2024-25 Insider Thread

[akay]

Just now, kg01 said:

basketball related.  But they still have the common theme of cost avoidance that can't be ignored

Who ignores that though? Tony being cheap handicapping our team has been pretty well noted by everyone.

 Hope that things are different this season because if ownership wants to keep making money with Trae, then they’ll have to dip into the tax and trot out a competitive team finally based on what insiders are saying.

 Also, keeping the #1 pick instead of trading back to save money isn’t nothing, along with spending cash to get Niko. 
 

We’re getting trickles of indications that the tax is gonna get paid, and that hopium leads me to feel next year gonna be our best since 21

[kg01]

3 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

Some have trouble reading...I said done with being a fan of this team which has nothing to do with this website. 

Uh, why be here if you're not a fan?

1 minute ago, akay said:

Who ignores that though?

Eh, there's been a few posts suggesting the owner's not being cheap.  As if the moves to jettison some players just happened to also dump salary.  Like by chance. 

[theheroatl]

Between @sturt and @Peoriabird I can't figure out who doesn't want to be a hawks fan more.. @kg01 can you help sort this out

[JayBirdHawk]

19 minutes ago, ShooterSays said:

I'm not 100% sold they won't pay the tax this year because of two reasons that haven't existed before now:

Like clockwork - Every year someone says this! 

[Peoriabird]

3 minutes ago, theheroatl said:

Between @sturt and @Peoriabird I can't figure out who doesn't want to be a hawks fan more.. @kg01 can you help sort this out

I'll discuss logic solutions to optimizing the team without having a connection to this team or management.

[Final_quest]

We’ve been going into the offseason with huge cap sheets and play in rosters.  Acting shocked, dismayed, and disgusted at our owner deciding not to pay the tax is crazy to me.

Last year only three teams in the east were in the tax: Boston, Milwaukee, and Miami.  You guys think Murray and Trae compare to any of the tax paying team’s top duos?  Or our core compares with their core?   

It’s a chicken and egg question. Where the rationale you guys seems to have is that once you pay the tax your team can compete with Boston.  That’s not how I see it.  

If we kept Collins we would have had the highest payroll in the east last year.  Begging for an owner to stupidly pay a price tag that high for a team that was a #8 seed the year before makes you a real fan?  

I see it as we need a roster reset to build a team that isn’t going to have a .500 record with a huge cap sheet going into the next year.  That’s what we’ve been.  What is the fix?  Cutting bad long term contracts and bringing in a core that fits with Quin and Trae, then grow it into a real contender.  

[Peoriabird]

1 minute ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Like clockwork - Every year someone says this! 

Even when it makes the least sense to pay the luxury tax because the team truly doesn't know what this team is.

[ShooterSays]

2 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Like clockwork - Every year someone says this! 

Yeah I mean he's not going to just pay it to keep Hunter and Capela on this team. But if they can add like a Jarrett Allen, Lauri, or some other winning combo of players, I believe he'll pay it.

I wouldn't want to pay it either to keep Hunter and Capela here.

[JTB]

19 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

Some have trouble reading...I said done with being a fan of this team which has nothing to do with this website. 

Wait…I’m confused.

if you’re done being a fan of the team why waste your time on this website that’s about the team?

[kg01]

12 minutes ago, theheroatl said:

Between @sturt and @Peoriabird I can't figure out who doesn't want to be a hawks fan more.. @kg01 can you help sort this out

Easy.  Look for people that are upset when something good happens.  Those aren't the fans.

You're welcome.  Now there's the matter of my consulting fee that we need to discu$$ .... 

[Peoriabird]

Just now, JTB said:

Wait…I’m confused.

if you’re done being a fan of the team why waste your time on this website that’s about the team?

People go to website of other teams all of the time.  Like i said, I'm willing to discuss logical strategy but having this outrageous delusion of Trae Young that most have here takes a fan.

[JTB]

For the record when I said I was “done”…for JTB that means I’m going to take a long break from paying attention to the Hawks including the squawk . I will never say I’m done being a hawk fan , my fandom is too strong to let that go and I’m a realist but if we trade Trae I probably won’t tune into the nba this season or at least wait for the second half of the season .

i just can’t watch us give away a generational talent and then start rebuilding again after just coming off a rebuild 4 or 5 short years ago.

[Peoriabird]

2 minutes ago, kg01 said:

Easy.  Look for people that are upset when something good happens.  Those aren't the fans.

You're welcome.  Now there's the matter of my consulting fee that we need to discu$$ .... 

I actually have no problem with the Murray trade and the 2nd round pick

[KB21]

It’s very clear that some do not understand how players synergistically fit together and how much schemes can improve with better fits.  

[Final_quest]

I would actually complain if Tony paid the highest price in the east and we were winning 45 games.  You guys are completely out of touch with reality.

$187M would have been our payroll with Collins.  Highest in the east.  

Bad team + high payroll = cut salary

[sturt]

22 minutes ago, theheroatl said:

Between @sturt and @Peoriabird I can't figure out who doesn't want to be a hawks fan more.. @kg01 can you help sort this out

hehe... I can't speak for Peor, of course... I've not read his comments, quite honestly to even have a clue about his reasoning, or if his conclusions compare to mine...

 

I love the franchise. Obviously. Probably more than most here. I've paid my dues. Over. And over. And over. Etc. Etc. Etc.

I want them to succeed.

I'm just taking a hiatus.

 

That means I'm not investing my psychological health in this any more until I can see clearly that there is actual evidence that whoever is at the top of the hierarchy is going to be an asset to their success. For as long as that person represents a gatekeeper and a progress stopper, a person chiefly interested in the team as a personal ATM, and by necessary inference, not prioritizing winning a title like us peons do... getting absorbed in this team's fortunes is a bad idea for people who genuinely need more than just the soap opera of it, who genuinely have tired of hamster wheels, who genuinely cannot not expect of the owner his/her total commitment to getting this team a championship banner to hang.

 

Clearly, that doesn't mean I don't still hope that somehow Landry Addison Fields is the NBA version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart... so good at his job that even an owner's bad faith, not to mention terribly dysfunctional management convictions, can prevent a title from occurring.

It doesn't mean, either that I don't still hope that somehow Lady Luck will cast special favor on the Hawks like she's never done before, and also have a hand in overcoming the obstacle that the owner presents. Or who knows, maybe there's a Saul-to-Paul conversion, and Tony becomes something different than he's been for 8 years.

Or so much more likely, even though it is so so so unlikely... Tony steps down and lets someone else run the team, someone who immediately can prove him/herself to take a very different approach; chiefly, an approach where, sure, there's some financial discipline, but the idea of cutting talent inventory for the sake of the spreadsheet is absurdity.

It's not absurdity now. To the contrary, APR's been so smooth that he actually has some ATL fans arguing for his bank account as a priority over on-court success. The absurdity, for some, is the idea that some of us value on-court success over valuing his bank account. I'll give him this... he's a pretty decent salesman.

 

I want the team to be successful, even if I'm not paying attention. I'm rooting for them.

I'm just not investing my heart in them until there's some reason to do so.

In short, I feel used. And I refuse to be used any more.

[JayBirdHawk]

14 minutes ago, ShooterSays said:

Yeah I mean he's not going to just pay it to keep Hunter and Capela on this team. But if they can add like a Jarrett Allen, Lauri, or some other winning combo of players, I believe he'll pay it.

I wouldn't want to pay it either to keep Hunter and Capela here.

Forget the money for a bit: my issue is that more NBA Talent going out - less coming back or in some cases, nothing....meanwhile they're talking about avoiding the play-in. 

 

[AHF]

40 minutes ago, ShooterSays said:

I'm not 100% sold they won't pay the tax this year because of two reasons that haven't existed before now:

1) Trae is putting out teams he'd be interested in playing for. He's only under contract this year and next. There's a real chance he either asks out or just doesn't resign. There's real pressure to put the best team possible around him now, also because -

2) We no longer control our own picks the next 3 drafts. Going to be difficult to build a championship contender in one offseason, but have to do what we can to make sure SA doesn't get a high lottery pick. That backlash would be brutal.

But Tony has been historically cheap so I guess it won't surprise me either if we don't pay it.

I thought players would be the focus of the return of the DJM trade to keep Trae but instead we split the return into picks (which are regarded as the best assets we got), savings (moved us from the tax into a fairly comfortable position below the tax line), and players (nice role player with upside with DD who should have a future and a comfortable role player and matching salary in Nance with no future with the team).  If we were going to pay the tax, that would be all the more reason to get more of the return in the player bucket and certainly less in the cap savings / expiring vet with no future bucket.

I’m going to one up @sturt and rate my confidence at a 95% level that we aren’t going to be a tax paying team this year.

[ShooterSays]

1 minute ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Forget the money for a bit: my issue is that more NBA Talent going out - less coming back or in some cases, nothing....meanwhile they're talking about avoiding the play-in. 

 

I agree with that. He should have paid in those couple of years after the ECF run instead of just giving away Huerter and JC. Those guys would have helped a lot and we have nothing to show for it yet.

[theheroatl]

13 minutes ago, kg01 said:

Easy.  Look for people that are upset when something good happens.  Those aren't the fans.

You're welcome.  Now there's the matter of my consulting fee that we need to discu$$ ....