Hawks 2016 Presser
Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 8:02 pm
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 BUCKS! And in the first round! If it isn't the Raptors taking us out of the playoffs, it's the Bucks. You'd think getting out of the Central division would cool down some of the rivalries we've built up. You'd THINK WRONG! Even worse, now I can't even beat them for the division crown and have SOMETHING to hold over their heads in head-to-head matchups. Blach, it makes me puke.
But I digress. This last year was a pretty eventful one. We shipped off Victor Oladipo as soon as we could to bring in James Harden. Unfortunately, he missed the tail end of the season with an injury and that may have cost us the division title, which also cost us a better playoff seed. Daniel Randle had a huge rookie season and won Rookie of the Year, which was nice - remind me to thank our preseason assistant coaches who brought him to my attention. We brought in Chris Kaman as well for depth at big, though it didn't help us when we needed it in Game 7.
We snuck under the tax apron to reset our tax repeater status last year, which was huge. It allowed us to make our only real offseason moves, which included bringing in Arron Afflalo and Ed Davis for a bag of basketballs and a peanut butter sandwich. Other than that, we knew it was time to pay our RFAs, which we did, and use Bird Rights and Early Bird Rights to make sure we didn't lose our vets to minimum contracts... which we also did. If injuries hurt us last year, you'd better believe the goal this year was to build a DEEP team.
Which brings us to TC. Draymond Green took a hit, but since he made a jump last year, that basically puts him back to where he was when we acquired him... really really good. Our older players declined some, which we expected. In other words, just like free agency, the watchword was "Status Quo." Okay, that's two watchwords. Whatever.
So, what is this team? I'm not sure yet. Our primary offensive option will be Harden of course. But our second option could go a number of ways - Khris Middleton finally looks ready to step up. Daniel Randle showed last year he's perfectly capable of shouldering the offensive load as a starter. Nate Robinson proved he can still light up the scoreboard. Bojan Bogdanovic had short spurts when he got minutes last year. Look, I have a lot of scoring options but probably not enough minutes for all of them. Defensively, Joakim Noah will continue to be our anchor and Draymond's defense will be counted on as well. Marc Gasol and Ed Davis and Chris Kaman are all solid defenders with the ability to keep defenses honest, but again... not enough minutes to go around.
We are rolling back a deeper and much more expensive version of the squad we rolled out last year... and that squad earned us a first-round exit. I don't have enough minutes to keep everyone on this team happy, which means I'm likely to have some disgruntled players. I know, I know, first-world problems. But if I'm paying big tax bills, this team had better win enough to keep ME happy and not worry so much about their touches. Because if I'm not happy, I'm shipping you out to CHARLOTTE! And that goes double for you pesky reporters.
Before you all ask, yes I am QUITE aware we lost. Again. To the BUCKS! And in the first round! If it isn't the Raptors taking us out of the playoffs, it's the Bucks. You'd think getting out of the Central division would cool down some of the rivalries we've built up. You'd THINK WRONG! Even worse, now I can't even beat them for the division crown and have SOMETHING to hold over their heads in head-to-head matchups. Blach, it makes me puke.
But I digress. This last year was a pretty eventful one. We shipped off Victor Oladipo as soon as we could to bring in James Harden. Unfortunately, he missed the tail end of the season with an injury and that may have cost us the division title, which also cost us a better playoff seed. Daniel Randle had a huge rookie season and won Rookie of the Year, which was nice - remind me to thank our preseason assistant coaches who brought him to my attention. We brought in Chris Kaman as well for depth at big, though it didn't help us when we needed it in Game 7.
We snuck under the tax apron to reset our tax repeater status last year, which was huge. It allowed us to make our only real offseason moves, which included bringing in Arron Afflalo and Ed Davis for a bag of basketballs and a peanut butter sandwich. Other than that, we knew it was time to pay our RFAs, which we did, and use Bird Rights and Early Bird Rights to make sure we didn't lose our vets to minimum contracts... which we also did. If injuries hurt us last year, you'd better believe the goal this year was to build a DEEP team.
Which brings us to TC. Draymond Green took a hit, but since he made a jump last year, that basically puts him back to where he was when we acquired him... really really good. Our older players declined some, which we expected. In other words, just like free agency, the watchword was "Status Quo." Okay, that's two watchwords. Whatever.
So, what is this team? I'm not sure yet. Our primary offensive option will be Harden of course. But our second option could go a number of ways - Khris Middleton finally looks ready to step up. Daniel Randle showed last year he's perfectly capable of shouldering the offensive load as a starter. Nate Robinson proved he can still light up the scoreboard. Bojan Bogdanovic had short spurts when he got minutes last year. Look, I have a lot of scoring options but probably not enough minutes for all of them. Defensively, Joakim Noah will continue to be our anchor and Draymond's defense will be counted on as well. Marc Gasol and Ed Davis and Chris Kaman are all solid defenders with the ability to keep defenses honest, but again... not enough minutes to go around.
We are rolling back a deeper and much more expensive version of the squad we rolled out last year... and that squad earned us a first-round exit. I don't have enough minutes to keep everyone on this team happy, which means I'm likely to have some disgruntled players. I know, I know, first-world problems. But if I'm paying big tax bills, this team had better win enough to keep ME happy and not worry so much about their touches. Because if I'm not happy, I'm shipping you out to CHARLOTTE! And that goes double for you pesky reporters.