Simple Question: Will the Hawks Start the season OVER OR UNDER the Luxury Tax?

[Final_quest]

53 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Contenders? No one knows. 

But I would have at least liked to start a season with more talent than not. Going into the season with more talent vs less, the projections would anticipate more wins.

Example 

Last season Minny: 42-40

Last season Hawks: 41-41

This season both teams going in opposite directions.

I really feel like last season was the first season out of the past 4 where we didn't have excitement going into it and a feeling like the FO made a good effort.

2020-2021: added Capela, Bogi, and Gallo

2021-2022: Paid everyone on the team and added Delon Wright. (No one was questioning running it back and we were predicting a finals run.)

2022-2023: Traded outgoing contract for Murray.  Huge move.  Even though it didn't work out, I still applaud the effort.  

2023-2024: Made an all out blitz to get Siakam.  There was no way we could have kept the roster together when we owed 2nd apron money on a play-in level team, still I think they made a credible effort to get a real talent on the team, Siakam.

Last year they ran into a brick wall with payroll and not enough talent to support the spend.  They still tried to pull a rabbit out of their hat with Siakam.  I think saying Ressler doesn't care, or we're not trying doesn't match the reality.  There's a lot of valid criticism they deserve, but let's not overreact. 

When I see the teams with KD, Steph, Giannis, Lebron, and Kawhi paired with other all NBA talent as basically the only teams paying the tax, I'm even more confused.  We wanted to act like we got a much better player than we did, and then call the FO cheap skates.  It's a little unbalanced to me.  

[AHF]

14 hours ago, Final_quest said:

Not going into the tax is assuming failure?  That's pretty dramatic.  Murray and Young were like 25 years old.  I get Phoenix going all in.  Hawks acquire Murray after a .500 season and they are now contenders?  No one even projected anything like that.  No one. Kevin Huerter would not have changed the team projection one bit nor would he have changed the outcome much in real life either.   

We didn't know Murray wasn't on the level of KD, Kawhi, or Lebron?  That's pretty close to a lie.  We should have thought of him like that and spent $200M on payroll?  You can't be serious.  

I’m not surprised you can’t believe a strawman version of my post.  We were a team that made the ECF and returned to the playoffs injured the next season.  Trading for a young All-Star presumably should have elevated the team to a new level.  (Let me be explicit  - no one should have predicted that DJM would be a prime LeBron but they should have projected he would significantly upgrade the team why else trade all we did for him?).
 

Downgrading the rest of the roster at the same time shows a lack of confidence or piss poor strategy.  You can upgrade talent without paying the tax but you can’t upgrade talent when you give away valuable rotation players and don’t get anything back in return that shows up on the floor.

[REHawksFan]

13 hours ago, Final_quest said:

2023-2024: Made an all out blitz to get Siakam.  There was no way we could have kept the roster together when we owed 2nd apron money on a play-in level team, still I think they made a credible effort to get a real talent on the team, Siakam.

Maybe. Maybe not. No one knows for sure. But even if they did, what's plan B? It can't be "awe shucks, we tried but couldn't get the deal done. I guess we'll do nothing." Cuz that's what actually happened. 

It's not all or nothing. Teams try and fail to get deals done ALL THE TIME. Smart teams don't give up and keep moving toward improving the team. The Hawks punted and did nothing. They neither leaned into the lottery, nor kept trying to get better. 

Edited May 25 by REHawksFan

[JayBirdHawk]

50 minutes ago, AHF said:

 (Let me be explicit  - no one should have predicted that DJM would be a prime LeBron but they should have projected he would significantly upgrade the team why else trade all we did for him?).
 

Downgrading the rest of the roster at the same time shows a lack of confidence or piss poor strategy.

And a reminder also, they talked about recouping a pick in the Huerter for what they gave away in the DJ trade. Why worry about that IMMEDIATELY without one bounce of the ball if you are so confident in the trade. You should want to keep building not stripping away at it for lesser.

 

[Final_quest]

10 hours ago, AHF said:

I’m not surprised you can’t believe a strawman version of my post.  We were a team that made the ECF and returned to the playoffs injured the next season.  Trading for a young All-Star presumably should have elevated the team to a new level.  (Let me be explicit  - no one should have predicted that DJM would be a prime LeBron but they should have projected he would significantly upgrade the team why else trade all we did for him?).
 

Downgrading the rest of the roster at the same time shows a lack of confidence or piss poor strategy.  You can upgrade talent without paying the tax but you can’t upgrade talent when you give away valuable rotation players and don’t get anything back in return that shows up on the floor.

We had a starting front court that dropped off in productivity and was overpaid.  We had a back court that couldn’t defend and was redundant on offense.  It takes a lot of dissonance to maintain spending on one more bench player was the problem. 
If we went into the tax we would be the worst payroll in the league.  

Piss poor strategy is everything you are saying they should have done.  Commit to $200M in spending with a very unremarkable roster.  

[Final_quest]

9 hours ago, JayBirdHawk said:

And a reminder also, they talked about recouping a pick in the Huerter for what they gave away in the DJ trade. Why worry about that IMMEDIATELY without one bounce of the ball if you are so confident in the trade. You should want to keep building not stripping away at it for lesser.

 

Because Murray was Huerter’s replacement and if you also keep Huerter you commit to $200M in payroll the following year.  It would have been a really bad idea.  
We already had to cut JC.  You honestly believe we should have made our cap commitments higher and on par with the top 3 teams in the league?  Like you honestly believe that would have been the smart move?  

[Final_quest]

10 hours ago, REHawksFan said:

 

It's not all or nothing. Teams try and fail to get deals done ALL THE TIME. Smart teams don't give up and keep moving toward improving the team. The Hawks punted and did nothing. They neither leaned into the lottery, nor kept trying to get better. 

Teams strike out in free agency all the time.  I don’t know why they spent up to the tax line three years in a row but not last year.  Maybe they wanted to keep a balance open for a possible move with the TPE.  

They did actually get better at a lot of things as the season went on.  

[JayBirdHawk]

2 hours ago, Final_quest said:

Because Murray was Huerter’s replacement and if you also keep Huerter you commit to $200M in payroll the following year.    

No. Because what you commit to at the start of one season as you try and put the best possible team on the court,  doesn't mean you are committed to the same roster the following year. It was shortsighted considering Bogi's offseadon knee injury.

[AHF]

3 hours ago, Final_quest said:

We had a starting front court that dropped off in productivity and was overpaid.  We had a back court that couldn’t defend and was redundant on offense.  It takes a lot of dissonance to maintain spending on one more bench player was the problem. 
If we went into the tax we would be the worst payroll in the league.  

Piss poor strategy is everything you are saying they should have done.  Commit to $200M in spending with a very unremarkable roster.  

Why you keep insisting on them paying the tax I will never know.  Thanks for another strawmanning.  When you want to actually talk let me know.

[Final_quest]

On 5/25/2024 at 10:13 PM, AHF said:

Why you keep insisting on them paying the tax I will never know.  Thanks for another strawmanning.  When you want to actually talk let me know.

You guys have made Tony's resistance to spend and go into the tax something of a monument is why I keep bringing it up.  None of ya'll were ever arguing we should trade Huerter for a smaller salary until just now.  I don't even know what you actually believe.  Should we have gone all in and kept Huerter, traded him for long term equivalent salary, traded him for a younger player on a lesser salary?  Acting like your message has been consistent, but I can't even identify what you actually believe.    

What they ended up doing was a 2 part trade that was using our assets for a productive cheaper talent after moving on from Huerter.  One move was trading Huerter, and the other move was trading for Bey.  We got to see the starters with one of the top bench lineups in the league.  The starters in 2022-2023 were a net negative together, and that's where most of our money was invested. 

The next season we have to face our actual reality of out of control payroll with less than stellar on court performance. What is it about the starters of Trae, Murray, Hunter, JC, and Capela that says to you our best move was to add to that solid amazing core and give up even more future draft capital or payroll commitments to support them, (ie trading Huerter to bolster the bench instead of getting a pick)?  Even with the benefit of hindsight, you want to invest more assets into that core?  It's hard for me to believe that's anyone's position.  

[AHF]

Acting like it is a new idea that we had $12M to spend last year without going in the tax is crazy.  How many times has that been raised by me or another poster?  100?  200 times?  Crazy.  I don't consider that to be a payroll commitment.  Mileage may vary on that, but it doesn't need to tie up money in future seasons.  It needn't cost draft assets.  It just went unused and we got abused when Hunter and JJ got hurt.  If the expectation coming into last year was that it was going to be a lost season that is very different than pitching that the team was ready to compete.

There were about a half dozen different levers we could have pulled to try to compete last year and we didn't pull them.

$$ under the tax line?  Unused.

Actual contributing minimum salary players?  Unused.

TPE?  Unused.

MLE?  Unused.

Trades for talent?  Unused.

 

I don't disagree with you that the big problem was that our starters (especially Trae and DJM) didn't work or weren't good enough (frontcourt).  Well, we've had each of those starters other than JJ for multiple seasons and nothing changed.  Why are you talking about investing more in those players when the want from the fans is to see changes to them?  Just riding out their contracts is frustrating to fans when they aren't delivering.  

So when you have starters that underperform and don't change them and you have a bench that is underfunded and undertalented and you have resources to make moves and don't and you tell the fans to get excited because you want to win championships, you should expect the fans to ask "what gives" when your big moves after trading for DJM are adding Saddiq Bey and deleting talent from the roster.

I can give the team credit for at least trying to make a change to the starters and for not making a bad deal if that is all there is.  Talking other teams into taking bad deals is the job of the GM but I can't really assess whether Fields sold the hell out of it but just couldn't get there for no fault of his own or if he is really ineffective in these conversations or anything in between.  We just see the end result of no changes and no improvement and watch other teams make key moves with starters on their roster who are underdelivering. 

I think reasonable minds can differ on whether to do things like use the TPE but I see zero excuse for not spending the $12M we had to get ourselves more forward depth last year unless the plan all along was to run the team as cheaply as possible (which doesn't fit with past actions by the FO) because it was a lost season (which conflicts with the messaging to fans) or to run the team as cheaply as possible during FA to keep room for an unlikely big trade that would see us adding payroll to the roster (in which case there is no basketball reason we didn't spend the $12M but if the goal was to avoid the tax and add $10M or something in a trade that would give you that path).

[Gray Mule]

OVER!

[Final_quest]

1 hour ago, AHF said:

I think reasonable minds can differ on whether to do things like use the TPE but I see zero excuse for not spending the $12M we had to get ourselves more forward depth last year unless the plan all along was to run the team as cheaply as possible (which doesn't fit with past actions by the FO) because it was a lost season (which conflicts with the messaging to fans) or to run the team as cheaply as possible during FA to keep room for an unlikely big trade that would see us adding payroll to the roster (in which case there is no basketball reason we didn't spend the $12M but if the goal was to avoid the tax and add $10M or something in a trade that would give you that path).

Exactly. Last year was a departure from spending up to the cap, but there are actual strategic reasons to keep a buffer.  You are carrying a big TPE that is easier to use when you have some room to work with.  They want to leave open a possibility to do something significant, but can’t do that if they sign a low level talent to a one year deal using a portion of that $12M.  

As a fan that wants my team to succeed I would rather they go into the season with more levers to pull to improve if a trade became possible.  Don’t you think they assessed the backup 4’s available to sign on a one year deal and realized they were hot garbage?  Let’s keep things more flexible in case that changes.

Seeing only the downsides keeps you from  leaving open the possibility that they actually were thinking about how to best move forward.  I’m not gonna react emotionally and check my brain out.  I’m gonna try to understand what their best intentions might have been.  

[JeffS17]

2 hours ago, AHF said:

Acting like it is a new idea that we had $12M to spend last year without going in the tax is crazy.  How many times has that been raised by me or another poster?  100?  200 times?  Crazy.  I don't consider that to be a payroll commitment.  Mileage may vary on that, but it doesn't need to tie up money in future seasons.  It needn't cost draft assets.  It just went unused and we got abused when Hunter and JJ got hurt.  If the expectation coming into last year was that it was going to be a lost season that is very different than pitching that the team was ready to compete.

Going to re-post a question that you never addressed below, so we can understand what you mean here, specifically.

On 5/3/2024 at 2:01 PM, JeffS17 said:

And you haven't given a single realistic thing we could have done to be better.  Is it George Niang? Thybulle? Shake Milton?  Who is that elusive needle mover you guys keep referencing?  Is it a trade fabricated in the trade machine? 

Also, assuming we can get guys on a 1 year deal and not tie up future money is just that -- an assumption, one that isn't actually rooted in fact.  Niang signed a 3 year deal.  Thybulle signed a 3 year deal.  Milton signed a 2 year deal.  Who are the players you feel we missed out on?  I want to know who is on this hill you're dying on.

[JeffS17]

I'll repeat again that strategically the way we handled last season made complete sense to me (to give ourselves maximum future flexibility rather than going all-in on this one season), and it literally paid off in the biggest way possible, as we are sitting here with the #1 pick.  Even if we didn't win the lottery, it still made sense.  We're so much better off looking forward than we would have been if we had more salary commitments to more mediocre bench players and a worse draft pick.  We could have been just good enough to miss the lottery if we made ill-advised strategic decisions last offseason.

[AHF]

40 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

Exactly. Last year was a departure from spending up to the cap, but there are actual strategic reasons to keep a buffer.  You are carrying a big TPE that is easier to use when you have some room to work with.  They want to leave open a possibility to do something significant, but can’t do that if they sign a low level talent to a one year deal using a portion of that $12M.  

As a fan that wants my team to succeed I would rather they go into the season with more levers to pull to improve if a trade became possible.  Don’t you think they assessed the backup 4’s available to sign on a one year deal and realized they were hot garbage?  Let’s keep things more flexible in case that changes.

Seeing only the downsides keeps you from  leaving open the possibility that they actually were thinking about how to best move forward.  I’m not gonna react emotionally and check my brain out.  I’m gonna try to understand what their best intentions might have been.  

Did you hear about a single use for the TPE that was explored last year?  Seems like that went deliberately unused and is going to expire.  At this point if we can work it in as part of another trade just to renew it for another year that is all the win that I expect from it.  (I.e., not actually using it.)

[AHF]

1 hour ago, JeffS17 said:

Going to re-post a question that you never addressed below, so we can understand what you mean here, specifically.

Also, assuming we can get guys on a 1 year deal and not tie up future money is just that -- an assumption, one that isn't actually rooted in fact.  Niang signed a 3 year deal.  Thybulle signed a 3 year deal.  Milton signed a 2 year deal.  Who are the players you feel we missed out on?  I want to know who is on this hill you're dying on.

I've answered this multiple times and don't intend to pull that up again here so I'll focus on your names.  [Edit before posting:  I've added a few names at the bottom for conversation purposes.]

Thybulle got a deal that I think you can make a strong case over that he would have declined our hypothetical one year offer.  $12M is more than the $10.5M he got last year but not by enough that I think it is sufficiently likely he would have taken $12M that I would bet on it.  I'm calling this one a win for you and the argument that this wasn't a player we missed on.

Niang signed for a 3 year deal that pays $8.8M, $8.5M, and $8.2.  You think it is a slam dunk that he wouldn't have taken $12M?  To match his deal that means he would need nothing more than a two year deal for $7M per year.  Anything above that means that he gains both the time value of money and on the absolute returns on his contract.  I'm not sure we'd need to pay $12M but let's just assume that since it is the highest number that keeps us under the tax line and that is what determines if we passed on someone or not.  I'd bet on him taking our offer if it was offered which I think it's safe to say that it wasn't.

Milton signed a 2 year $10M deal.  This one must be a joke if you think he would have turned down $12M to take a 2 year $10M deal so I'm not sure why you've mentioned him.  We wouldn't have needed to pay $12M to get him obviously but it makes it a total no brainer.

 

So I would say that of the 3 names you've listed, one of these is a no brainer that we land them if we want and another is a very strong chance we land them.  The third would be a long-shot that I would count on us not getting.

 

Edit (before posting): I'll also mention a few other names even though I've done it before.

Miles Bridges - 1 year, $7.9M < $12M.   This would have been a massive value to the team.  Talk about an upgrade to talent and depth off the discount from the risk of his legal standing.  I'm not sure that risk was nearly as high as Matthews stinking it up, though.  Wes was washed last year so him being washed again was extremely likely coming into the season.

NAW - 2 year, $4M per < $12M.  Easy get on the wing and obvious defensive upgrade over many of the guys who got minutes for us last year after very predictable injuries struck.

Ayo Dosunmu - 3 year, $7M per < $12M.  Strong bet to land him as a big wing upgrade to our bench.  He would only need to get someone to pay him >$4.5M per year the next two years to make this a win for him.

Trey Lyles - 2 year, $8M per < $12M.  Very strong bet to land him.  He would only need >$4M in year 2 to make this win.

 

If we do any of these, we are in the exact same tax position as we were last year (i.e., not paying the tax) and are in the exact same payroll position we are in today but we are actually trying to compete.  Again, if we acknowledge that last year was a lost season in which we weren't legit competing (as we clearly weren't by the end when we refused to put Vit on the post-season roster so that we would stack the deck to lose) then this is a different premise and more of a case of dishonest marketing from the Hawks as is the case for many teams that don't genuinely try to maximize the success of their rosters.

 

 

 

[JeffS17]

15 minutes ago, AHF said:

I've answered this multiple times and don't intend to pull that up again here so I'll focus on your names.  [Edit before posting:  I've added a few names at the bottom for conversation purposes.]

Thybulle got a deal that I think you can make a strong case over that he would have declined our hypothetical one year offer.  $12M is more than the $10.5M he got last year but not by enough that I think it is sufficiently likely he would have taken $12M that I would bet on it.  I'm calling this one a win for you and the argument that this wasn't a player we missed on.

Niang signed for a 3 year deal that pays $8.8M, $8.5M, and $8.2.  You think it is a slam dunk that he wouldn't have taken $12M?  To match his deal that means he would need nothing more than a two year deal for $7M per year.  Anything above that means that he gains both the time value of money and on the absolute returns on his contract.  I'm not sure we'd need to pay $12M but let's just assume that since it is the highest number that keeps us under the tax line and that is what determines if we passed on someone or not.  I'd bet on him taking our offer if it was offered which I think it's safe to say that it wasn't.

Milton signed a 2 year $10M deal.  This one must be a joke if you think he would have turned down $12M to take a 2 year $10M deal so I'm not sure why you've mentioned him.  We wouldn't have needed to pay $12M to get him obviously but it makes it a total no brainer.

 

So I would say that of the 3 names you've listed, one of these is a no brainer that we land them if we want and another is a very strong chance we land them.  The third would be a long-shot that I would count on us not getting.

 

Edit (before posting): I'll also mention a few other names even though I've done it before.

Miles Bridges - 1 year, $7.9M < $12M.   This would have been a massive value to the team.  Talk about an upgrade to talent and depth off the discount from the risk of his legal standing.  I'm not sure that risk was nearly as high as Matthews stinking it up, though.  Wes was washed last year so him being washed again was extremely likely coming into the season.

NAW - 2 year, $4M per < $12M.  Easy get on the wing and obvious defensive upgrade over many of the guys who got minutes for us last year after very predictable injuries struck.

Ayo Dosunmu - 3 year, $7M per < $12M.  Strong bet to land him as a big wing upgrade to our bench.  He would only need to get someone to pay him >$4.5M per year the next two years to make this a win for him.

Trey Lyles - 2 year, $8M per < $12M.  Very strong bet to land him.  He would only need >$4M in year 2 to make this win.

 

If we do any of these, we are in the exact same tax position as we were last year (i.e., not paying the tax) and are in the exact same payroll position we are in today but we are actually trying to compete.  Again, if we acknowledge that last year was a lost season in which we weren't legit competing (as we clearly weren't by the end when we refused to put Vit on the post-season roster so that we would stack the deck to lose) then this is a different premise and more of a case of dishonest marketing from the Hawks as is the case for many teams that don't genuinely try to maximize the success of their rosters.

 

 

 

Appreciate the response and the names, even if I don't believe any of these would have been good moves to make last year.  Our situational needs, beyond being flexible for the future, were to play young guys so we can actually make decisions on them, not optimize every minute of the roster to try to win in that season.  Did I just move the goal posts? Yeah, but I still believe that to be true.  1 year deal overpays for guys that are going to walk afterwards are for veteran teams contending, not for teams trying to develop from within and build chemistry with each other for the long term.

[AHF]

5 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

Appreciate the response and the names, even if I don't believe any of these would have been good moves to make last year.  Our situational needs, beyond being flexible for the future, were to play young guys so we can actually make decisions on them, not optimize every minute of the roster to try to win in that season.  Did I just move the goal posts? Yeah, but I still believe that to be true.  1 year deal overpays for guys that are going to walk afterwards are for veteran teams contending, not for teams trying to develop from within and build chemistry with each other for the long term.

Bear in mind that we did fill that roster spot with a 1 year overpay deal.  It was just for a player who hurt the team when he was on the floor instead of for someone who could help the roster.

[macdaddy]

47 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

Appreciate the response and the names, even if I don't believe any of these would have been good moves to make last year.  Our situational needs, beyond being flexible for the future, were to play young guys so we can actually make decisions on them, not optimize every minute of the roster to try to win in that season.  Did I just move the goal posts? Yeah, but I still believe that to be true.  1 year deal overpays for guys that are going to walk afterwards are for veteran teams contending, not for teams trying to develop from within and build chemistry with each other for the long term.

I just don't understand this idea that there is nothing we could have done the last three years of cost savings to make the team better.  You want to limit it to who we could have signed last summer as a free agent but it's really the last three years of ineptitude and/or cheapness that has done us in.  Look at all the guys that moved.  What would it look like if we had brought in Derrick White, OG, PJ Washington, Josh Hart.  All guys that serious teams made moves for.   And a ton of other good players got moved in the time span where we literally acquired no one except DJ that wasn't a straight cast off from another team