S26 Hawks Presser

[WigNosy]

The cat stalks into the Atlanta press room, bleary-eyed and obviously in a foul mood. In other words, exactly what the reporters in Atlanta have come to expect. The cat hops up onto the table, bats at the microphone until it screeches to make sure it's on, then clears its throat and begins to speak in a gravelly voice...

Before you all ask, yes I am QUITE aware we lost. Again. To the RAPTORS! Again. I swear, those darn Canadians always seem to rise up to punk my teams when we are on the cusp of greatness. That's three times now by my count they've derailed us as a number one seed. Am I happy to be out of their division? Not really. I'm still in their conference which means I still have to deal with them when it matters. Why couldn't they move to Vancouver instead of those darn Grizzlies?

But I digress. This offseason was one of the more active ones in recent memory. Our offense for the last few years was built on the wings - Carmelo and Rudy. We saw the writing on the wall with the tax man with Noah coming up for another extension, so I had to ship them out for cheaper assets. We're still not quite out of the woods yet but I'm working on it. Let's take them one at a time.

We have loved Rudy ever since we drafted him, but after inking him to a huge extension last summer, our cap flexibility was toast. I thought it was worth it, though, because I thought we could push over the top and be in the Finals again. But instead, we had a second round exit. Did I mention to the RAPTORS?!? With a core that was getting older - except Middleton - and no longer getting it done - not to mention expensive - it was time to move on. The Bucks have been chasing Rudy for quite some time, and when they approached us with the idea of trading for him, I was a little resistant. Trade talks went back and forth, and finally we came to an agreement that probably would have been better timed had we done it an hour or so sooner instead of swapping draft picks after making them. But, you know, hindsight. We were happy to bring in Draymond and Oladipo since they were talented, if still a bit raw, and a LOT cheaper than Rudy. I wasn't totally sold on the deal at the time - I'm still not, Dray and Dipo have to live up to the hype - but the Rudy deal was not about the way he had played with us. He's an elite player in this league and still in his prime. It was about the only thing I care about near as much as rings. Money.

Which leads us to the Carmelo trade. Melo was an expiring and getting ready for another big payday. Couldn't have that. We packed up Melo along with Jeff Adrien (who I have had a well-known love-hate relationship in his time here) and sent them to the Wizards for Gerald Green and Tyler Hansbrough - players who coud give us most of the same production Melo and Adrien gave us at a reduced cost. After both of them showed up a little to full of themselves - as well as donuts - to Training Camp, I'm having second thoughts about their ability to produce. Adrien had a great TC in Washington, Melo retained most of his explosiveness, and now we're looking at Green and Psycho T and thinking there's no way Green's option is getting picked up, so the good news is we're going to be freeing up some salary next year. We have let them know they better find a way to contribute or they won't be getting good references from us when they start looking for FA offers next offseason.

We had max cap space entering RFA thanks to those deals and we threw it all at Al Horford. Horford took one look at our offer sheet and went right back to Houston. Thanks, Al. At least Bojan Bogdanovic took 5 million per year to continue acting as our Gatorade boy, which he's done admirably for the last 3 years since we put him in during his rookie season and discovered he sucked. Maybe we will let him play in another 12 games before that contract expires! In all seriousness, we had expected him to finally have a jump in TC to start coming close to his potential and it didn't happen. He's running out of time and I'm running out of patience with him, but we're stuck for at least one more season before I can trade him, so we'll continue using his Gatorade fetching skills this year.

So we tried throwing our money at Spencer Hawes. For some reason, he told us $18 million per year wasn't enough for his services... then signed for $4 million with the Kings. Guess California has dropped their income tax rate into the negative percents or something. The good news of free agency was that we brought back Joakim Noah on a non-max contract - we looked around the league and realized only a half dozen teams had money to spend and most of them weren't in the market for a 30-year old center, so we gambled and won. We're happy about that. Our backup plan if Noah and Hawes didn't sign was Marc Gasol and we got him to sign as well, so that was a nice surprise. He and Pau have been eating a lot of soul food in Atlanta, though, and I'm a little dismayed both have ballooned to over 300 pounds. There's no way I need over 600 pounds of Gasol brother on this team. I have instructed the athletic trainers to only make salads available to those two.

We brought back Nate Robinson, but as expected, the TC gods decided to whack him with the ugly stick. And Hansbrough. And Gerald Green. And Marc Gasol. So when we saw that almost all of our veterans had cruddy camps, even the guys nominally still in their primes (29 and 30) we were not entirely pleased... until we saw our young players had showed great leadership and completely ignored the bad examples of their elders. With the strides they made, we feel we have a chance to compete in our new division and push back to the playoffs.

Which reminds me, anyone know of a good point guard available? We're looking at a team where our best 3 passers are all big men, and it's not like Nate has ever met a shot he didn't like. We will definitely be playing some unconventional ball this year and searching for ways to improve our team as we always do. I don't know how good we can be this season as we try to figure things out after trading away 60% of last year's starting lineup (and somehow only returning the starters that were Free Agents) but I'm interested to see which of these young guys can play. And it may be crazy, but I'm also curious to see how Daniel Randle handles his first action - it's so rare to find a guy his size that blocks shots like he can and has such a polished offensive game as a rookie... while he won't get a ton of minutes, he will at least be in the rotation occasionally so we can see just what we have.

[NOLa.]

We know it's still just preseason, but it looks like your team is still a contender at least in talent. With your storied franchise in a new division with completely new divisional rivals, do you think you will lay down the law early on?

[aburns211]

Talk about Nate Robinson for a moment. How valuable of an asset has he been the last few years stepping in as a starter while being paid as a reserve? And what are your expectations for him this season?

[WigNosy]

We know it's still just preseason, but it looks like your team is still a contender at least in talent. With your storied franchise in a new division with completely new divisional rivals, do you think you will lay down the law early on?

The goal every year is to win the division because that sets us up with a high playoff seed. The Magic and Bobcats appear to be in transition but the Heat and Wizards are strong teams and have been consistent contenders the past fee seasons - LeBron is in MVP form for the Heat and of course we are very familiar with the kind of damage Melo can wreak for the Wizards. We have our work cut out for us if we want to finish ahead of those two teams.

[WigNosy]

Talk about Nate Robinson for a moment. How valuable of an asset has he been the last few years stepping in as a starter while being paid as a reserve? And what are your expectations for him this season?

Nate was the reason we were willing to move Lin a couple years back. He may not be a conventional pass first point but his athleticism causes all sorts of problems for other squads and with our bigs being a bit offensively challenged since Duncan left and Pau declined, his offense has been vital to us. We hope he will continue to produce for us this year at the level he has been.

[Inner_GI]

How is the locker room? Looks like draymond took being traded 3 times in his rookie contract to heart and will start proving the doubters wrong. What is his role on the new look hawks?


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[NickMalone77]

Nick Melon; The Advocate: After trading away instant-offense in exchange for some young defense, who do you think can lead this team primarily offensively in the upcoming season ahead?

[WigNosy]

How is the locker room? Looks like draymond took being traded 3 times in his rookie contract to heart and will start proving the doubters wrong. What is his role on the new look hawks?


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Draymond is a lot like Joakim Noah in that he does all the little things and is content to allow others to score. We plan to let him learn from Noah and support our scorers.

[WigNosy]

Nick Melon; The Advocate: After trading away instant-offense in exchange for some young defense, who do you think can lead this team primarily offensively in the upcoming season ahead?

I think we will lean on our veterans to shoulder the scoring load. Gerald Green didn't get mich run in the preseason but he was a 20 ppg scorer last year and we expect more of the same this season. Nate will of course be asked to score. We are also expecting Khris Middleton to step up his production this season on the wing.

[78#]

What's scarier? Oladipo's potential or knowing that your best scorer could be someone as young as him?

[WigNosy]

What's scarier? Oladipo's potential or knowing that your best scorer could be someone as young as him?

If Oladipo and his sub-40% shooting is our best scorer, that is truly the scariest thing I can think of.

[garbageman]

Sham Smith, Bulls.com: Aaron Gordon looks like he's modeled Jimmy Butler in training camp. Will he be seeing any playing time now (or ever?) for the Hawks?

[WigNosy]

We are pretty deep at the big man position now, and Aaron is improving but not ready to unseat the likes of Noah and the Gasols just yet. He knows he needs to pick their brains and learn so that when the time comes down the road he will be ready to step in and step up. But that is at least a season or two away yet.

[Xist2Inspire]

Has the rapid growth of your newly-acquired young players (and your 5-1 preseason record) accelerated your rebuilding plans a bit? It's rare to see a team trade away two of the best players in league and still look like a major threat.

[WigNosy]

Has the rapid growth of your newly-acquired young players (and your 5-1 preseason record) accelerated your rebuilding plans a bit? It's rare to see a team trade away two of the best players in league and still look like a major threat.

I would be lying if I said "no." The plan for this year was still to compete for a playoff spot if we could get Noah and Robinson back at the right price, but the growth we saw in our younger players puts us in a much stronger position than I thought we would be in when I acquired them. We'll continue to be patient and look for ways to improve the team.

[Inner_GI]

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