u/Blackmesa560

Just vibes from the fanbases, but thought it was worth sharing since it affects who's available to us.

Clippers are pretty locked in on either Acuff or Wagler. Strong consensus over there, not much debate about going another direction.

Nets have a lot of interest in Mikel Brown Jr. Makes sense for where they're at roster building wise.

Kings are the interesting one.Talks about trading the pick to OKC rather than using it themselves. Curious if this is true, what is Presti cooking?

If any of this shakes out, it paints a cleaner picture of the board for us. Acuff potentially off the table depending on where the Clips land, MBJ drawing real interest elsewhere, and the Kings pick potentially becoming another Thunder asset.

Curious what yall think. Does this change how you're feeling about our options at our spot?

With the Aspiration scandal still unresolved is Adam Silver seriously going to let the Clippers walk into June 23rd with the 5th pick in one of the best drafts?

If Silver does not strip it the message to every owner in the league is clear. Run your cap circumvention through a third party company, claim you got duped, and the worst case scenario is a fine that means nothing to a billionaire.

David Stern voided the contracts, fined the Wolves AND stripped five first round picks. That franchise did not recover for over a decade. That level of punishment is exactly why it took this long for another owner to even try something like this.

If Silver comes back with a slap on the wrist every team in this league now has every incentive to find a backdoor around the CBA. The soft cap only works if the consequences make the math not worth it. Right now the math worked out great for the Clippers.

I have nothing against the Pacers personally but they probably should have thought twice about trading with a franchise that was actively under investigation. That pick at 5 came from them and it is hard to feel too bad about whatever happens next.

What do you think the punishment actually ends up being and Silver does anything this draft?

Everyone's chasing Mara's combine measurements. Fine. But you can't have both. Pick 8 is one decision and if you take Mara, you still wake up the morning after the draft with the same half-court offense that got cooked by the Knicks.

Let's talk about what Atlanta actually watched die in that series: shot creation. Half-court offense. Someone who can make a basket when the game slows down.

Jalen Johnson is a monster. But he is not your pick-and-roll guard. He never has been. The Hawks needed someone to put pressure on defenses with the ball in their hands in the fourth quarter and they had nobody.

Enter Acuff.

23.5 points and 6.4 assists per game leading the entire SEC, as a freshman, while shooting 48% from the floor and 44% from three. But the raw numbers don't even tell the full story. Acuff was the entire offense at Arkansas. High usage. Primary ball handler. The guy the team ran through on every meaningful possession down the stretch. He didn't put up those numbers in a system that fed him easy looks, he carved them out as the unquestioned engine of that offense every single night. That last number is the one people keep glossing over. A 2.91:1 assist-to-turnover ratio isn't a reckless gunner carrying a heavy load. That's a guy who processes the game while the entire defensive gameplan is built around stopping him.

And the combine? His measurements closely mirror Damian Lillard's from the 2012 combine: 6'2", 186 pounds, 6'7" wingspan. We spent a decade watching Lillard cook everybody from that exact frame. Fastest 3/4 court sprint at the combine. Fifth-highest max vertical among guards at 36.5 inches. The athleticism is real.

He's an electric shot-maker who puts real pressure on defenses as a scorer and playmaker, a dynamic on-ball guard who's a tough cover in pick-and-roll and in transition.

Look at the a majority of top guards in the league: Steph, Luka, Dame, Haliburton, Brunson, Kyrie. none of them are elite defenders. All of them changed franchises forever. Steph, Luka, and Haliburton got to the finals with the offense they create. The NBA has been telling us for a decade that offensive creation at guard overrides everything else. You scheme around the defense. You get a Dyson Daniels. You hide it. The Hawks already know how to do this, they built an entire defensive identity around hiding Trae.

And speaking of Trae, here's the lesson nobody's talking about. His peak years were when he was unambiguously a scorer first. 28.4 points in 2021-22. 26.2 in 2022-23. The moment Atlanta started asking him to be a distributor primarily, his scoring dipped and the offense got less dangerous. The facilitator role broke what made him special.

Acuff is a scorer who also passes. Not a point guard who also scores. That distinction is everything. With JJ facilitating, Daniels running off screens, Acuff never has to become a point guard. He just has to score. Which is what he does naturally.

The Trae lesson isn't don't draft Acuff. It's don't misuse him the way we misused Trae. Don't ask your scorer to become a facilitator and then wonder why the offense stalled.

You can find Mara's replacement at another pick. Chris Cenac Jr., Morez Johnson Jr., Amir Quaintance, or Henri Veesaar. You cannot find a high usage offensive engine who carried an entire SEC roster anywhere else in this draft at 8.

TLDR: Y'all are insane if we skip Acuff at 8. This isn't about defending Acuff. This is about not falling for recency bias.

This might sound crazy.

This year we either extend Kuminga or let him walk. What if we sign and trade him with the 8th to the Nets for the 6th overall pick?

The Hawks already have wings and the Nets need them. Also, Nets have too many young guards so they wouldn’t mind moving down for the draft.

This if all for securing Flemings or Wagler.

Edit: This may work for the Clippers as well for the 5th pick

Edit: 🤣 Flemings is smaller than Acuff. College basketball sizing 🤦

Knicks scored 40 on the 76ers game 1. Time to trade Embid, Maxey, and Edgecomb right?

Spurs scored 40 on the T-Wolves game 2. Time to trade Ant, McDaniels, Randle and Gobert right?

Shit happens doesn’t mean blowup the team. We’ll come back stronger. In Onsi we trust.

Been thinking about this for a while. Probably the most important offseason in recent Hawks history and I'd argue this draft is bigger than 2017. Long term sustainable development is the priority, full stop.

THE DRAFT

Our Pelicans/Bucks pick is everything. Top 6 we stay put, this class is too good to sell short. Outside top 6 the value drops off and we move it for future capital or potential trade assets. If we hold, here's my order:

1. Darryn Peterson — Most gifted scorer in this class. Elite shooter, can run an offense, gives us a real scoring threat we don't have outside of CJ. Health questions are real and teams will dig into his medicals but if he's clean the upside is massive.
2. AJ Dybantsa — 6'9" two-way wing, All-NBA ceiling. Scores, creates, defends. Next to JJ he doesn't step on anything, he amplifies it.
3. Cam Boozer — Safest pick in the draft. Had one of the best collegiate seasons ever: Naismith, AP Player of the Year, led the country in box plus-minus, shot 39% from three on real volume.
4. Caleb Wilson — Injuries cut his season short but what he showed before that was lottery-level. Worth the risk inside top 6.
5. Keaton Wagler — Walked into Illinois ranked 261st nationally and left as a consensus top 6 pick. 17.9 points, 4.2 assists, 1.8 turnovers. Won't kill possessions, fits what we're building around JJ.

Anything below this and I would consider we trade it. I don't see Brayden Burries or Nate Ament being worth what we'd get moving the pick. Darius Acuff Jr. and Mikel Brown Jr. I might eat my words on, both have real cases, but I'd still rather have the asset.

Now the 23rd — package second rounders, move up, get Aday Mara. 7'3", 7'6" wingspan, Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, 2.6 blocks, one of the best passing bigs in this class. Projected 14-18 so we can get there from 23. And pairing him with Hartenstein isn't just depth, that's a veteran passing big teaching a young passing big in the same system for years.

FREE AGENCY

Re-sign Jock, CJ, and Kuminga. Kuminga specifically, he came here motivated and it's showing. That motivation has a shelf life, lock him in at a team-friendly number before he plays himself into a bigger offer somewhere else. CJ sticks around because whoever we draft at guard needs a vet to learn from and he's perfect for that.

Sign Isaiah Hartenstein — OKC can't afford him and we should be ready. Frontcourt depth alone justifies it but the Mara development piece is what really seals it for me.

COACHING

Extending Quin is fine, the realistic upgrades aren't as clear as people act like they are. Thibs is a hard no, can't develop young talent and we might be adding multiple rookies this summer, that disqualifies him immediately. What he did to Brunson against the Pacers was the final confirmation for me. I was calling for Taylor Jenkins months ago, have the receipts, but the Bucks got there first.

Dream scenario: Sam Cassell head coach, Rajon Rondo lead assistant. Cassell brings an offensive system and the kind of credibility young stars actually respond to. Rondo brings defensive IQ and floor general communication this organization has never had. Is it realistic? Probably not. But that's the bar we should try to go for.

THE LONG GAME

My dream: Ant comes home.

Build this right and we don't need to blow anything up when his free agency hits. JJ as the anchor, Kuminga locked in, Mara developing, Hartenstein holding the front court together, Ant walks into that and it's a problem for the whole league. We're not drafting for him, we draft the best player available. But if a PG falls to us and spends a few years developing in this system, just imagine what that looks like the day he's available.

Only thing that changes the everything is Minnesota winning a ring. I have real doubts they get through the Spurs, tough but very possible.

Build like he's coming. If he doesn't, we're still a contender.