be improved defensively in 2016-2017? Tiago Splitter seems to think so

[JTB]

5 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

I"m not necessarily disagreeing with you but here's the thing.   I trust Bud and we know Bud is an analytics guy.   They sign Dwight, which means we are obviously trying to win now, why would Bud choose Al over Sap when Sap so thoroughly outperforms him?  

I wondered the same thing but the hawks are now denying that they were ever shopping sap in the first place (lol of course right) but if i had to guess the plan originally was to keep all 3, I truly believe that but once horford started to bitch about getting the full max perhaps age came in factor believing we should go ahead and get horford back who's 30 and have him and D12 at the same age then trade millsap for another high potential player like Dennis.

All of that sounds like a good plan but I'm glad they held on to sap because we don't have a go to offensive player on superstar level even after signing D8. Not to say sap is a go to offensive player but he is a good scorer and as we all know that extremely hard for this franchise to find. Therefore his points were needed but then theres the notion that horford may turn in to a better scorer by being a PF full time and maybe he would have, its hard to really know but now we will never find out unless the C's actually get a starting caliber center thats better than AL.

 

[hazer]

17 hours ago, RedDawg#8 said:

We are about to be as strong a defense as we have ever been in decades. And this is considering how good we were the past two seasons. I'm telling you, I see #1 defensive potential this season.

We can debate who starts and who plays how many minutes until our faces turn blue  but when the lineup of Schröder, Baze, Thabo, Millsap, and Howard are on the court I dare anybody to come up with a better 5 man defensive unit in the NBA,

I call that lineup "The Granite Curtain"...

[Jody23]

4 hours ago, macdaddy said:

I"m not necessarily disagreeing with you but here's the thing.   I trust Bud and we know Bud is an analytics guy.   They sign Dwight, which means we are obviously trying to win now, why would Bud choose Al over Sap when Sap so thoroughly outperforms him?  

That was more about having Al under a reasonable contract for the next five years AND potentially getting other valuable players and/or assets vs just having Millsap essentially in the last year of his deal.  So the Hawks making that play (if true) was never simply about who was better between Horford and Millsap.  The gap between them isn't that wide, but Millsap was better last year.

[Thomas]

Believe our shooting percentage in the paint will definitely go up as well as how often we take shots down there. Feels like a good thing. Sap missing bunnies while Al is on the perimeter waiting to take a three is now over. Sap with Dwight gives us more shots, rebounds and points down there which will give us much more balance. Should not be able to shoot ourselves out of games from long range nearly as often. Defense at the rim has got to be better now. Dwight and Sap will be a great defensive combo down low.