2024 Preseason Game Thread 3: Hawks at heat

[REHawksFan]

11 minutes ago, sturt said:

That's gotta be somewhat... if not significantly... encouraging, no? Help me stay grounded here.

The Hawks main guys, when they've played together this preseason, have played very well and had a lot of success.  Trae and Jalen have been on the court together and off together for all 3 games and they are a combined +31 through 3 games.  I think Brad Rowland also had a stat that said when the combination of Trae/Dyson/Jalen/Capela were on the court together they have a NetRtg of +11 or something.  

Regardless of the stats in preseason (generally meaningless), the eye test tells me that the main guys* look like they play well together and have a lot of pieces that work well together.  It's not perfect, but it's A LOT better than we've seen over the last few years.  This team has a chance to be a lot of fun, imo.

Also, you are asking the wrong guy if you are looking to stay grounded.  I'm already 10 feet off the ground with a projection of 45+ wins this season.  

 

 

*Main guys: Trae/Jalen/Zacc/Dyson/Bogie/Dre/Nance/Clint/Vit

The only ones that haven't looked overly comfortable yet are Bogie and Dre. Everyone else looks pretty dang good. 

[ATLHawks3]

I still think that Kobe should be our backup PG. However, I would restrict him to about 10 minutes a night to start and see if can play his way into more minutes as the season progresses.

Trae should play 38+ mpg this year, which will be a career high for him. He will get the occasional 2 minute breathers here and there, but the majority of the game should see Trae at PG.

[NBASupes]

40 minutes ago, ATLHawks3 said:

I still think that Kobe should be our backup PG. However, I would restrict him to about 10 minutes a night to start and see if can play his way into more minutes as the season progresses.

Trae should play 38+ mpg this year, which will be a career high for him. He will get the occasional 2 minute breathers here and there, but the majority of the game should see Trae at PG.

Trae definitely shouldn't play 38 mpg in the modern NBA. Are you crazy!

[Chrimturn]

19 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

Also, you are asking the wrong guy if you are looking to stay grounded.  I'm already 10 feet off the ground with a projection of 45+ wins this season.  

I’m right there with you.  Last year they lost 25 games by 10 points or less.  Out of those 25, 11 of them were by 5 points or less.  I think they have enough oomph to win more of those close games this year.  Win 10 out of those 25 (less than half) and they’re right there at 45/46.

Remains to be seen, obviously, but I’m shooting for them to get back up to 45+ myself.  

I will say that I am just a tad bit nervous now after watching Bufkin last night.  But I’m trying to console myself by thinking a pre season back to back may have contributed to that.  Not necessarily the back to back affecting his individual performance…more so the manipulating of player availability and rotations last night.

[ATLHawks3]

19 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

Trae definitely shouldn't play 38 mpg in the modern NBA. Are you crazy!

It’s 2 minutes more than what he averaged last year. I don’t think asking him to play 2 more mpg will be an issue considering he’s our best player.

[sturt]

20 minutes ago, Chrimturn said:

 Last year they lost 25 games by 10 points or less.  Out of those 25, 11 of them were by 5 points or less.  I think they have enough oomph to win more of those close games this year.

Yeah but. Would think those numbers would be fairly typical of any given year for any team with that final record. Not real confident that that's reason for solace, but would have to do a deeper dive into numbers than I'm inclined to spend time doing.

[bleachkit]

22 minutes ago, Chrimturn said:

I’m right there with you.  Last year they lost 25 games by 10 points or less.  Out of those 25, 11 of them were by 5 points or less.  I think they have enough oomph to win more of those close games this year.  Win 10 out of those 25 (less than half) and they’re right there at 45/46.

Remains to be seen, obviously, but I’m shooting for them to get back up to 45+ myself.  

I will say that I am just a tad bit nervous now after watching Bufkin last night.  But I’m trying to console myself by thinking a pre season back to back may have contributed to that.  Not necessarily the back to back affecting his individual performance…more so the manipulating of player availability and rotations last night.

We need Kobe to step up and take that back up point guard spot. It would be a big plus for us if he could. 

[JayBirdHawk]

1 hour ago, ATLHawks3 said:

I still think that Kobe should be our backup PG. However, I would restrict him to about 10 minutes a night to start and see if can play his way into more minutes as the season progresses.

Trae should play 38+ mpg this year, which will be a career high for him. He will get the occasional 2 minute breathers here and there, but the majority of the game should see Trae at PG.

I think Kobe's time will be determined by how well he plays in his first stint game to game. He plays well in first half, he sees more minutes in second half and vice versa.

And Trae isn't and shouldn't play 38 mpg.

[JayBirdHawk]

50 minutes ago, ATLHawks3 said:

It’s 2 minutes more than what he averaged last year. I don’t think asking him to play 2 more mpg will be an issue considering he’s our best player.

It's the cumulative minutes over an entire season. 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

13 hours ago, NBASupes said:

Dre is always underrated on here. People just get pissed off about his salary then they remember the alternative options. 

I get pissed off about his lack of impact and lack of hustle in a game.

[NBASupes]

12 minutes ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

I get pissed off about his lack of impact and lack of hustle in a game.

He makes an impact and he plays hard but continue to believe what you want

[kg01]

20 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

He makes an impact and he plays hard but continue to believe what you want

I can't pinpoint why I don't like Hunter.  He's a contributor and I actually don't mind his salary.  Maybe I just want more from him. 

I put max-effort into my snarkiness, so I expect the same from everyone else. 

[REHawksFan]

1 hour ago, sturt said:

Yeah but. Would think those numbers would be fairly typical of any given year for any team with that final record. Not real confident that that's reason for solace, but would have to do a deeper dive into numbers than I'm inclined to spend time doing.

Biggest reason for optimism is FIT.  For the first time in Trae's career, they've put guys around him that can defend at an elite level without requiring significant offensive usage.  They have length and versatility.  They also have depth.  Significant depth.  

Last year, they had a team that was poorly fitting AND only had 7-8 NBA level players on the team.  And then guys got hurt like usual.  

This year, they legit have 10-11 NBA level players.  They've upgraded both TALENT and FIT.  It's been said before, but breaking up the Trae / DJM combo was always going to result in a better team because that duo was one of the worst in the NBA all time.  But they didn't JUST break them up, they replaced DJM with guys that actually FIT around Trae.  Long, athletic, elite defenders that don't require high usage offensively.  

THAT'S why you should be more confident in an uptick in performance. 

[Atlantaholic]

1 hour ago, JayBirdHawk said:

It's the cumulative minutes over an entire season. 

I understand the NBA is different, but how could a million pound shaq and tiny Iverson who was throwing his body around like a mad man both average over 40mpg back in the day? Those guys didn't get get injured and they made deep playoff runs.

In fact it was rare for any player to get injured unless it was a serious contact injury. Now we have reduced back to backs, load management, no one plays more than 33 mins etc, and injuries are way up? I don't think load management and restricting minutes and easy practices and all that stuff is having the intended impact. To me it's just making players less conditioned and more prone to injuries. 

[AHF]

4 hours ago, sturt said:

That's gotta be somewhat... if not significantly... encouraging, no? Help me stay grounded here.

For me, not so much "encouraging" as "not discouraging."  Playing our bench players against their starters and our third string against their backups doesn't mean much.

[macdaddy]

14 minutes ago, Atlantaholic said:

I understand the NBA is different, but how could a million pound shaq and tiny Iverson who was throwing his body around like a mad man both average over 40mpg back in the day? Those guys didn't get get injured and they made deep playoff runs.

In fact it was rare for any player to get injured unless it was a serious contact injury. Now we have reduced back to backs, load management, no one plays more than 33 mins etc, and injuries are way up? I don't think load management and restricting minutes and easy practices and all that stuff is having the intended impact. To me it's just making players less conditioned and more prone to injuries. 

Well iverson was basically done at 33.  in fact those guys careers compared show the difference between playing mid 30 minutes (shaq) vs 40+ minutes a night (ai)

[AHF]

13 minutes ago, Atlantaholic said:

I understand the NBA is different, but how could a million pound shaq and tiny Iverson who was throwing his body around like a mad man both average over 40mpg back in the day? Those guys didn't get get injured and they made deep playoff runs.

In fact it was rare for any player to get injured unless it was a serious contact injury. Now we have reduced back to backs, load management, no one plays more than 33 mins etc, and injuries are way up? I don't think load management and restricting minutes and easy practices and all that stuff is having the intended impact. To me it's just making players less conditioned and more prone to injuries. 

I'm skeptical about running Trae that hard for two reasons.

(1) It would be out of step with modern player usage.

(2) I want him giving more on defense and I think if he has to play 38 mpg then he is going to have to coast more.

(FWIW, AI was terribly inefficient as a scorer and part of that may have been the high minutes.  Shaq was a generational beast.  He could hold his own in the paint without doing a ton of running in that era.)

When Trae is off the floor we don't need a single guy to carry the load.  We need multiple players among Kobe, Vit, Bogi, DD, and JJ to share the load as far as ball movement and creation.

[RedDawg#8]

Kobe is a work in progress, but 12 mins a night should be sustainable.

6 mins a half.

3 min spurts a quarter.

The key is to just play hard defensively and not let teams go on crazy fast runs. Also, surround him with vets.

Last night, we played a lot of end of bench guys and they were on the court vs Miami’s starters a lot. That’s a tough eval.

He shouldn’t be asked to lead anything, just give him a role and let him feed the ball to shot makers. He can play competent basketball, it just has to be in smaller doses. Preseason is the most court time he will get during a game.

[Atlantaholic]

3 minutes ago, AHF said:

I'm skeptical about running Trae that hard for two reasons.

(1) It would be out of step with modern player usage.

(2) I want him giving more on defense and I think if he has to play 38 mpg then he is going to have to coast more.

(FWIW, AI was terribly inefficient as a scorer and part of that may have been the high minutes.  Shaq was a generational beast.  He could hold his own in the paint without doing a ton of running in that era.)

When Trae is off the floor we don't need a single guy to carry the load.  We need multiple players among Kobe, Vit, Bogi, DD, and JJ to share the load as far as ball movement and creation.

Nah, I'm not saying that's what we should do. I'm just saying it's pretty crazy how back just 14 years ago it was pretty standard for everyone to play 36mins a game or more, and injuries were waaaaay down vs today. 

Wasn't just Shaq and AI... Smitty, Mookie, Deke and Latner in 1996 averaged 38mpg and missed a combined 16 games, with only Smitty missing more than 4. That wasn't an outlier it was pretty standard accross any team. The Jazz that season had their top four guys miss 1 (!) game all season combined. They were playing more minutes than virtually any team's top 4 players today, and that was with all of them at 33 years old or older, and that's with around 30%-40% more back-back games than today.

Today it's pretty standard for every single starter to miss at least 10-20 games,  last year the hawks had like 4 main rotation pieces miss  30-40 games each, and while certainly in the upper end of injuries not really a huge outlier. Pretty standard for at least two main rotation pieces to miss 30+ games in the NBA today, you almost have to account for it. Not having depth at a certain position is a huge weakness. Just extremely curious to me considering that with advances in sports science, lighter schedule, load management, less minutes etc... players just get hurt at a much higher rate than before. The correlation is pretty crazy and has been gradually increasing as minutes drop and off days increase. 

 

 

[Atlantaholic]

53 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

Well iverson was basically done at 33.  in fact those guys careers compared show the difference between playing mid 30 minutes (shaq) vs 40+ minutes a night (ai)

Iverson at 34 was putting up around the same numbers and playing more minutes than Westbrook at 34. Had he accepted coming off the bench he could have played at least 1 or 2 more seasons.

Chuck was playing 32 mins a game as a 36 year old averaging a 16-10 double double... averaged 37mins per game for his 1,071 game career.

Stockton, Malone, Clyde, etc. Basically any start player from back in the 80's 90's was playing a ton more minutes and was getting injured a lot less. Mitch Richmond averaged 36 mpg his first ten years in the league. Missed 10 games or more once during that span. He played until 36, averaged 35mpg for his 978 game career. Hakeem for his first 13 seasons (ages 22-34) averaged over 37mpg and missed 10 games or more just three times, and missed 20 games or more just once. Hakeem was flying coach for over half of his career. 

You pick a star player out of a hat today and odds are he missed at least 30 games at some point in the last couple of seasons and that's while averaging less than 33mpg/private jets/a lot less back2backs/specialty trainers/chefs, etc. etc.