News - Atlanta Hawks - Bulldog63
Race to the Bottom (Halfway Point)
We're 50% through the season, and the Hawks have made it clear all along that they are in the tank this season. The FO believes it is their last shot for the foreseeable future that they will pick this high, as they believe the talent they've acquired will give them a natural boost in the coming years. However, a rather interesting wrinkle is that they might have accomplished this even without trying to, as they have dealt with a bit of an injury bug so far this season, to the point they haven't been able to put together their best starting 5 all season.
Their ideal lineup was:
Quickley/White/Bane/Sarr/Clingan
To date, quickley has missed all but a few games with multiple ailments, bane is set to miss some time and has missed a couple weeks, sarr and clingan have both missed a few weeks, etc. Coby white missed a week, quickley came back, then quickley missed another week now. Thus, even taking into account their roster construction currently, they've been forced by default to put out a less than ideal roster, often times starting isaiah stewart or jaime jaquez. The injuries (which are not super serious all things considered but do matter) combined with the still very young roster has led to a record of 9-31, good for 4th worst in the league. The question is, how much lower can they get?
Right now the bottom 4 teams are:
6-34, 7-33, 8-31, 9-31. That's not a large gap. The Knicks lead the charge, clearly positioning for the future. The warriors are next up, and they don't actually have incentive to tank as they do not own their own pick. Then the Nets, they seem to have signaled they are ready to sell, and then lastly us. Looking at the rosters, realistically I think the highest we can reasonably get to will be 3rd. The Warriors pulled off a heist during FA and got hartenstein, who has recently come back and been good. They have a couple other good guards, they could certainly sell those for more assets, but as it stands now they are probably the 2nd most talented roster of the 4 at the bottom. Combined with them not holding their own pick, movement upward seems most likely for them.
The question then, is where do we go after the season? It does not behoove us (Yeet, that one's for you) to sit in the tank forever. So, cards on the table, here is the timeline we believe we have with our squad's direction:
This year: top 5 pick
Next year: play in at best
Following year: Playoff team
After that: Who knows? I hope contenders!
Next year we will have 4 3rd years, 2 sophs, and a rookie if all thigns hold, and they're all 1st rd picks. We don't own our pick next year but do every year after that, and we still have what we believe are a couple of very valuable players who are in their prime. By natural progression, if some of the players they anticipate panning out do in fact pan out, we believe we have a solid core for the next decade. And then we will have assets left to fill in the gaps assuming we take those steps as planned.
| | | Comments (1) | |
laddas
02/09 09:43 am | QN, Qtr. 2, #2 | |
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