2024 Hawks Offseason Thread: What's Next? 2024-25 Season Outlook.

[Peoriabird]

1 hour ago, ShayD said:

 

A lot of unproven and high expectations on the roster. 1 injury to a major player and there might be problems.

DD has proven to be one of the best POA defenders in the league so he is proven.  Kobe has proven himself to be a good point of attack defender.  Bey, Murray, and Trae proved that they were amongst the worst POA.  I guessing you are worried that team may not have enough offense?  I'm going on record right now to say that I doubt offense will be our problem this year.

[ShayD]

3 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

DD has prove to be one of the best POA defenders in the league so he is proven.  Kobe has proven himself to be a good point of attack defender.  Bey, Murray, and Trae proved that they were amongst the worst POA.  I guessing you are worried that team may not have enough offense?  I'm going on record right now to say that I doubt offense will be our problem this year.

Still need a 5 that can make Layups and need depth at SF.

[909]

2 hours ago, ShayD said:

Vit is not even signed on the roster yet. Have to get rid of one of Bruno, Zeller or Liddell

Depth Chart:

PG: Trae, Kobe

SG: Dyson, Bogi, Mathews

SF: Hunter, Risacher

PF: Jalen, Nance, Gueye

C : Capela, Okongwu, Bruno, Zeller

A lot of unproven and high expectations on the roster. 1 injury to a major player and there might be problems.

Could the Hawks become the youngest team in the NBA next year? Especially if they move CC.

[theheroatl]

16 minutes ago, 909 said:

Could the Hawks become the youngest team in the NBA next year? Especially if they move CC.

They need to go all teen.. Just get a bunch of rookies. Let them all play gym ball together

[REHawksFan]

3 hours ago, AHF said:

Backup PG, SF and PF are my biggest worries as far as roster depth.

If Trae is out, we are going to be hurting given our options as primary playmakers.  As long as he is healthy, I think we are fine with 14 minutes or so a game of Daniels, Bogi, Bufkin, etc. teaming to move the ball.  I also think Risacher should be better at passing than Hunter and JJ is a strong passer at PF which helps.

The only guys who can defend big wings on the team consistently, imo, are Hunter and Risacher.  If Risacher struggles as a rookie on the defensive end that will be very problematic.  If Hunter suffers his annual extended injury we are going to be in some trouble (but if  Risacher can handle opposing big wings then much better off than last year).  Both would be a really bad position for the team.

I don't list JJ as someone to guard big wings because we are a two man shop at PF and I'm not fully convinced Nance can play extended minutes there so I think we will need JJ at PF for nearly all the minutes he plays.  These are Nance's minutes from last season and they are basically all at center:

As long as JJ is healthy then I don't think it is asking too much for Nance to play some time there.  He did when he was younger and it doesn't seem like a huge stretch.  But if he has slowed down some then that leaves us very thin at the position and for the same reason you'd be reluctant to slot JJ at SF you would likewise be reluctant to slot Hunter at PF (lack of depth at SF).

I don't ever want to see us having to give heavy minutes to guys like Mat(t)hews again.  (I'd love to see someone like Mathews or Gueye, etc. improve enough to earn more minutes but I don't count on either one being a competent defender at this stage of their careers.)

Kobe is BY FAR the biggest question mark for me.  I don't necessarily like the center rotation, but all those guys are proven so we know what we will get barring injury.  Same for PF with JJ and either Nance or maybe Dre as primary backups.  And while Risacher is a rookie with no NBA time, I'm oddly less concerned with him because he's actually played professional ball.  

With Kobe, I just have zero expectations for a kid that has logged exactly 196 actual NBA minutes in his career.  The equivalent of 4.1 games.  In. His. Career.   That's our backup PG.  

I have to think we'll see more DD/Bogie lineups when Trae sits than we will Kobe/Bogie or Kobe/DD lineups.  

It just makes sense to me to start Trae/DD and then bring Bogie in for Trae and play DD/Bogie.  Then you can bring Trae back for DD and play Trae/Bogie.  Then maybe Kobe comes in for a few minutes with Bogie.  

The other day I posted a chart with Kobe getting 15 min a game and the more I think about it, the less I like it.  I'm thinking it could be more like 9-10 min in a typical game.  

 

[Peoriabird]

7 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

Kobe is BY FAR the biggest question mark for me.  I don't necessarily like the center rotation, but all those guys are proven so we know what we will get barring injury.  Same for PF with JJ and either Nance or maybe Dre as primary backups.  And while Risacher is a rookie with no NBA time, I'm oddly less concerned with him because he's actually played professional ball.  

With Kobe, I just have zero expectations for a kid that has logged exactly 196 actual NBA minutes in his career.  The equivalent of 4.1 games.  In. His. Career.   That's our backup PG.  

I have to think we'll see more DD/Bogie lineups when Trae sits than we will Kobe/Bogie or Kobe/DD lineups.  

It just makes sense to me to start Trae/DD and then bring Bogie in for Trae and play DD/Bogie.  Then you can bring Trae back for DD and play Trae/Bogie.  Then maybe Kobe comes in for a few minutes with Bogie.  

The other day I posted a chart with Kobe getting 15 min a game and the more I think about it, the less I like it.  I'm thinking it could be more like 9-10 min in a typical game.  

 

I'm interested in seeing how Kobe and DD run the team...It can't be worst than Murray

[JTB]

As much as I can’t stand the Resselers…. They certainly aren’t the only owners playing the cheap game. Some are better at hiding it than others. But even big market owners are questioning things and trying to stay under the tax.

 

Edited July 9 by JTB

[gurpilo]

hace 19 minutos, REHawksFan dijo:

Kobe is BY FAR the biggest question mark for me.  I don't necessarily like the center rotation, but all those guys are proven so we know what we will get barring injury.  Same for PF with JJ and either Nance or maybe Dre as primary backups.  And while Risacher is a rookie with no NBA time, I'm oddly less concerned with him because he's actually played professional ball.  

With Kobe, I just have zero expectations for a kid that has logged exactly 196 actual NBA minutes in his career.  The equivalent of 4.1 games.  In. His. Career.   That's our backup PG.  

I have to think we'll see more DD/Bogie lineups when Trae sits than we will Kobe/Bogie or Kobe/DD lineups.  

It just makes sense to me to start Trae/DD and then bring Bogie in for Trae and play DD/Bogie.  Then you can bring Trae back for DD and play Trae/Bogie.  Then maybe Kobe comes in for a few minutes with Bogie.  

The other day I posted a chart with Kobe getting 15 min a game and the more I think about it, the less I like it.  I'm thinking it could be more like 9-10 min in a typical game.  

 

I agree 

Trae, Bogi, Hunter, Nance, Capela are proven players, we might consider them even veterans.

JJ, OO are young players but we are confident they will perform. That makes 7 rotation players you know what you are getting.

DD and Risacher are questionmarks, we think they may perform but we cannot be sure, DD defense is a sure thing, the questionmark is if his offense will allow him to stay on the court, Risacher playing professional basketball gives us confidence but these guys are really a questionmark. Makes 9 rotation players at best.

Bufkin and Gueye are even more questionmarks, very doubtful they can be real contributors. 

Rest of the roster… you cannot expect much contribution from them, Garrison Matthews, Bruno and  Cody Zeller are probably the sure thing, is fair to expect solid contribution from them at 10 mpg, end of the bench rotation. Matthews can contribute as aside of Bogi and Hunter we lack experience at SG and SF but Zeller and Bruno need an injury to play as the rotation is already set at PF and C, same for EJ Liddell.

That basically leaves as very thin at PG, SG and SF, not only because of number of players but because we only have 3 proven players and an end of the bench guy, rest are young players that we want to think they will be able to contribute but is not a fact. We need to add a veteran PG and a veteran wing capable to play SF.

[Gray Mule]

Listen to other NBA teams.  Most of us wondered about the Hawks drafting Kobe Bufkin.  Some NBA teams has asked about trading for him.  Hawks were not interested.  He's still a Hawk.  Injured part of last season and a lot of his playing time was with the Skyhawks.  As stated above, just limited NBA experience.

Mouhamed Gueye (MoGay) was our 2nd round pick last summer.  We moved up to grab him.  He's back.  Risacher is new.  These three make for an exciting Summer League.  It starts Friday!!

[AHF]

3 hours ago, Peoriabird said:

Then we have Mathews and Vit to slide over to the 2.  Why are we talking about scenarios where the majority of the starting line up is out anyway?  Let see what we have 1st before declaring the season lost due to multiple injuries or worst case scenarios with unknown players performances

(1) I'm certainly not declaring the season lost.  Where are you getting that?

(2) I'm not focused on scenarios where the majority of the starting lineup is out.  I talked about how it stresses our roster and we have limited coverage where even one player is out.  However, it is certainly worthwhile to think about multiple players being out at the same time especially given that most of our team is injury prone. 

• Bogi has missed ~20-40 games in 3 of his 5 seasons with us. 
• JJ has had multiple major injuries in his career and missed 26 games last year to put up his career high of 56 games played (that is also his career high when combining G-League and NBA games played if I'm not mistaken). 
• Hunter has missed ~20-60 games in 4 of his 5 seasons and has a career best of 15 games missed. 
• OO has missed ~25-35 games in 3 of his 4 seasons. 
• Daniels missed 23 games as rookie and 21 games last year.
• Trae has been a tank but missed 28 games last year.

I would say that it is not just possible but highly probable that we will have multiple starters missing games at the same time next season.  The real question in my mind is not whether that will happen but how often it will happen.

(3)  You are much more confident in Mathews and Vit's abilities to be productive rotation players at this stage of their careers than I am.  I would strongly prefer to have better options so that they only play if they significantly improve from where they are today.

[Peoriabird]

6 minutes ago, AHF said:

(1) I'm certainly not declaring the season lost.  Where are you getting that?

(2) I'm not focused on scenarios where the majority of the starting lineup is out.  I talked about how it stresses our roster and we have limited coverage where even one player is out.  However, it is certainly worthwhile to think about multiple players being out at the same time especially given that most of our team is injury prone. 

• Bogi has missed ~20-40 games in 3 of his 5 seasons with us. 
• JJ has had multiple major injuries in his career and missed 26 games last year to put up his career high of 56 games played (that is also his career high when combining G-League and NBA games played if I'm not mistaken). 
• Hunter has missed ~20-60 games in 4 of his 5 seasons and has a career best of 15 games missed. 
• OO has missed ~25-35 games in 3 of his 4 seasons. 
• Daniels missed 23 games as rookie and 21 games last year.
• Trae has been a tank but missed 28 games last year.

I would say that it is not just possible but highly probable that we will have multiple starters missing games at the same time next season.  The real question in my mind is not whether that will happen but how often it will happen.

(3)  You are much more confident in Mathews and Vit's abilities to be productive rotation players at this stage of their careers than I am.  I would strongly prefer to have better options so that they only play if they significantly improve from where they are today.

No team will have absolute interchangeable parts and Injuries to key players on any team will affect their win loss potential otherwise it would make no sense to pay any player over $20 mil per year let alone the max.  I will choose watch how the team plays together before concluding anything but in theory, it look like this roster can work unlike last year's roster which was fatally flawed even when healthy.

[macdaddy]

33 minutes ago, gurpilo said:

Trae, Bogi, Hunter, Nance, Capela are proven players, we might consider them even veterans.

JJ, OO are young players but we are confident they will perform. That makes 7 rotation players you know what you are getting.

Yep.  this is the facts of it.  Add do that 4 of the 7 are at PF/C.

[Hawkmoor]

26 minutes ago, Gray Mule said:

Listen to other NBA teams.  Most of us wondered about the Hawks drafting Kobe Bufkin.  Some NBA teams has asked about trading for him.  Hawks were not interested.  He's still a Hawk.  Injured part of last season and a lot of his playing time was with the Skyhawks.  As stated above, just limited NBA experience.

Mouhamed Gueye (MoGay) was our 2nd round pick last summer.  We moved up to grab him.  He's back.  Risacher is new.  These three make for an exciting Summer League.  It starts Friday!!

I wanted Bufkin to get the opportunity to run the point if the Hawks traded both Murray and Young.  If it didn't work they could've always moved off him. That was assuming they drafted Sarr and traded for Ingram. Of course they didn't draft Sarr and as we found out,  they felt OO and Capela were too valuable to trade for Ingram.  That last part is laughable.  Too many moving parts to say what the Hawks would've gotten back in return but the Pelicans definitely would've been the team to trade with and Daniels was gonna be a part of ANY package whether it was Young or Murray.

pg  Bufkin

sg Daniels/Bogi

sf Ingram

pf Johnson

c Sarr

[AHF]

17 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

No team will have absolute interchangeable parts and Injuries to key players on any team will affect their win loss potential otherwise it would make no sense to pay any player over $20 mil per year let alone the max.  I will choose watch how the team plays together before concluding anything but in theory, it look like this roster can work unlike last year's roster which was fatally flawed even when healthy.

Part of what I've been suggesting today is that the team should not be done putting together the roster and that if we can move Zeller and/or Liddell and add more useful players then these are the positions where I'd like them to add that additional talent.  I've already said and agree that our depth is already better this year as long we don't dump useful players like salary dumping Hunter or something like that.

[Peoriabird]

5 minutes ago, AHF said:

I've already said and agree that our depth is already better this year as long we don't dump useful players like salary dumping Hunter or something like that.

Say it loud and proudly!

[JTB]

Honestly I rather keep Hunter at all cost at this point.

@Mikey said there may be a deal on the table for salary relief but aren’t we currently already under the cap ???

why dump a useful player that can come off the bench for us???

this is a sad sad franchise. Dumping Hunter does absolutely nothing for you. Trade him for decent talent back and a pick I can understand.

[REHawksFan]

56 minutes ago, JTB said:

Honestly I rather keep Hunter at all cost at this point.

@Mikey said there may be a deal on the table for salary relief but aren’t we currently already under the cap ???

why dump a useful player that can come off the bench for us???

this is a sad sad franchise. Dumping Hunter does absolutely nothing for you. Trade him for decent talent back and a pick I can understand.

We are $50M OVER the Cap. We are just barely under the Tax.

[JayBirdHawk]

1 hour ago, JTB said:

Honestly I rather keep Hunter at all cost at this point.

@Mikey said there may be a deal on the table for salary relief but aren’t we currently already under the cap ???

why dump a useful player that can come off the bench for us???

this is a sad sad franchise. Dumping Hunter does absolutely nothing for you. Trade him for decent talent back and a pick I can understand.

We are over the cap by ~$29 mil, but under the tax by $1.6 million.

[JTB]

7 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

We are over the cap, but under the tax by $1.6 million.

 

28 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

Losing Clint, Hunter's salary, and Nance next year doesn't open $43M. They'd still be near the Salary Cap if not fully over with Cap Holds. They are $50M over the Cap this year which is just under the Tax Line.  

Hawks don't really have a way to open up significant Cap space to sign a FA unless they trade Trae for expiring contracts or something like that, which would be franchise suicide. 

Ok I didn’t realize we were over the cap still. Y’all will have to excuse my ignorance, I’m sure it was stated on these boards before….Man!   
 

we really are in bad shape aren’t we ?! Are we over the cap due to Traes contract alone ? Or is this due to schlenks bad contract negotiations in the past ?

 

sounds like it may be a better idea to take some acceptable risk by that I mean maybe consider trading certain players with certain draft picks to get back an actual useful asset. I’m completely against dumping Hunter if we can’t gain cap space in the very near future.

 

i was really hoping I was right, knowing I’m wrong is insane yet really sad. We are down to draft picks which is a waiting process for them to develop and relying on Landry to actually win a damn trade. …that’s tough.

Edited July 10 by JTB

[Sothron]

Moving Hunter for a cheaper wing plus a first is a good move IMO. It is clear the team has moved on to Jalen and ZR as our starting forwards of the future. Hunter is making too much to be a sixth man.