Tomorrow night (Monday) Hawks play game #2, pre-season.

[JeffS17]

Gobert, Ayton, Naz Reid, and Porzingus will be free agents that we could target.  Rob Williams and Gafford are up next year too.  Not sure who of these will enter free agency but a lot of teams payrolls are getting tight.

[Final_quest]

10 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

Gobert, Ayton, Naz Reid, and Porzingus will be free agents that we could target.  Rob Williams and Gafford are up next year too.  Not sure who of these will enter free agency but a lot of teams payrolls are getting tight.

Even if we strike out on free agents, we can still be a player just by having cap space.  
Naz Reid would be sweet, and Wolves might not be able to swing resigning Reid and Gobert.

[AHF]

1 hour ago, Final_quest said:

Yes, Jalen will cost much more than $13.5M, but the cap line is $154.6M and luxury tax line is $187.9M.  Whatever Jalen costs above that $13.5M we can easily absorb.  So getting Hunter off the books does open up an actual opportunity to be a big player in free agency. 

The last few years we started over the tax line, the shift could be towards starting $67-68M under the tax line.  Worth consideration over keeping Hunter who barely moves the needle.  

Only if you don’t lose Trae in the process.  You aren’t getting a FA as good as him.  That is the superseding priority. You can always trade Dre as part of landing a big player and get off his salary as part of a big move.

Praying a huge FA will choose Atlanta has always been a losing proposition.

[JayBirdHawk]

2 hours ago, AHF said:

Thanks, Jay.  I have a hard time seeing us carrying the minimum 13 but that is a useful placeholder.  Also worthy noting is in that situation we have only OO (under contract) and JJ (RFA) at PF and C so there is little question where those dollars need to go.  If you assume that Tony still won’t pay the tax then it gets even more restricted since we all know JJ will cost a lot more than $13.5M.

JJ's hold is just to keep the capspace to sign a player OR two before extending JJ. As we sign a player they roster charged is dropped. 

The Luxury tax is $187 million (Salary cap at $156 mil).

So if we assume $120 mil in for contracts, sign one or two players using the $34 million in capspace. That brings us to 14 players at $154 million. Then Hawks sign JJ to $30 million AVV that's $184 mil. 

Edit: subtraction $13.5 mil for JJ caphold so that's $170.5 million for 14 players.

We would be under the tax by $17 million, so in a Hunter trade where I think it's unlikely we don't take back any salary we should be ok taking back ~$15 million to stay under the tax, but it does reduce the amount of available capspace.

[Final_quest]

3 hours ago, AHF said:

Only if you don’t lose Trae in the process.  You aren’t getting a FA as good as him.  That is the superseding priority. You can always trade Dre as part of landing a big player and get off his salary as part of a big move.

Praying a huge FA will choose Atlanta has always been a losing proposition.

This seems like a no brainer.  If you really believe Hunter sways Trae’s decision…have we watched the same guy?  

Even if I knew for sure we’d miss on every free agent we wanted I would still move Hunter.  Can at least make a trade or two for a team desperate to offload salary.  We might even get a better player via trade.  

I think either you value Hunter or cap space wrong.

[AHF]

18 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

This seems like a no brainer.  If you really believe Hunter sways Trae’s decision…have we watched the same guy?  

Even if I knew for sure we’d miss on every free agent we wanted I would still move Hunter.  Can at least make a trade or two for a team desperate to offload salary.  We might even get a better player via trade.  

I think either you value Hunter or cap space wrong.

I think if we suck this season then Trae is likely gone. DH could be the difference between a winning and losing team.  Dyson is a nice role player who hopefully grows into more as he develops.  Bogi, JJ and OO are good players and big injury risks.  You should probably pencil in a collective 50+ games missed from them.  CC is still useful but falling off.  If Zacc doesn’t emerge as a star, it is going to be depth and fit that drive improvement.
 

 I don’t think DH is great but he can defend big wings (open question there if our other wings have the heft to do that) and can give you some backup minutes at PF.  If he was making $14M we’d all be very happy with what he gives.  I think this team is too precarious to give away a useful piece and feel confident that the team has the depth of talent needed to be good enough for Trae to want to stay.  
 

Im fine trading Hunter for talent and going ahead to add that “dream FA” through trade  where we don’t have to count on an impact FA choosing Atlanta.  Giving him away to make the team worse and then praying we do well enough to keep Trae and land an impact FA is a plan with a downside to set the team back for 5 years.

[JayBirdHawk]

On 10/15/2024 at 3:57 PM, Wretch said:

 

I have a controversial and positively wretched take that's gonna get me stoned by the village, so I'm just keeping it in my pocket for now.  LOL remember this thread though, because when I finally do put it out there, ya'll are all gonna do this:

 

 

 

[Wretch]

35 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

 

 

Naw.  I ain't saying nothing.

I'm not trying to be dramatic, it's just...I don't want to get caught up in the merry-go-round of having to explain (and re-explain) myself.  So, I'm waiting to see if the right rumors pop up or if someone else says something.  Then I'll chime in.  Otherwise, I might say something after the first 20 or so games.

Again, it has nothing to do with our record.  Not really.

[JayBirdHawk]

1 hour ago, Wretch said:

I'm not trying to be dramatic....

 

[sturt]

1 hour ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

(I doubt this is *actual* camera footage taken from inside Jay's home. But as GIFs go, this is more or less how I picture our friend... precisely what she would say, and precisely how she would say it... ... maybe that's just me, tho.)

[sturt]

2 hours ago, Wretch said:

Naw.  I ain't saying nothing.

I'm not trying to be dramatic, it's just...I don't want to get caught up in the merry-go-round of having to explain (and re-explain) myself.  So, I'm waiting to see if the right rumors pop up or if someone else says something.  Then I'll chime in.  Otherwise, I might say something after the first 20 or so games.

Again, it has nothing to do with our record.  Not really.

Awww, c'mon... let us play 20 questions with this thing... why not?

I'll volunteer to go first.

Is this thing you're imagining something that rests with only one person's decision/reaction several games into the season?

[JeffS17]

So tired of hearing how Hunter can defend big wings and that makes him valuable to us.  I used to tell myself that too as a coping mechanism.  Is he living off the reputation of locking fat Luka up at the beginning of the '21-22 season?  When has he been locking up big wings that I missed.  The reality of Hunter is that he is not an impactful player...  There's a reason Saddiq Bey, who is an awful defender, and who also shot like garbage last season, still had a better net rating than Hunter.  It's because he actually gives effort to make winning plays which impact the game. 

The reason Hunter's impact sucks is because he has no motor, which is very measurable looking at his effort on the boards.  Just watch him during games and you'll see how soft he plays, constantly getting bullied out of position if he even makes effort to get a board.  Which is pretty much never when it comes to offensive rebounding.  His offensive rebound rate (1.8%) is third lowest on the team last year... he's barely above Garrison Matthews and last is 6'0 Trae Young.  The guy just goes out there and gets cardio for 30 minutes a night.  Oh, forgot to mention, he also has the worst assist/TO ratio of any player on the team, complete black hole on offense with mediocre efficiency.

He doesn't contribute to winning and I'm convinced having any wing replace his minutes will be neutral to positive impact on the squad.  Watching Saddiq last year was evidence enough for me-- any of these hungry wings will outperform Hunter on the court.  Hopefully there are GMs out there that have also fallen in love with the necessity of this guys archetype like a lot of people here have, and we will be able to work out a decent trade.

[kg01]

4 hours ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

Haha, @Wretch we still love you and your dramatic arse.  

[AHF]

1 hour ago, JeffS17 said:

So tired of hearing how Hunter can defend big wings and that makes him valuable to us.  I used to tell myself that too as a coping mechanism.  Is he living off the reputation of locking fat Luka up at the beginning of the '21-22 season?  When has he been locking up big wings that I missed.  The reality of Hunter is that he is not an impactful player...  There's a reason Saddiq Bey, who is an awful defender, and who also shot like garbage last season, still had a better net rating than Hunter.  It's because he actually gives effort to make winning plays which impact the game. 

The reason Hunter's impact sucks is because he has no motor, which is very measurable looking at his effort on the boards.  Just watch him during games and you'll see how soft he plays, constantly getting bullied out of position if he even makes effort to get a board.  Which is pretty much never when it comes to offensive rebounding.  His offensive rebound rate (1.8%) is third lowest on the team last year... he's barely above Garrison Matthews and last is 6'0 Trae Young.  The guy just goes out there and gets cardio for 30 minutes a night.  Oh, forgot to mention, he also has the worst assist/TO ratio of any player on the team, complete black hole on offense with mediocre efficiency.

He doesn't contribute to winning and I'm convinced having any wing replace his minutes will be neutral to positive impact on the squad.  Watching Saddiq last year was evidence enough for me-- any of these hungry wings will outperform Hunter on the court.  Hopefully there are GMs out there that have also fallen in love with the necessity of this guys archetype like a lot of people here have, and we will be able to work out a decent trade.

If you believe this then why did the team suffer last year when he was out?  We had Vit and Mathews just like we do this year and yet we were clearly better when Hunter was in the rotation.  I’m not high on him but I think he is a useful rotation piece and that depth is really important for this team this season.  Thinking he and a random dump player are equally effective or that we are better with that reject player is definitely more negative than I am.

Even if I felt that way (in which case I would not worry about the team getting worse without him), I’d still prefer to trade him and lock into someone versus praying a FA picks us over other markets next summer.  Wings are scarce commodities.  He isn’t exciting at his salary but neither are a lot of other players (like KAT, Ayton, etc.) so I don’t see that as a full barrier into a trade.

[Final_quest]

11 hours ago, AHF said:

If you believe this then why did the team suffer last year when he was out?  We had Vit and Mathews just like we do this year and yet we were clearly better when Hunter was in the rotation.  I’m not high on him but I think he is a useful rotation piece and that depth is really important for this team this season.  Thinking he and a random dump player are equally effective or that we are better with that reject player is definitely more negative than I am.

Even if I felt that way (in which case I would not worry about the team getting worse without him), I’d still prefer to trade him and lock into someone versus praying a FA picks us over other markets next summer.  Wings are scarce commodities.  He isn’t exciting at his salary but neither are a lot of other players (like KAT, Ayton, etc.) so I don’t see that as a full barrier into a trade.

If your mindset is that your franchise will always lose when you create an opportunity, you’ve already lost.  

“No point in creating cap space because no free agent ever comes here, might as well keep Hunter.”  That is such an Eeyore take.

Remember how we got to the ECF?  Wasn’t it by signing some of the top FA’s in one offseason?  Your narrative that is hell bent on losing out of the gate isn’t even true.  Free agents have come here and did the last time we had available cap.

[Final_quest]

I would also add that our rotation without Hunter isn't the same this year.  We have Risacher, Dyson, Bogi, Vit, Kobe, Garrison, and Roddy who can all be played in a wing rotation.  You don't think Trae understands we could clear the deck a little bit to bring a potentially really good player?    

[AHF]

1 hour ago, Final_quest said:

If your mindset is that your franchise will always lose when you create an opportunity, you’ve already lost.  

“No point in creating cap space because no free agent ever comes here, might as well keep Hunter.”  That is such an Eeyore take.

Remember how we got to the ECF?  Wasn’t it by signing some of the top FA’s in one offseason?  Your narrative that is hell bent on losing out of the gate isn’t even true.  Free agents have come here and did the last time we had available cap.

We've long talked about how to get stars on this team.  Why would my view change that (a) the draft is the most reliable option and (b) that trades are next and (c.) that free is a long-shot?  

The way we got to the ECF was by signing two guys who came off the bench and were valuable parts of our rotation.  I am saying Hunter already fits that description so if your goal is to recreate the FA success that we had when we signed Gallo, etc. then maybe giving Hunter away does the exact opposite of that for this year.

So for me I think trying to win with the roster we have and looking for trade opportunities where we flip a player for value is better than salary dumping someone for garbage.  I'm not sure that should viewed as a fringe idea.

[AHF]

22 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

I would also add that our rotation without Hunter isn't the same this year.  We have Risacher, Dyson, Bogi, Vit, Kobe, Garrison, and Roddy who can all be played in a wing rotation.  You don't think Trae understands we could clear the deck a little bit to bring a potentially really good player?    

Some of my issues with that rotation being better or the same without Hunter:

• Two of those guys need to be starters so you aren't talking depth with them.
• 3 of them (Dyson 22 missed games per season, Bogi 20 missed games per season, and Kobe lots of injuries career to date) have missed significant time in the past due to injury and should be viewed as significant risks to miss time.
• Risacher is a rookie which often means hitting a wall during their first season.
• Vit and Garrison were utterly inadequate to fill in last year which is why we were a disaster when Hunter was missing.  I like them much better as either low minute rotation players (which I see for Vit but not Mathews) or guys who are not part of the rotation but can fill in when someone is out.  If we are counting on them for major rotation roles, that makes me very, very nervous.  The league obviously views them that way given how we much of each player's contract is unguaranteed and I think that is the smarter way to view them as well.  I like Roddy for end of the bench depth but not for rotation minutes.  He was making the best of a bad part of the DM trade (taking Liddel's bad contract).
• None of them can give minutes at PF other than possibly 6'4'' Roddy and our PF rotation needs Hunter when JJ is out.  And JJ is another known injury risk.

To me, it is obvious that the team is better with Hunter than without him and we already shifted return in the DM trade to the future by focusing much of the return on the LA pick.  I think there is a point where continuing to defer production this season for a possible brighter future breaks and you lose Trae in the process.  If you lose Trae, I view this team as starting over without their own pick.

[Final_quest]

1 hour ago, AHF said:

We've long talked about how to get stars on this team.  Why would my view change that (a) the draft is the most reliable option and (b) that trades are next and (c.) that free is a long-shot?  

The way we got to the ECF was by signing two guys who came off the bench and were valuable parts of our rotation.  I am saying Hunter already fits that description so if your goal is to recreate the FA success that we had when we signed Gallo, etc. then maybe giving Hunter away does the exact opposite of that for this year.

So for me I think trying to win with the roster we have and looking for trade opportunities where we flip a player for value is better than salary dumping someone for garbage.  I'm not sure that should viewed as a fringe idea.

In point B with trades.  This era is one where having cap is very helpful.  Taking on salary, especially a large top 50 salary, opens up a ton of trade possibilities.

If we trade Hunter, we’ll get something back, unless we trade for an expiring guy who is injured or so bad they are unplayable.  In the earlier proposal it was Grant Williams.  Hard to find a scenario where it’s a trade for zero production in return.

But I will try not to waste any more time on this conversation.  I see very few things as black and white.  This is pretty close to a slam dunk that we should do if the opportunity comes along.  So I don’t see much common ground for a dialogue.

[kg01]

21 hours ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

It's now my mission in life to unearth the deep, dark secret @Wretch is holding onto.  His telltale heart, if you will.

My first guess is that he knows Trae's next shoe brand will be......

Brooks

IYKYK