When does Landry’s hot 🥵 seat 💺 start?

[sturt]

1 hour ago, JeffS17 said:

 I cannot imagine a situation where this wouldnt be the case, though.  Imagine owning a billion+ org and giving 100% autonomy to someone to make decisions that impact that orgs value.  No company does this which is why board of directors exist to keep the CEO steering the ship in the right direction.

That's true if taken in a silo... that the CEO, him/herself, brings expertise to the product or service that the business generates in order to make money.

For instance, we'd naturally expect that the person who is the CEO of a tech company is, him/herself, known to bring such expertise.

 

That's not the case, though, here, right? Right. Ressler is what many of us have traditionally known as an "investment tycoon." Not even an entertainment industry expert, let alone bringing any more basketball expertise than what you or I would bring.

But moreover... in this case, few if any NBA owners have a extant mole in the room when talent inventory/basketball ops decisions are being deliberated.

Moreover still... in this case, most NBA owners do not expect the GM to submit himself to a "challenge" meeting as far as we would know. Indeed, it's not normal in all of sports that either of those two factors are explicitly known to be the case. That's not to say that owners aren't interested to know what's going on, and likely are made aware of what's going on... but that's just it... they're made aware for the sake of making them aware, not so that they, too, get a chance to give input or sway talent inventory decisions.

And add to that, GMs ordinarily are given the latitude, based on their greater basketball knowledge and experience (compared to the owner's), to run basketball ops according to how the GMs knowledge and experience leads him to think best to run basketball ops.

Not so in Atlanta. The owner there demands his GM run basketball ops according to his own perceptions of what is best.

To be fair to your point, owners almost certainly give the GM a budget that he's expected to observe, and almost certainly are consulted and asked for their approval on significant increases in expenses.

To be fair to my point, it's not that APR has no right to do any of that that he wants... he is the owner. Too often the reaction to posts about the severe unlikelihood that APR's approach is going to result in a title has been to defend his right. No, he has the right.

To be fair to my point, it's that APR has apparently successfully persuaded some fans, as he once had me persuaded, that a title is his paramount motivation. It is objectively... by virtue of his own verbatim words and his own empirical decisions... false.

Like any salesman, APR has a strong desire to give the imagery of holding his customers' interests as-if his highest priority. Unfortunately for him, his is an industry where, on occasion, actions shout and words become mutilated. That's happened to him now... as of 7 years in, and now in his 8th. And there's no way to hide it, no way to effectively run away from it.

Tony Ressler's paramount priority is the health of his own pile of gold, his own self-interest. He is not "true to ATL," he is true to APR. Again, not a criminal offense. Not even a civil one. But businessmen/women who do what he's done routinely eventually suffer through walkaway power... customers deciding to do something different with their entertainment dollars.

So, that he values a title for the purpose of adding to his pile of gold? Sure. Agreed. There's nothing in saying that that somehow displaces anything said above. I've said the very same thing, as you may recall.

Circling back where this started, you're not getting a new GM until Tony perceives it is somehow affecting his paramount priority to continue with status quo.

 

 

[sturt]

33 minutes ago, AHF said:

Putting your son in charge

I concur with everything else, but this goes a bridge too far... I don't doubt APR when he said in Feb 2023 that Nicky doesn't have that kind of authority, and forcefully said he understands that would be foolish to give him that kind of authority.

What he does do, though, that is almost as indefensible, is to use his son as his own channel of information... Tony probably didn't mean to admit to that, but that's exactly what he did in that very same interview.

Nicky is an open secret mole. And there's great reason to believe that the reason Travis isn't the GM anymore is that Travis made some decision that didn't get rehearsed openly enough for Nicky to know about it... hence the treatise from Tony on his strong preference for a more democratically run basketball ops department.

Maybe even more insane than that... honestly... is the lack of self-awareness on Tony's part that people might just be telling the emperor what he wants to hear when he swears up and down that his son is well-liked... APR's defensive contention to Schultz that he should "Ask anyone" is the stuff of an SNL skit. I was flabbergasted the minute I read that, and left to wonder if Tony's really earned his money through luck and knowing the right people more so than what most of us would consider common sense.

 

[JeffS17]

6 minutes ago, sturt said:

That's true if taken in a silo... that the CEO, him/herself, brings expertise to the product or service that the business generates in order to make money.

For instance, we'd naturally expect that the person who is the CEO of a tech company is, him/herself, known to bring such expertise.

 

That's not the case, though, here, right? Right. Ressler is what many of us have traditionally known as an "investment tycoon." Not even an entertainment industry expert, let alone bringing any more basketball expertise than what you or I would bring.

But moreover... in this case, few if any NBA owners have a extant mole in the room when talent inventory/basketball ops decisions are being deliberated.

Moreover still... in this case, most NBA owners do not expect the GM to submit himself to a "challenge" meeting as far as we would know. Indeed, it's not normal in all of sports that either of those two factors are explicitly known to be the case. That's not to say that owners aren't interested to know what's going on, and likely are made aware of what's going on... but that's just it... they're made aware for the sake of making them aware, not so that they, too, get a chance to give input or sway talent inventory decisions.

And add to that, GMs ordinarily are given the latitude, based on their greater basketball knowledge and experience (compared to the owner's), to run basketball ops according to how the GMs knowledge and experience leads him to think best to run basketball ops.

Not so in Atlanta. The owner there demands his GM run basketball ops according to his own perceptions of what is best.

To be fair to your point, owners almost certainly give the GM a budget that he's expected to observe, and almost certainly are consulted and asked for their approval on significant increases in expenses.

To be fair to my point, it's not that APR has no right to do any of that that he wants... he is the owner. Too often the reaction to posts about the severe unlikelihood that APR's approach is going to result in a title has been to defend his right. No, he has the right.

To be fair to my point, it's that APR has apparently successfully persuaded some fans, as he once had me persuaded, that a title is his paramount motivation. It is objectively... by virtue of his own verbatim words and his own empirical decisions... false.

Like any salesman, APR has a strong desire to give the imagery of holding his customers' interests highest priority. Unfortunately for him, his is an industry where, on occasion, actions shout and words become mutilated. That's happened to him now. And there's no way to hide it, no way to effectively run away from it.

Tony Ressler's paramount priority is the health of his own pile of gold, his own self-interest. He is not "true to ATL," he is true to APR. Again, not a criminal offense. Not even a civil one. But businessmen/women who do what he's done routinely eventually suffer through walkaway power... customers deciding to do something different with their entertainment dollars.

So, that he values a title for the purpose of adding to his pile of gold? Sure. Agreed. There's nothing in saying that that somehow displaces anything said above. I've said the very same thing, as you may recall.

Circling back where this started, you're not getting a new GM until Tony perceives it is somehow affecting his paramount priority to continue with status quo.

 

 

I agree with most of this, and I understand how you're coming to the conclusion he does not want a title (although I think you use a very loose definition of "objectively" above), but I just really don't agree.  I think he Ressler is actively doing everything possible to set this team up to be a contender, to the best of his ability.  I think he genuinely thought we had a contender in '21 when he sanctioned the lucrative extensions to our core set of players after the '21 ECF run.  I think he genuinely thought bringing Murray in was going to get us closer to a championship.  I think he genuinely would have paid the luxury tax if we landed a big fish like KAT, Siakam, Jaylen Brown, or any of the blue chip fantasy trades we've convinced ourselves were on the table.  The nepotism and the situation with Nick are wildly inappropriate, but I actually do think the guy cares about the team and wants to win.  I actually think that's a big part of the problem-- he's as impatient as the fans here on getting to the summit of Everest and has tried to skip steps to get there.  The guy goes to every game, which is really odd for a team owner, and I don't think it's so he can keep up a charade to fool fans that he's only interested in his investment.

 

[ATLBob]

17 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

 I think he Ressler is actively doing everything possible to set this team up to be a contender, to the best of his ability.  
 

I think he genuinely would have paid the luxury tax

[Final_quest]

4 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

I think he Ressler is actively doing everything possible to set this team up to be a contender, to the best of his ability.  I think he genuinely thought we had a contender in '21 when he sanctioned the lucrative extensions to our core set of players after the '21 ECF run.  I think he genuinely thought bringing Murray in was going to get us closer to a championship.  I think he genuinely would have paid the luxury tax if we landed a big fish like KAT, Siakam, Jaylen Brown, or any of the blue chip fantasy trades we've convinced ourselves were on the table.  The nepotism and the situation with Nick are wildly inappropriate, but I actually do think the guy cares about the team and wants to win.  I actually think that's a big part of the problem-- he's as impatient as the fans here on getting to the summit of Everest and has tried to skip steps to get there.  The guy goes to every game, which is really odd for a team owner, and I don't think it's so he can keep up a charade to fool fans that he's only interested in his investment.

 

It’s crazy how much I agree with your takes.  I would add he spent to accelerate our winning with Gallo and Bogi, (we could have slow played the early Trae years.) He also is paying Quin a top coach salary.  This will be 4/5 years of spending up to the tax. 

Teague was emphatically supportive of him.  Why should I listen to fans over a former player who interacted with him directly?  

Too engaged and passionate has more evidence than him not caring and only wanting money.   Would like to see him be patient and stick with a long term strategy.  

[sturt]

47 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

I think he genuinely would have paid the luxury tax if we landed a big fish like KAT, Siakam, Jaylen Brown, or any of the blue chip fantasy trades we've convinced ourselves were on the table.

Hmmm.

There is nothing... nothing... to suggest he would do this without some significant adjustment to the roster to help compensate for his financial risk.

Jeff. Listen. You know this. The one time he's been amenable to a player acquisition that was going to push the tax line, almost immediately a deal was struck to lessen his exposure.

That's what we know.

He says it in softer salesman words, but what he's told us is he wants to see enough additional income--ie, inherent with getting to Camp IV and being ubiquitously considered a contender--on the front end of any such acquisition that he's really only risking that additional income, for the chance at still higher reward for himself.

He's not going to help Landry get to Camp IV. Landry will have to be that good. Not only, though, will Landry have to be that good, but Tony will be the judge of whether the team has made it to Camp IV and established itself sufficiently that resources for the assault on the summit will be provided. And his biases are what any of our biases would be if our paramount priority was our own pile of gold, naturally.

 

If you're okay with that, you seem to have a lot of company. I'm not, and I don't really care at this point about how much company I have.

 

 

[sturt]

12 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

I would add he spent to accelerate our winning with Gallo and Bogi, (we could have slow played the early Trae years.)

I just. shake. my. head.

Number one. No one's saying he's Donald Sterling.

Number two. He'd benefited from one of the lowest payrolls in the league through the entire 3 seasons of re-build... that off-season was the off-season for the team to spend since it was one of the few that had significant room under the cap to make major moves. So, you think we should be thankful he did what any other team would be anticipated to do at that stage in a rebuild?

Wait. OH. Or course.

Nicky, I apologize if I offended you with any of this.

 

[ATLBob]

Recent salary dumps to avoid the tax:

2024 - AJG for pick 44 to get under the first apron followed by Dejounte (some basketball reasons there, but still cost savings)

2023 - Collins (for a conditional 2026 2nd and a TPE they never intended to use - this one was just indefensibly disgusting).

2022 - Huerter (l mean, to be fair a pick in the teens - IF it ever conveys - could even become Kevin Huerter).

Remind me which of those trades were made for basketball reasons.

[Final_quest]

We have no history of Tony having an MVP candidate paired with a multiple time allstar or all NBA player.  Therefore no past history to judge if Tony would pay the tax under those conditions.  
Additionally we followed up our ECF run with an embarrassing 4-8 start and first round exit.  If that team had success he may have invested under those conditions.  
No history of winning two seasons in a row.  He might pay the tax with different results.  

[sturt]

52 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

The guy goes to every game, which is really odd for a team owner, and I don't think it's so he can keep up a charade to fool fans that he's only interested in his investment.

(Sorry, read right over top of this the first time... )

Say again?

I thought we just agreed... he wants a title, sure... and we even seemed to agree that, based on his own words and behaviors, he wants a title as a means to a self-interested end... adding to his pile of gold.

So, where's the charade? He shows up at games, knowing it is in his self-interest all the way around... it's good for marketing in the short-term because it turns your head and others'... and he's God honestly interested, long-term, to see the team be relevant... as long as it is relevant that's enough.

Atlanta Hamsters.

[JeffS17]

21 minutes ago, sturt said:

Hmmm.

There is nothing... nothing... to suggest he would do this without some significant adjustment to the roster to help compensate for his financial risk.

Jeff. Listen. You know this. The one time he's been amenable to a player acquisition that was going to push the tax line, almost immediately a deal was struck to lessen his exposure.

That's what we know.

He says it in softer salesman words, but what he's told us is he wants to see enough additional income--ie, inherent with getting to Camp IV and being ubiquitously considered a contender--on the front end of any such acquisition that he's really only risking that additional income, for the chance at still higher reward for himself.

He's not going to help Landry get to Camp IV. Landry will have to be that good. Not only, though, will Landry have to be that good, but Tony will be the judge of whether the team has made it to Camp IV and established itself sufficiently that resources for the assault on the summit will be provided. And his biases are what any of our biases would be if our paramount priority was our own pile of gold, naturally.

 

If you're okay with that, you seem to have a lot of company. I'm not, and I don't really care at this point about how much company I have.

 

 

There hasn't been a single time in his tenure that would have made sense to go into the tax... Tax paying teams get there by offering lucrative extensions to play who have either exited their rookie scale deals or entered new expensive deals based on their progression as players.  No one enters the tax to bring an MLE on to the bench or fill out the 10-15th roster spots.  So when we have a starting core that can get us deep into the playoffs, I actually believe he will pay the tax.  I actually think he's antsy to do so.  We've had zero opportunities to pay it so none of the past behavior you're citing is actually relevant, in my opinion.  You can go back through each offseason and look at what reasonable opportunities we had to pay the tax, and none of them get us close to a championship.  Retaining Collins? Retaining Heurter? Adding an MLE? Finding scraps to fill into a TPE?  None of these are adding high end talent to the starting/finishing lineup, which is what we desperately need to win a chip.  It's why we spent the past two off seasons big whale hunting before admitting to ourselves this roster doesn't have the juice.

[ATLBob]

6 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

He might pay the tax with different results.  

Ressler will NEVER pay the tax

[JeffS17]

10 minutes ago, ATLBob said:

Recent salary dumps to avoid the tax:

2024 - AJG for pick 44 to get under the first apron followed by Dejounte (some basketball reasons there, but still cost savings)

2023 - Collins (for a conditional 2026 2nd and a TPE they never intended to use - this one was just indefensibly disgusting).

2022 - Huerter (l mean, to be fair a pick in the teens - IF it ever conveys - could even become Kevin Huerter).

Remind me which of those trades were made for basketball reasons.

I understand you think this is a gotcha, but this is every single team in the league making moves like this, barring the most successful ones in large markets (Nuggets just let go of KCP...)

It's not for a lack of effort trading these guys for upgrades-- we hear reports every offseason of these attempts, but unfortunately, no one wants spare parts in exchange for their star player.  The only recourse is to shed salary for roster management reasons just as much as financial reasons.  The Hawks are not some outlier in this regard, either, but the way Schlenk overpaid a bunch of our guys left our cap sheet a mess -- lots of low value players because of mediocre talent and fat contracts.

 

[ATLBob]

None of those are low value players.

None of those trades made the team better.

None were made to open up playing time for others (JC did open up more minutes for JJ, so maybe that one is arguable).

They were solely to get under the tax threshold.

Edited July 8 by ATLBob

[JeffS17]

20 minutes ago, sturt said:

(Sorry, read right over top of this the first time... )

Say again?

I thought we just agreed... he wants a title, sure... and we even seemed to agree that, based on his own words and behaviors, he wants a title as a means to a self-interested end... adding to his pile of gold.

So, where's the charade? He shows up at games, knowing it is in his self-interest all the way around... it's good for marketing in the short-term because it turns your head and others'... and he's God honestly interested, long-term, to see the team be relevant... as long as it is relevant that's enough.

Atlanta Hamsters.

lol Atlanta Hamsters... let's see if I can match your cynicism.  Since Ressler took over:

• Atlanta Hamsters
• Orlando Hamsters
• Charlotte Hamsters
• Indiana Hamsters
• Philadelphia Hamsters
• Chicago Hamsters
• Charlotte Hamsters
• Washington Hamsters
• Detroit Hamsters
• New Orleans Hamsters
• Sacramento Hamsters
• Houston Hamsters
• Utah Hamsters
• Memphis Hamsters
• San Antonio Hamsters
• Portland Hamsters

Notable non-hamster teams: the underwater Suns, the mortgaged Nets, the broken hearted Clippers.

[hylndr11]

Hay, well be right back.

[JTB]

Good topic. Personally I see Landry on the hot seat at some point during the season unless we get a big surprise.

we didn’t upgrade the center position so that’s going to be our downfall.

im actually ok with the DJ trade. I’ve always been high on Dyson and wanted us to draft him a few years ago. I’m good with Nance as our backup PF, I think that’s extremely relevant because it’s been a while since we had a good back up PF.

i don’t hate the makeup of the team Landry has built IF we see Synder roll out with lineups of….

starters

trae, dyson, risacher, jalen, Capela 

bench

bufkin, bogi, hunter, nance, OO

That’s the best bench we’ve had since the ECF run 4 years ago. 4 quality vets and 3 seasoned vets in the mix with a young point who already has a great attitude about defense.

The starters has length and height surrounding our star player in a POA defender, the #1 pick, a borderline all star point forward in Jalen.

My best result prediction …

is that we are a potential sleeper team next season for a 6th seed IF all goes well but honestly I believe offensively the FO is expecting too much out of Jalen and Risacher to help Trae once teams start trapping him.

 

What I think will happen…

Because we didn’t upgrade the center position it may be our biggest problem this season.

[terrell]

9 hours ago, Hawkmoor said:

Manage payroll and keep the Ice Trae dance going in State Farm Arena (marketing).

[sturt]

2 hours ago, JeffS17 said:

lol Atlanta Hamsters... let's see if I can match your cynicism.  Since Ressler took over:

• Atlanta Hamsters
• Orlando Hamsters
• Charlotte Hamsters
• Indiana Hamsters
• Philadelphia Hamsters
• Chicago Hamsters
• Charlotte Hamsters
• Washington Hamsters
• Detroit Hamsters
• New Orleans Hamsters
• Sacramento Hamsters
• Houston Hamsters
• Utah Hamsters
• Memphis Hamsters
• San Antonio Hamsters
• Portland Hamsters

Notable non-hamster teams: the underwater Suns, the mortgaged Nets, the broken hearted Clippers.

1. I'm not a fan of any of those other teams, so I'm not intimately acquainted with whether there is any substantive reason that, if they were on an upward trajectory, it would be more reasonable than not to presume any one of those ownership groups could represent a glass ceiling to their franchise getting over the hump.

 

2. I am a fan of the Hawks (... albeit on hiatus).

I am intimately acquainted with our ownership, and have shown... effectively so, if I may be so bold... why there is substantial reason to believe that the owner will be content with relevance. And as such, that APR will resist stepping up to provide resources for a championship run without, first, having gained whatever he would determine to be sufficient additional income arising from sufficient on-court success, mitigating his risk exposure ahead of making a big move for a major piece anticipating an assault on said title run. Relevance is sufficient... arguably even ideal to the more conservative, risk-adverse types as APR seems to be... when the paramount concern is black ink.

Pairing that together with his megalomania that results in additional constraints on the basketball ops leadership, mainly the GM, having latitude to do their jobs well...

Yes, it's a hard sell to suggest that there is any other team in the league that is more likely to be locked in a hamster wheel pattern for the rest of the time current ownership remains in power. That, for reasons we've covered in these posts tonight, and so, I feel no need to repeat myself.

Are there other teams that share the traits of this one? I'm unaware of any, but does it even matter?

This is about our team, and about our team's self-inflicted obstacles to summitting Everest. As long as there are fans who excuse the behavior, why would anyone ever think the owner wouldn't feel just fine about his posture? Of course he will. There is little, if any, hope for any change on this front in the next 15-20 years.

[sturt]

2 hours ago, JeffS17 said:

There hasn't been a single time in his tenure that would have made sense to go into the tax.

We'll never know. He traded Kevin before we could find out if infusing this roster with an additional ASG-level talent could push the roster to Camp IV. The significant talent gain was consciously neutered out of a greater interest in black ink than on court progress up the mountain.

This is the problem you have and the problem you are helping to ensure is enshrined for the balance of Ressler-family control of this franchise: You and he are likely to always have that excuse... you have bought into his idea that his spreadsheet concerns are your concerns as a fan... you have given him license to resist helping his GM ascend the mountain... you're okay with it.

Reminder... there's a thread I began that showed graphically that most teams that get to the championship have had such a talent/payroll uptick that they paid tax within the 4 years prior to their winning it all. It almost never happens that a title team only pays tax in the one year they won their trophy. There is a correlation there... not causation of course, but a definite correlation... that there is a build up in getting to that level of success. So, to be clear, I'm absolutely not pretending that all the team has to do is pay tax. I'm saying, rather, what I just said... teams that win it all tend to have already been in that upper tier of payroll for 1-4 years ahead of their getting a parade. And that's consistent with the thought that if you want to get beyond the hamster wheel, it might not be wise to take the Ressler approach.