When does Landry’s hot 🥵 seat 💺 start?

[Final_quest]

16 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

Dallas Mavericks.   too easy. 

No.  Dallas won 52 games in 2021-22.  They only paid the tax when they brought in Kyrie to add a HOF multiple time allstar to a perennial MVP candidate. 

You honestly think that compares to the Hawks combining a 3 time allstar who has never got a single MVP vote with a one time replacement allstar?  The tragic thing about this false idea that paying the tax is the only viable path to winning, is that even if we did pay the tax to add another bench player to an extremely bad pairing of Trae and Dejounte we KNOW it wasn't gonna work. 

I think the only time it makes sense to pay the tax after a mediocre season is when you add a talent that could elevate your team to contender status.  We wanted that to be Murray, but why fool ourselves that it ever was?

[Final_quest]

 

10 minutes ago, AHF said:

Bear in mind that starting the season with Huerter doesn't mean paying the tax.  You determine the tax at the end of the year.  You pushed a massive pile of chips when you traded for DJM but then you partially fold by dealing Huerter before the season starts when Bogi is known to be out for months with no clear return date.  It is mixed messaging.  You can always dump salary in season.  Whether the trade value increases or decreases depends on performance and the needs of other teams (as it turned out Huerter put together his career best performance before the trade deadline that season).  We've discussed this before so I'm not doing another deep dive on this.  You liked the timing of the trade, I did not.  But both scenarios (start the season with Kevin, trade him to ensure we are under the tax before the season starts) leave open the option to dodge the tax before the actual deadline, but only one scenario leaves open the possibility that with more talent we could actually contend.  

A lot of problems with this take, but one I will highlight is when the starters eventually did get a bench upgrade the team floundered.  Once Bogi and Bey were added not only did we win only half our games but the starters were net negative as a unit.  The bench was the best in the league by a lot of measures.  Why promote a false belief that Huerter playing the first part of the season would have made a massive difference to our results?  That team even started 13-10 without Huerter and Justin Holiday playing instead.  Maybe we win 2-3 more at most with Huerter playing.



 

[AHF]

3 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

 

Why promote a false belief that Huerter playing the first part of the season would have made a massive difference to our results?  
 

The point is we don't know.  The only way we would definitively know is if it had happened.  It didn't.  It is equally false to claim that it would not have made a significant difference to our results.  It is all speculation because we didn't try.

[JeffS17]

50 minutes ago, AHF said:

You pushed a massive pile of chips when you traded for DJM but then you partially fold by dealing Huerter before the season starts when Bogi is known to be out for months with no clear return date.  It is mixed messaging.  You can always dump salary in season.

You talk about leverage all the time.  Do you think we'd have leverage to still acquire that first round pick for Heurter when we're a .500 team at the trade deadline trying to dump him so we don't start our tax timer on a failed roster?  It's a moot point anyways because Heurter is not a core piece and we're still searching for a core to build around.  We probably can feel good about Trae/JJ at this point, but JJ still needs to take another leap if we're going to actually contend with those two.

[Final_quest]

36 minutes ago, AHF said:

The point is we don't know.  The only way we would definitively know is if it had happened.  It didn't.  It is equally false to claim that it would not have made a significant difference to our results.  It is all speculation because we didn't try.

No, it’s not speculation.  We saw that core in action.  They weren’t good.  We know enough.
I really think Capela’s decline was the biggest factor in the drop off from the ECF team.  Lots of injuries to others didn’t help, neither did Murray trade.

If you can make a case to follow up the Murray trade with a tax spending push, it’s a fringe case.  Not anything close enough to conclude that there are no scenarios where Tony would pay.  

[AHF]

57 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

You talk about leverage all the time.  Do you think we'd have leverage to still acquire that first round pick for Heurter when we're a .500 team at the trade deadline trying to dump him so we don't start our tax timer on a failed roster?  It's a moot point anyways because Heurter is not a core piece and we're still searching for a core to build around.  We probably can feel good about Trae/JJ at this point, but JJ still needs to take another leap if we're going to actually contend with those two.

I think it is very possible that a team want a solid wing on a solid contract who is shooting 42% from 3 (his actual 3pt% at the end of December) and be willing to give a protected first round pick that might not convey for 4 years or at all (i.e. what we got).  Again, we are left to speculate but every time the Hawks nose over the tax line their first move of the summer is to get under the tax line so clearly there is a high risk aversion to that coming from the owner/FO.  We came into this summer looking to move multiple players but locked in that non-tax status with DJM right out of the gate to the surprise of no one paying attention to our past priorities.

31 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

No, it’s not speculation.  We saw that core in action.  They weren’t good.  

We added an All-Star to the team that made the ECF a year before.  We never saw that new team play with Huerter.  Not sure what you are talking about.  The only reason you give up unprotected access to 3 consecutive first round picks plus more is because you expect DJM to make a big difference.  We can only speculate what that might have looked like and our speculation is going to be heavily biased by the fact that we saw what DJM in fact turned out to be next to Trae.  At the time, the FO was banking on the fit being radically different than what it was.

[JeffS17]

12 minutes ago, AHF said:

I think it is very possible that a team want a solid wing on a solid contract who is shooting 42% from 3 (his actual 3pt% at the end of December) and be willing to give a protected first round pick that might not convey for 4 years or at all (i.e. what we got).  Again, we are left to speculate but every time the Hawks nose over the tax line their first move of the summer is to get under the tax line so clearly there is a high risk aversion to that coming from the owner/FO.  We came into this summer looking to move multiple players but locked in that non-tax status with DJM right out of the gate to the surprise of no one paying attention to our past priorities.

We added an All-Star to the team that made the ECF a year before.  We never saw that new team play with Huerter.  Not sure what you are talking about.  The only reason you give up unprotected access to 3 consecutive first round picks plus more is because you expect DJM to make a big difference.  We can only speculate what that might have looked like and our speculation is going to be heavily biased by the fact that we saw what DJM in fact turned out to be next to Trae.  At the time, the FO was banking on the fit being radically different than what it was.

I disagree with your Heurter assessment as he is a one-way player and a complete turnstile on defense, but either way, it doesn't change the fact that going into the tax for a third string shooting guard does not make sense for long term roster construction.  As soon as we go into the tax for him, the discourse would have shifted to how the front office is failing to consolidate talent for a star player.  Because our whole issue is we've had a bunch of these $15-25M players that are paid what they are worth, at best.  More than likely on overpays.  That's negative value.  So you end up in a situation where you have to shed those players IF you cannot consolidate them into talent upgrade.  And teams don't want overpaid, middling, players for their stars.  If we could have packaged Heurter and Hunter for an elite wing that summer, I am sure we would have done so and paid the tax to do it.  Those deals just aren't available unless the player specifically wants out or a team is entering a tank.  And we wouldn't have the draft capital to make it happen anyways after the Murray trade.

So again, teams do not go into the tax for a third string SG to cover for half a season of injuries and contend for a 6th seed.  There's no precedent of that because it doesn't make sense.  You have to have the top end talent or at a minimum, a high seed / high floor team, to justify it.  Otherwise, we fall off the hamster wheel and into long term irrelevancy very quickly.  I don't want to spend the next 5-7 years discussing where things went off the rails and pointing to a desperation trade that took us into the tax, and from a play-in exit to a second round exit for a couple years.

[AHF]

3 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

I disagree with your Heurter assessment as he is a one-way player and a complete turnstile on defense, but either way, it doesn't change the fact that going into the tax for a third string shooting guard does not make sense for long term roster construction.  As soon as we go into the tax for him, the discourse would have shifted to how the front office is failing to consolidate talent for a star player.  Because our whole issue is we've had a bunch of these $15-25M players that are paid what they are worth, at best.  More than likely on overpays.  That's negative value.  So you end up in a situation where you have to shed those players IF you cannot consolidate them into talent upgrade.  And teams don't want overpaid, middling, players for their stars.  If we could have packaged Heurter and Hunter for an elite wing that summer, I am sure we would have done so and paid the tax to do it.  Those deals just aren't available unless the player specifically wants out or a team is entering a tank.  And we wouldn't have the draft capital to make it happen anyways after the Murray trade.

So again, teams do not go into the tax for a third string SG to cover for half a season of injuries and contend for a 6th seed.  There's no precedent of that because it doesn't make sense.  You have to have the top end talent or at a minimum, a high seed / high floor team, to justify it.  Otherwise, we fall off the hamster wheel and into long term irrelevancy very quickly.  I don't want to spend the next 5-7 years discussing where things went off the rails and pointing to a desperation trade that took us into the tax, and from a play-in exit to a second round exit for a couple years.

You surely know that we would only go into the tax if DJM was proving to be the strong addition that was planned and having all our players was proving to be a dynamic team ala the 2014-15 season.  If you remove Korver from the 2014-15 Hawks, I don't think that team ever gets off the ground as the 60 win team they were.  They won 38 games the prior season.  You only know if you give it a try.  

If the team turns out to be the mediocre mess you were certain it would have been before the season even started (which makes me wonder why you would ever trade for DJM believing so little in the impact of his addition), then you make a trade that realigns salary during the year and get under the tax line.  This is even an uncommon occurence for teams.  In doing so, you might miss out on a pick that still hasn't conveyed as of today.  (Or maybe you get an even better return on that trade if there is a team that needs a sniper.)

[JeffS17]

14 minutes ago, AHF said:

You surely know that we would only go into the tax if DJM was proving to be the strong addition that was planned and having all our players was proving to be a dynamic team ala the 2014-15 season.  If you remove Korver from the 2014-15 Hawks, I don't think that team ever gets off the ground as the 60 win team they were.  They won 38 games the prior season.  You only know if you give it a try.  

If the team turns out to be the mediocre mess you were certain it would have been before the season even started (which makes me wonder why you would ever trade for DJM believing so little in the impact of his addition), then you make a trade that realigns salary during the year and get under the tax line.  This is even an uncommon occurence for teams.  In doing so, you might miss out on a pick that still hasn't conveyed as of today.  (Or maybe you get an even better return on that trade if there is a team that needs a sniper.)

Your narrative around players' trade value changes depending on your agenda item.  You're arguing against yourself and all the times you've mentioned leverage in trades and having a transparent hand at the table, when you suggest Heurter not only would get the same return, but maybe even better in a straight salary dump at the deadline.  It doesn't track.  Fewer teams can make moves at the deadline and we'd have zero leverage.

And for the bolded part above, I disagree completely.  The entire front offices' job is to be able to predict how well lineups will or won't do.  The only thing they actually needed to assess was whether Heurter would make any difference at all and there was a pretty obvious answer to that question, whether you rely on impact metrics, data, or the eye test: no.  Bringing up Korver's name in the same breath as Heurter is insulting to Kyle, one of the best movement players and most impactful shooters of his generation.  Heurter doesn't even close games for Sacramento. 

Let me ask you more directly-- how many more games do you think we would have won that season if we retained Kevin Heurter?  I cannot believe you guys honestly think Kevin Heurter is that type of difference maker so I would love to know what your estimates were there.

[Final_quest]

54 minutes ago, AHF said:

 

We added an All-Star to the team that made the ECF a year before.  We never saw that new team play with Huerter.  Not sure what you are talking about.  The only reason you give up unprotected access to 3 consecutive first round picks plus more is because you expect DJM to make a big difference.  We can only speculate what that might have looked like and our speculation is going to be heavily biased by the fact that we saw what DJM in fact turned out to be next to Trae.  At the time, the FO was banking on the fit being radically different than what it was.

You don’t know what I’m talking about?  Kevin Huerter was never gonna be the TnT to this lineup.  We’ll never know what the DeJohnTrae teams could have been because we never got to see them with Kevin Huerter coming off the bench during part of a season?

As if there is a world where Kevin Huerter off the bench turns a .500 team into a champion.  This is why I can’t take these comments about Ressler ruined the franchise seriously.

From the tax line to the first apron is only $8M.  If you’re not good at the tax line, you’re not gonna be good at the first apron.  

[AHF]

6 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

Your narrative around players' trade value changes depending on your agenda item.  You're arguing against yourself and all the times you've mentioned leverage in trades and having a transparent hand at the table, when you suggest Heurter not only would get the same return, but maybe even better in a straight salary dump at the deadline.  It doesn't track.  Fewer teams can make moves at the deadline and we'd have zero leverage.

I've argued this for years so not sure why you are focusing on it now.  When teams know they want to make a run at a title, they are likely to give up more for what they need in a trade.  Huerter was a young player under team control on a good contract and was having himself a season as the trade deadline approached.  That is an excellent position for leverage in a trade scenario especially if more than one team is interested.  At worst, I think it would be easy to find a landing place and avoid the tax.

Quote

And for the bolded part [that you only know if a team finds a special chemistry when they play together] above, I disagree completely. 

Please show me your posts where you knew that the 2014-15 Hawks would win 60 games after winning 38 the prior season.  I'll wait.  It should be easy, right?  You know how easily predictable results are before a season even starts and you don't need to wait to see how a team actually plays together to be able to do it.  I'm surprised you even have the time to post here with that kind of skill because any person who could do that would make an absolute killing in Vegas.

I'll just same I'm confident Landry Fields and front offices in our past couldn't do that.  This is the same front office that couldn't predict DJM's impact.  With the benefit of hindsight, we would have been a better team just keeping Huerter and not trading for DJM.  We would have won more games, had a more manageable cap, and would have several valuable picks still in our control.  Obviously this front office can't predict the performance of our team very well just by looking at the roster on paper.  If Landry could do that, he wouldn't have supported the DJM trade in the first place.  

Heck, even the Hawks ECFs run wasn't something the front office saw on paper.  It was facilitated by injuries to Hunter and Cam.  When they were gone, the team found a special chemistry and tore it up and kept finding success in the playoffs.  That isn't something you know until the games are played.

[AHF]

4 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

You don’t know what I’m talking about?  Kevin Huerter was never gonna be the TnT to this lineup.  We’ll never know what the DeJohnTrae teams could have been because we never got to see them with Kevin Huerter coming off the bench during part of a season?

As if there is a world where Kevin Huerter off the bench turns a .500 team into a champion.  This is why I can’t take these comments about Ressler ruined the franchise seriously.

From the tax line to the first apron is only $8M.  If you’re not good at the tax line, you’re not gonna be good at the first apron.  

This makes sense if you know the team will be a .500 team after trading for DJM.  Now explain why you would ever trade for DJM knowing that you will actually finish the season at .500 when you were a winning team with a better record the prior season before making the trade.  Obviously you don't make the trade if you think that.  The Hawks made the trade on the premise that this would push us back into being more of an ECF team than a play-in team.  What do you think the Hawks were expecting to win that season after trading for DJM?  I'd bet given the quantity of unprotected assets they traded that they expected at least a jump from 43 wins to 50 wins.  A 50 win team can be a good rotation player away from contending.

I'm assessing the trade from the point at which the Hawks acquired DJM not from what we know today.  If we had the benefit of hindsight then your points would make perfect sense but you wouldn't be fixated on dumping Huerter.  You would be nixing the DJM trade to begin with.

[JeffS17]

Your whole argument is that we didn't know Kevin Heurter could have launched us into contention...  We also didn't know that bringing in a guy like Davis Bertans into JC's TPE could have launched us into contention.  But a reasonable mind knows the difference between us contending or not was not David Bertans.  The only reason you're conjuring up this weak argument around Kevin is because you're completely hind sighting the entire situation-- starting with the answer you want (our FO sucks!!) and then working backwards to try to logic into that position, which ends up being this flimsy argument in favor of Kevin Heurter off the bench being a difference maker.  It's quite the position to take and shows the length you're willing to go to "prove" this front office is in over it's head.

[JayBirdHawk]

25 minutes ago, AHF said:

This makes sense if you know the team will be a .500 team after trading for DJM.  Now explain why you would ever trade for DJM knowing that you will actually finish the season at .500 when you were a winning team with a better record the prior season before making the trade.  Obviously you don't make the trade if you think that.  The Hawks made the trade on the premise that this would push us back into being more of an ECF team than a play-in team.  What do you think the Hawks were expecting to win that season after trading for DJM?  I'd bet given the quantity of unprotected assets they traded that they expected at least a jump from 43 wins to 50 wins.  A 50 win team can be a good rotation player away from contending.

I'm assessing the trade from the point at which the Hawks acquired DJM not from what we know today.  If we had the benefit of hindsight then your points would make perfect sense but you wouldn't be fixated on dumping Huerter.  You would be nixing the DJM trade to begin with.

Yep.

If we had kept Huerter to start the season, it certainly would have helped our 3pt shooting - we had low attempts and makes, I think most forget how dismal those 3pt numbers were. Add to that, Nate might have been forced to give JJ real minutes in lieu of playing small with JHol at the 4, getting beat consistently on the boards with JHol at the 4. We lost too many games from lack of 3pt shooting and rebounding.  

Would we have won more games the first part of the season? I don't know, but I would have liked the chance to at least find out and make a real push to start the season if the intention was to avoid the playin and get back close to ECF levels.  Starting the season strong affords us more options in season.

It was a lost opportunity considering the value given up for DJ. 

[AHF]

17 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

Your whole argument is that we didn't know Kevin Heurter could have launched us into contention...  We also didn't know that bringing in a guy like Davis Bertans into JC's TPE could have launched us into contention.  But a reasonable mind knows the difference between us contending or not was not David Bertans.  The only reason you're conjuring up this weak argument around Kevin is because you're completely hind sighting the entire situation-- starting with the answer you want (our FO sucks!!) and then working backwards to try to logic into that position, which ends up being this flimsy argument in favor of Kevin Heurter off the bench being a difference maker.  It's quite the position to take and shows the length you're willing to go to "prove" this front office is in over it's head.

I said this about the Huerter trade when it was made.  Please stop strawmanning and start engaging if you want an actual discussion.  Claiming this is a new thought in 2024 because I've seen Fields fumble several things recently and lost some confidence in him is a remarkable claim when the posts are all there about how I thought the trade was premature at the time it was made. 

If you want an actual discussion, start with where the Hawks were when they traded for DJM and what they expected from that team and then we can evaluate pro's and con's of waiting to ship Huerter out until Bogi was proven healthy, etc.  If you claim they Hawks knew they were a .500 team when they traded for DJM as FQ suggests then we have a big gap in the assumptions underlying our positions because I don't believe that for a second.  They had much higher expectations than that after trading for DJM.

[Final_quest]

 

18 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

Your whole argument is that we didn't know Kevin Heurter could have launched us into contention...  We also didn't know that bringing in a guy like Davis Bertans into JC's TPE could have launched us into contention.  But a reasonable mind knows the difference between us contending or not was not David Bertans.  The only reason you're conjuring up this weak argument around Kevin is because you're completely hind sighting the entire situation-- starting with the answer you want (our FO sucks!!) and then working backwards to try to logic into that position, which ends up being this flimsy argument in favor of Kevin Heurter off the bench being a difference maker.  It's quite the position to take and shows the length you're willing to go to "prove" this front office is in over it's head.

Have really nothing to add.  Extremely weak.  I don’t think you guys actually believe Huerter could have had that level of impact.  

[JayBirdHawk]

4 minutes ago, AHF said:

They had much higher expectations than that after trading for DJM.

Avoid the playin.

[JeffS17]

1 minute ago, Final_quest said:

 

Have really nothing to add.  Extremely weak.  I don’t think you guys actually believe Huerter could have had that level of impact.  

If you take that argument outside of a Hawks forum, you will get laughed out of the room by any semi-knowledgeable NBA fan.

[JayBirdHawk]

2 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

 

Have really nothing to add.  Extremely weak.  I don’t think you guys actually believe Huerter could have had that level of impact.  

Better than what we got from JHol and a missing Bogi. Would have provided functional experienced NBA depth.

[AHF]

5 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

 

Have really nothing to add.  Extremely weak.  I don’t think you guys actually believe Huerter could have had that level of impact.  

The Hawks expected to be fielding a contender that year and Bogi's health status was a complete unknown.  The idea of keeping a proven effective rotation player for the first half of the season while you figure out what you have in a season where you were aiming to be back in the ECF is really not this difficult to process.  The return on the trade was hardly some big accomplishment.  We got two players we would have been better never adding to the roster and a pick that still hasn't conveyed 4 years later.  The whole point of making the DJM trade was to "win now."  He was an UFA in two years.  We gave up Huerter for returns that actually hurt the team during our window with DJM.

The idea is that if the DJM trade worked out the way the Hawks expected it to when they made the trade, that having quality rotation players might help us win important games and that might be worth it if DJM's impact pushed us to contender status as the front office clearly expected it to do.  We just going to ignore what the FO expected at that time?  I guess so.

4 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

If you take that argument outside of a Hawks forum, you will get laughed out of the room by any semi-knowledgeable NBA fan.

If you strawman the argument, it does make it easy to knock down.