Hawks 2022 Presser

[WigNosy]

The cat wanders into the press room, and blinks in surprise that there are actually people here. He looks at one of his staffers, shrugs, and sits down behind the microphone.

"So, I suppose you are here to talk about the team again. There's really not a lot to talk about. We had another disappointing season last year when we lost in the playoffs. Yes, we lost to the eventual champs. No, that doesn't make me feel better. We've become like that OTHER Atlanta team, the Braves. We win the division every year but never bring home the big prize. It's getting tiresome."

"Obviously, after last season, it was clear that we didn't have enough firepower. We were kind of annoyed when Harland Ellinger's agent informed us they were going to decline his player option and enter free agency this off-season. We had managed our cap such that we had the space to add another star player and were hoping Ellinger would give us one more season to show him what we had in mind. Guess he had other plans. So we did what we had to... we adjusted."

"We took risks in the off-season. To start with, we didn't exercise our restricted free agency rights on Aaron Pastor or on Carlos Bergstrom so we would have enough money to send out two max contract offers during RFA. In restricted free agency, we landed James Gebhart from the Jazz and Tyler Ulis of the Celtics. We felt confident getting both of these great players would validate going over the cap to re-sign Ellinger and give us a backcourt that would be the envy of the league! And then... both players' deals were promptly matched. Back to the drawing board again."

"Going into Unrestricted Free Agency, we did some calculations. We knew teams would be all over Harland Ellinger, especially after he opted out of his player option for this year. We also knew that the cap space we had opened up in RFA wasn't enough to sign both Ellinger AND another max player. So we had to make some tough decisions. We cut our one defensive guard, Gil Gale, and one of our frontcourt players, Armand Haven. Even though it hit our cap with dead money to do so, it opened up just enough space for us to be able to let us fit a second max offer next to Ellinger's."

"We swung for the fences - we sent out a couple of big offers to some of the best players on the board. Gary Harris spurned us to go back to New York. Obviously, we were thrilled that Jayson Tatum took us up on our offer. But we were nervous as heck when Ellinger did not come back into the fold right away. Thankfully, once it became clear Tatum was on board, he did the wise thing and re-upped with us to take another crack at things. Shortly thereafter, we were able to bring back Bergstrom on a modest contract and re-sign Blake Griffin and Tyreke Evans at reduced prices. Pastor, of course, took the Rockets' money and ran to Houston. We can't blame him - they paid him much more than we were willing to."

"At the end of Free Agency, we were feeling good. We had our prized new free agent, we had Arthur Parish who had been a super-efficient scorer and rebounder as our third big man. We had Tyreke Evans back to give our wings depth. We had Matthew Willison waiting in the wings and were hoping this was the year he would finally take the next step in his development."

"Of course, Training Camp happened. Parish got fat and sassy and went from having a sky-blue-high potential to showing his true colors as a yellow-bellied coward. Evans had just as disastrous a camp. Willison not only didn't make the jump forward, he fell over backwards. Even new signee Pierre Jaco did poorly. But to top it all off, Tatum showed up to camp out of shape and boy are we happy we got TC insurance on him. While it was nice to see Aaron Donald and Andrew Baldwin step their games up, on the whole, for such a young team as we are, I was not happy to see the results of training camp. Where I thought we would be deep and dangerous, now we're going to be back with the pack clawing for a playoff spot."

"We'll start the season with an Ellinger/Randle backcourt. Andrew Aleman, who has been a steady backup for us, will probably be our third guard. I would have loved to bench Tatum for his offseason suckiness but since Evans was just as bad, Tatum will start at small forward. Carlos Bergstrom will be our backup wing. Aaron Donald will start up front for sure and we'll figure out whether Blake Griffin or Andrew Baldwin will be the fifth starter (and the one that doesn't start will kick Arthur Parish from his "third big" role to deep on the pine)."

"I'm ready to make some moves this season with the roster. We've been 'good' but not 'great' for too long. Training Camp showed me some guys on this roster need a wakeup call and if I have anything to say about it, expect the roster to look different come December 15th once I can start trading some of these slugs."

[garbageman]

Who do you see as the biggest threat to winning the division?

[ballsohard]

I wanted to say congrats on the 18th season at 50 wins and yet another young great player for free. Philly and Atlanta love to walk the same path Cheers!


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[NickMalone77]

Being the sort to not always walk the same line of thinking, it seems like Carlos Bergstrom and Andrew Baldwin rose the most during TC. Do you see them taking an increased role in terms of minutes and ready to start in the upcoming year ahead?

[NOLa.]

This team is obviously favorites again to win the division, but do you think the team as it stands today can bring home another ring?


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[WigNosy]

Who do you see as the biggest threat to winning the division?

I think it is either Washington or Orlando. The Wizards have a great collection of diverse talent and assuming the Magic don’t sell everything off again I actually like their talent mix.

[WigNosy]

Being the sort to not always walk the same line of thinking, it seems like Carlos Bergstrom and Andrew Baldwin rose the most during TC. Do you see them taking an increased role in terms of minutes and ready to start in the upcoming year ahead?

Baldwin was looking at an increased role if Blake hadn’t resigned this season and was probably looking at an increased role in two years anyway once Parish came off the books. With Parish deciding to tank the offseason, Baldwin just saw his timeline accelerated and will be asked to contribute now.

Carlos is in kind of the same boat. We expected Tyreke Evans to play a huge role again this season but now Bergstrom will have the chance to contribute sooner rather than later.

[WigNosy]

This team is obviously favorites again to win the division, but do you think the team as it stands today can bring home another ring?


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No. Our defense is atrocious (29th of 30 teams in points allowed) and that will have to improve.

[Xist2Inspire]

Anthony Davis is always a concern to those looking to advance out of the East, but now there's also Ayton/Simmons, Millburn/Anthony-Towns, DeSantis/Chambers, and Jokic. Do you foresee your lack of size becoming a problem as the season progresses?

[digiskunk]

What's the one thing that's holding this team back from winning the championship this year?

[WigNosy]

Anthony Davis is always a concern to those looking to advance out of the East, but now there's also Ayton/Simmons, Millburn/Anthony-Towns, DeSantis/Chambers, and Jokic. Do you foresee your lack of size becoming a problem as the season progresses?

I don't think it's going to be a general problem in the regular season; it does have the potential to become a problem in the post-season. But the post-season has always been about matchups; a few years back I invested heavily in a defensive frontcourt to stop AD, only to be knocked out of the playoffs repeatedly by backcourt-focused teams. Styles make fights, as they say, and we can't prepare for everything so we'll do the best we can to prepare for as many teams as possible and then play whoever is in front of us.

[WigNosy]

What's the one thing that's holding this team back from winning the championship this year?

Defense. I'm not worried about our ability to score. But it won't help if we can't stop the other team.

[JNR]

GWR: You've highlighted your lack of defense. Is there an in-season plan to address this?

[WigNosy]

GWR: You've highlighted your lack of defense. Is there an in-season plan to address this?

As always, we will be looking hard at the trade blocks to see what we can pull off. In addition, I expect some gameplanning fiddling during the season to try to discover gameplans that can help offset our defensive deficiencies.

[Soundwave]

If you had to pick one, what is the most important single attribute or skill of any lone player on your team?

[WigNosy]

If you had to pick one, what is the most important single attribute or skill of any lone player on your team?

The "Team Option" attached to the next year of Tyreke Evan's contract is the most important single attribute attached to a player on my team.

[Conroy]

Can you talk a little bit about Daniel Randle, he's been in Atlanta his entire career and has had a wild career averaging 20 ppg over 7 seasons playing PF at 6'4 and now a more suitable position due to his size. What are his thoughts heading into the last year of his contract?

[WigNosy]

Can you talk a little bit about Daniel Randle, he's been in Atlanta his entire career and has had a wild career averaging 20 ppg over 7 seasons playing PF at 6'4 and now a more suitable position due to his size. What are his thoughts heading into the last year of his contract?

You'd have to ask Daniel, but the hope here is he will look at the love Antonio McDyess still gets here and stay.