2k18 - 76ers "the process needs results"

[georgiafan]

What Moves Should the Hawks Make ?

* I am going to introduce a new feature and would love to hear some feedback. If everyone is sort of on the same page on what a team should do then that's the move I will make. That way instead of just reading along yall can have a say in what some of teams do.

Current Record 1-9 (tied for last)
Cap Room +8.37 Million
Core Players Ayton, Schroder and Collins
Goal for this year Land in the top 2 and draft star SG's R.J Barrett or Romeo Langford
Draft Picks All there own 1st rounds picks + the Cavs 1st this year
Longterm X Factor SG Hamidu Diallo










Kent Bazemore
What once looked like a bad contract now has turned into a valuable trade piece with Kent being one of the better defense SG in the league. Even though his contract is large it comes off the books next year. They are two playoff teams with major holes at SG so lets look at some options as with Kent being 29 he doesn't fit on this roster anymore.

Option A. Trade him to the Cavs for a deal centered around JR Smith or Zach Randolph which would be getting a expiring contract ? I don't see the hawks getting a valuable draft pick in return here.

Option B. Trade him to the Pelicans and take back the useless contracts of Asik and Hill and pick up a 1st round draft pick this year ?

Option C. Stay put for now and look at things when the deadline gets closer ?



* Potential Trade (pelicans are 9-3)




Tauren Prince
Tauren had a good year last year and was even in the running for most improved so far this year he has played awful despite getting similar minutes. The Hawks drafted 2 SF's in the 1st round in Jarred Vanderbilt who is 75 overall, but only B- potential. Killian Tillie is 23, but has a higher potential with A- and has been in the G league.

Option A. Look at including Prince in a trade which should fetch a higher return and open up minutes for the rookies?

Option B. Let him play out the year and see how things shake off in the offseason ? If Kent and Marco are traded all the SF will get a increase in minutes.





Expiring Contracts
If the trade of Bazemore happens it will likely have to include either Muscala or Belinelli still the Hawks will atleast 12 million $ worth of expiring contracts to trade.

Option A. Call the Knicks and Lakers up and see if they will give you a future 1st round pick by taking on the contracts of Noah / Deng. With both teams being around .500 and in major markets and not making the playoffs recently they should listen. That would then mean after next offseason the Hawks will have young players on rookie contracts plus a ton of cap space.

Option B. Save the Cap Space plus the 8 million you currently have and offer a mega deal to a
guy this offseason ?





Closing Thoughts
The hawks are quietly becoming a young fun team mostly because this year 4th overall pick Ayton is having a monster start to his career. Dennis Schroder is only 25 years ago and he will be the starting PG going forward. Another name we haven't talked about is Hamidu Diallo who has A+ potential. He hasn't even began to scratch the service of his potential (72 ovr). If they can land a stud SG this year then you have a very young starting 5 loaded with potential then with all the cap space you can throw big $ at a free agent either this offseason or next.

[georgiafan]

Top 5 Surprising Starts

Nets & Deangelo Russell
Finally the debt has been payed for that awful trade with the Celtics and the Nets can get back to collecting young assets. In the meantime after 9 games they are currently 1 game over .500. Deangelo Russell is playing like a all star with 25.6 points per game and picked a heck of a time to do it since he is in his contract year. Even though they added Alex Len and Nikola Mirotic this offseason they are still thin in the frontcourt and have way to many SG & SF on the roster.

Pelicans
They went deep in the luxury tax to resign Demarcus Cousins and so far it is working with a 9-2 start. Another surprising fact is that it hasn't been a 2 man show as 4 players are averaging between 14 and 20 points per game. The signing of Bojan Bogdanovic is paying off so far and they are rumors going around they are trying to upgrade SG.

Lonzo Ball
Somewhere daddy is smiling as Lonzo is averaging close to a triple double and the lakers are 5-5 to start the year. He leads the NBA in assist with 11.1 and has upped his scoring to 15.1 to go along with over 8 rebounds per game. With the addition of Paul George the Lakers have a real chance to make the playoffs.

Deandre Ayton
The 4th overall pick is the early favorite to win rookie of the year with 16.8 points a game and 9.6 rebounds. The sky seems to be the limit for Ayton and could average 20 and 10 as soon as next year

Jazz Injuries
There hasn't been a lot of major injuries this year and for the Jazz the bad news is just about all of them has happened in Utah. Sophomore Donovan Mitchell is out 6 to 8 months with a dislocated Patella and 14th overall rookie SF Rodions Kurucs is out 4-6 weeks. The Jazz of course mad news this offseason when they traded Joe Ingles to the 76ers. Now 2 wing players are out and you have to wonder if the should start selling assets as the trade deadline approaches. Furkan Kormaz has been forced into the starter at SF playing 30 + minutes a game.

[trekfan]

As far as Bazemore goes, realistically he's definitely going to pick up that insane player option of his. He'd immediately be useful for NOLA as a fringe starter/sixth-man.

The contracts for Asik and Hill are both awful, however -- Hill is semi-useful in limited minutes (like, 10 a game max) but Asik is a straight anvil; no value at all. I like the idea of sending him to NOLA, but not for that package -- one of Hill or Asik, yes, plus a more useful player (Diallo or Jackson). Might need to add Ajinca in there to make the cap-math work, then you toss in a scrub (Taylor) to get the numbers right. That's a much more even deal -- 1 bad contract, plus a 1st, and a young unproven player (but with some potential) for a pair of immediate contributors (Bazemore and Belinelli/Muscala); you just want to make sure you keep the depth of both teams more or less intact by position.

Two bad contracts for a 1st and a 2nd, though, is not a great deal IMO -- way too generous of the Hawks. I'd need another 1st in the future to take on both bad contracts and that future 1st would have to be unprotected.

As for Prince, I vote keep him -- the guy is like a Jae Crowder-Lite dude, a glue guy who does many things solidly. He might not be starter worthy with your roster in the future, but he's got another year on his deal; no rush to move on from him at this juncture, let's see how Vanderbilt plays out.

Preserve the cap space, check in around the trade deadline to see if someone's getting desperate. I don't know if ATL will be able to reel in any free agents with that money (the way they let Horford and Millsap go, plus the way they punted on Dwight early, makes me thinks free agents are wary of that place at the moment) but cap space is valuable for absorbing bad deals and building up draft picks, so the Hawks should try to preserve it as best they can.

[georgiafan]

Quote: Originally Posted by trekfan

As far as Bazemore goes, realistically he's definitely going to pick up that insane player option of his. He'd immediately be useful for NOLA as a fringe starter/sixth-man. The contracts for Asik and Hill are both awful, however -- Hill is semi-useful in limited minutes (like, 10 a game max) but Asik is a straight anvil; no value at all. I like the idea of sending him to NOLA, but not for that package -- one of Hill or Asik, yes, plus a more useful player (Diallo or Jackson). Might need to add Ajinca in there to make the cap-math work, then you toss in a scrub (Taylor) to get the numbers right. That's a much more even deal -- 1 bad contract, plus a 1st, and a young unproven player (but with some potential) for a pair of immediate contributors (Bazemore and Belinelli/Muscala); you just want to make sure you keep the depth of both teams more or less intact by position. Two bad contracts for a 1st and a 2nd, though, is not a great deal IMO -- way too generous of the Hawks. I'd need another 1st in the future to take on both bad contracts and that future 1st would have to be unprotected. As for Prince, I vote keep him -- the guy is like a Jae Crowder-Lite dude, a glue guy who does many things solidly. He might not be starter worthy with your roster in the future, but he's got another year on his deal; no rush to move on from him at this juncture, let's see how Vanderbilt plays out. Preserve the cap space, check in around the trade deadline to see if someone's getting desperate. I don't know if ATL will be able to reel in any free agents with that money (the way they let Horford and Millsap go, plus the way they punted on Dwight early, makes me thinks free agents are wary of that place at the moment) but cap space is valuable for absorbing bad deals and building up draft picks, so the Hawks should try to preserve it as best they can.

Thanks for the tips I was definitely leaning toward sending Baz to the Pelicans so I'll prob go ahead and do that tonight. I think it makes sense for both teams. That was one of the main deals that I feel like need to happen early in the year along with Cavs finding a starting SG and the Nets trading a SG/SF.

[georgiafan]

December 1st, 2018 Update - 76ers Stay Hot

The last time we checked in the 76ers was off to a hot start with a 5-2 record. Since then they would stay hot over the next 2 weeks winning 7 of 9 games mostly against teams with bad records. One bad spot was a 2 point loss at home on a buzzer beater by T.J Warren and the Suns.

Joe Ingles would get hurt in a win vs. the Raptors on November 18th and would miss the next 4 games. The stats he puts up are not going to impress you, but its starting to look he is very important to the teams success as the 76ers lost 3 of those 4 games without him all to teams with average records.

Ingles would return on November 28th and the 76ers are currently on a 6 game winning streak. During that stretch they aren't just winning games, but blowing teams out beating the Hornets by 27, Bulls by 17, Pistons by 43 and Knicks by 48. The Lakers are up next and then we will have a full report for the 3rd game vs. the Cavs this year. It will be the last match up till the last week of the regular season between these two teams.

When you look at that the Individual stats you will see it has been a group effort and the depth of the 76ers is really paying off. The big 3 are scoring 15 a game or more and then 2 more guys officially in double figures. If you look closer you will see that 4 more guys are averaging mid 9's a game so basically you have 9 guys scoring 10 points or more per game. That number does include Greyson Allen who has only played in 7 games.

We also want to highlight some team stats with all the shooters now on the team they are 4th in the NBA in 3 point %. As you would expect the defense is also way up and also 4th in the NBA. A stat that is often not talked about bench scoring per game and the 76ers ranked you guessed it 4th in the NBA with 39.7 per game.

They are still a long way to go and we don't know if they 76ers can keep the #1 seed all year. It finally looks like playoff basketball will be returning in Philly and for now that's the main goal.

76ers Stats - 2018
Player	GP	MIN	PPG	RPG	APG	SPG	BPG	TPG	FPG
Ben Simmons	18	29.7	16.0	9.4	4.1	1.3	0.8	1.9	.536
Markelle Fultz	21	35.5	15.0	4.8	5.8	1.0	0.4	2.2	.399
Joel Embiid	20	29.0	14.9	8.4	1.9	0.9	1.6	1.6	.446
Robert Covington	21	32.2	12.6	5.1	2.1	1.5	0.8	2.0	.441
J.J Redick	21	19.8	10.6	1.8	1.0	0.5	0.0	0.7	.474
Joe Ingles	17	29.1	9.7	5.0	3.5	1.1	0.1	1.9	.400
Jahlil Okafor	21	20.4	9.7	4.3	0.4	0.5	1.2	0.4	.533
Collin Sexton	21	20.4	9.6	2.5	3.5	1.0	0.3	1.3	.438
Greyson Allen	7	17.3	9.4	2.3	1.7	0.3	0.0	0.9	.471
Dario Saric	21	21.2	7.3	5.8	1.6	0.8	0.4	1.0	.406
Richaun Holmes	9	10.6	4.1	3.6	0.6	0.2	0.8	0.6	.500
Justin Anderson	8	9..1	4.0	1.7	0.6	0.3	0.3	0.9	.435
T.J Mcconnell	3	5.7	2.0	0.0	1.7	0.3	0.0	0.0	.750
Tim Luwawu- Cabarrot	4	3.0	0.7	0.3	1.0	0.3	0.0	0.3	.500

NBA Standings - Updated: Dec 1, 2018
EAST PLAYOFF RACE	W	L	GB
76ers	14	7	N / A
Raptors	12	7	1.0
Pacers	12	7	1.0
Cavs	11	7	1.5
Bucks	10	7	2.0
Wizards	9	9	3.5
Pistons	9	9	3.5
Knicks	8	10	4.5
Nets	8	11	5.0
Hornets	7	13	6.5
Celtics	6	12	6.5
Hawks	6	13	7.0
Heat	6	13	7.0
Bulls	5	15	8.5
Magic	2	18	11.5
WEST PLAYOFF RACE	W	L	GB
Thundere	15	4	N / A
Trail Blazers	14	6	1.5
Warriors	13	5	1.5
Pelicans	12	7	3.0
Mavericks	12	8	3.5
Rockets	11	8	4.0
Suns	11	8	4.0
Lakers	11	9	4.0
Timberwolves	11	9	4.5
Clippers	11	9	4.5
Spurs	9	9	5.5
Nuggets	9	10	6.0
Jazz	9	10	6.0
Grizzlies	7	13	8.5
Kings	6	13	9.0

NBA League Leaders - Updated: Dec 1, 2018
Points		PPG	Rebounds		REB
	1. Damian Lillard	29.9		1. Hassan Whiteside	12.9
	2. C.J McCollum	27.8		2. Karl Anthony Towns	11.9
	3. Russell Westbrook	27.6		3. Clint Capela	11.9
	4. James Hardin	27.5		4. Deandre Jordan	11.6
	5. Seth Curry	27.1		5. Andre Drummond	11.5
Assist		AST	Steals		STL
	1. Lonzo Ball	9.7		1. Chris Paul	3.0
	2. Russell Westbrook	9.6		2. Seth Curry	2.7
	3. John Wall	9.0		3. Jimmy Butler	2.5
	4. Chris Paul	8.8		4. Russell Westbrook	2.2
	5. James Hardin	7.8		5. Draymond Green	2.2
Blocks		BLK	FG %		FG%
	1. Myles Turner	3.3		1. Nene	.656
	2. Hassan Whiteside	2.7		2. Marcin Gortat	.622
	3. Rudy Gobert	2.2		3. Thaddeus Young	.602
	4. Karl Anthony Towns	2.2		4. Deandre Jordan	.599
	5. Triston Thompson	2.2		5. Steven Adams	.590
3 %		3%	+ - per game		+-
	1. Marcus Morris	.568		1. Kevin Durant	9.9
	2. Sam Dekker	.544		2. Russell Westbrook	9.6
	3. J.J Redick ***	.511		3. Anthony Davis	9.5
	4. Kevin Durant	.507		4. Ben Simmons ***	8.6
	5. Chandler Parsons	.486		5. Joe Ingles ***	8.2

[georgiafan]

Matchup Preview | December 10, 2018
	@
Cleveland Cavaliers (14-7, 5-6 Away)		Philadelphia 76ers (17-7, 9-3 Home)
Stats Comparison 107.6 Points Per Game 109.6 .444 Field Goal % .466 .789 Free Throw % .801 .364 3-Point % .397 51.1 Rebounds 49.3 4.5 Blocks 6.0 7.7 Steals 8.8 14.7 Turnovers 13.0 101.4 PPG Allowed 99.6 Projected Starters Isaiah Thomas Point Guard Ben Simmons J.R Smith Shooting Guard Markelle Fultz Lebron James Small Forward Robert Covington Kevin Love Power Forward Joe Ingles Mark Gasol Center Joel Embiid Game Notes * Ben Simmons will start at PG for the first time all year to take advantage of the height difference of Isaiah Thomas. * Mike Scott will be active for the first time all year * The Cavs continue to work the phones day and night to find a upgrade at SG. * Cavs have won 9 of 10 and the 76ers have won 6 straight

[trekfan]

Pretty even matchup there -- JR Smith and IT4 are the clear weaknesses in the Cavs lineup. I expect a big game from Simmons and Fultz; LeBron can't be everywhere at once, so if you can get two guys hot, I think you'll have a good chance of pulling it out.

Never underestimate King James, though -- the dude is SO good.

[georgiafan]

Rumor Alert - 5 Big Names That Could Be Traded

Mike Conley
The Grizzles traded Paul Gasol and as you expect are once again not going to make the playoffs. Conley is having a monster year with 26 points per game and is at his peak trade value now. The Knicks are rumored to be trying to upgrade at the PG spot and offering multiple 1st rounders plus Frank. We also hear they are trying to include Noah in the deal for the expiring contract of Tyrkee Evans. I'm not sure if the Knicks have the assets to pull all that off so we will have to wait and see.

Kemba Walker
The Hornets are out of the playoffs and are one of those teams stuck in the middle as far as contending and tanking goes. Since they are currently out of the playoffs and Walker is in the last year of the deal we assume the Knicks would offer a similar package to what they are offering for Conley.

Klay Thompson
The Warriors have won 3 of the last 4 titles so the chances of trading Klay at the deadline is very small. However Curry and Durant are locked up for a long time and we hear Klay is ready to go somewhere and be a #1 option. Every team in the NBA would want Klay so the number of offers would be plentiful if the Warriors attempt to trade him.

T.J Warren
The Suns officially have 3 SF's on the team that are worthy of starting after taking Michael Porter #1. The suns are playing better then expected this year so they might be better just to ride out the year and look at this in the off season. They also have to decide if Bender or Chriss deserve 15 million a year. A rumor flying around is trading T.J plus Trevon Duval to the Grizzles for Conley. Keep in mind they signed Brook Lopez this past offseason.

Julius Randall
The Lakers have been trying to trade Deng forever and with only 1.5 years left on his contract this might finally be the time it happens. The rumors say the Nets and Kings are two teams that would take on the combo of Randall / Deng. They are both teams that have cap space and will not be able to land a high profile FA this summer. Both teams can offer expiring deals and would also include at least 1 future draft pick.