The Atlanta Hawks Have Big Decisions To Make This Summer (1 of 2)

The Atlanta Hawks Have Big Decisions To Make This Summer (1 of 2)

Welcome to the Atlanta Basketball party your home for the best Atlanta Hawks talk it’s local Insight you can’t get anywhere but here at lockon I’m tanra batist your hosts alongside me are Jarvis Davis and DeShaun Tate the Atlanta Basketball party is part of the lock on podcast Network your team every

Day well guys there might be a little conundrum with the Hawks will they won’t they will they won’t they because they don’t want that smoke again we’ll talk about it a little bit later and the Hawks have some decisions to make about how they’re going to do things down the

Stretch but do they have The Moxy to do it we’ll talk about that as well and can we please ensure that tanitra and desa’s projected record of this road trip is actually staying intact but let’s get started talking jayen Johnson Jarvis he of course signed a 4-year 12,888

Th585 contract to be exact with the Atlanta Hogs back in 2021 all guarant that averages out to about 3.2 mil and some change right now if you were to look at some of the tracking charts fot track over the salary cap those kinds of websites they project that he’s about the

53d highest paid small Ford in the NBA now we know he pretty much plays more power with a little small but he’s officially listed as small which actually probably gers you more money these days that said Jarvis is jaylen’s contract situation maybe something that the have to consider like is this going

To be as difficult as it was with John Collin’s contract as far as when he becomes eligible for that extension it’s I think it is because when you think about the situation that the Hawks in in right now with all of the trade rumors leading up to the trade

Deadline with dejonte Murray all of the speculatory stuff that’s going on with Trey young yeah and then you have jayen Johnson basically being one of the Front Runners for an award for the most improved player award right because quote unquote contract year he balls out and you appreciate that especially when

The team puts a vote of confidence by trading the guy that plays your position you know away so but you know you look at the whole injury piece right it took him some time to develop to get to this space yeah and you you have to pay him accordingly

Right or do you pay him that that that Max type money not knowing what your future of your team looks like because yeah if I were to go to any old regular old Joe scho Hawks fan I was like okay who do you see on this the starting five

Being next year at this moment today March 20th who’s the starting fight for the Hawks in 2024 2025 season I don’t know I can’t be I won’t be able to answer that question so if you don’t even the fan base and we people that are you know cover this team on a daily

Basis can’t really give you who that starting five going to be how you going to pay them like H How You Gonna know how to pay him let me let me say that so I think that’s kind of where I am with it I think it’s a bit conundra because

You know with John Collins he got the what the uh five year $125 million contract it’s not a Max contract and we all know the the story behind that piece but you know at the end of the day it looked bad in a couple of years because

He started to tail off and his role wasn’t clearly defined for this team or it was defined to him and he just didn’t quite accept fit the definition yeah and deshaan for me Jarvis makes a couple good points there uh I’ll probably go first and kind of go backwards or last

And backwards but yeah with with John Collins so many situations should have been learning lessons from that right as far as overpaying him which you should have looked at the fact that as I always say the year that he bed out if you will let’s remember there were some issues

That got him suspended so there’s something to talk about there you know there’s a thought of how and when he trailed off quite an interesting correlation just saying so with Jaylen Johnson I feel like he’s the opposite right I feel like he’s trending up in the right ways and at the right times

But then that poses a conundrum because you know you already overpaid John Collins once before you know someone who sit who truly sat in that power forward you already overpaid him so you don’t want to do that again to Jaylen Johnson but the market is the market and the

Market dictates what it dictates and this guy we don’t call him that enough but he’s like a walking double double and I feel like he also has developed a bit of a perimeter game that John Collins never quite naturally or organically developed now one thing I will say

DeShawn is Jarvis mentioned most of us don’t know what that 2425 roster is going to look like but most would tell you he’s the guy that’s the least tradable don’t make don’t make that mistake so all those things considered Desa I mean how do you approach this Jaylen Johnson

Situation first of all it’s hard for me to even think about anything especially comparing these two players from something that we just saw the other night where one guy was doing the Duncan and the other guy was just get don’t bring Tink I just I couldn’t help I couldn’t

Help let me stop you there John Collins didn’t get dunked on he got yamed on like yamed you gotta emphasize that thing because that man was curing up like a baby yeah he’s Still rocking He’s Still rocking in the corner like cely on the color purple okay it ain’t did I go too

Fary you go ahead and try look and I guess I started it look y’all going to get to you started it yeah I’m I’m in the middle of it all clearly no um no where I’m from we call that getting tattooed is exactly what happened but um it’s permanent that thing it’s

Permanent but come on man look away I know I’m trying I got to do this with my eyes closed um but no outside of that and this is also something that you just can’t help but to compare to both of these guys because both of them came right into the system

And into the rotation and everything else um and just really was just killing it from day one um you know it’s crazy because where you have somebody like John who never I felt like really never had like a skill set like yes he can run yes he can jump he started to obviously

Begin to develop you know the shooting whatever but that didn’t come as natural as you see it with somebody like Jaylen even from a ball handling standpoint somebody that can run run the break and even start the break in a lot of occasions sometimes be the only one on a

Break and still finishing on the other end um I don’t know how much truth there was to this particular rumor but I feel like at one point in time we was talking about um you know um the the the team was at you know he’s the team mentioned

Something about paying him 80 he said that he wanted 90 they were willing to give him about one or or or about you know 85 and just saying look we’re going to push it to the other side of the table walk away but we really don’t want

To do it and then he gets 125 out of the deal so when you see the way that things transpire with him you almost kind of got to think what’s up next with with jayen considering his skill set and everything else and he’s taken you know

He’s taken the league by storm like yeah there’s a lot of hype around this I’m watching other games that aren’t even Atlanta Hawks games in his name is coming up in conversations and it ain’t just about you know it ain’t just about most improved either um so I me you know

The he’s he’s going to he’s going to get paid he’s going to have to get paid but sometimes my question with that is you know can he sustain after getting paid is this something that’s going to continue on because we know after some guys get their money there’s a little

Bit of a drop off and other things like that um but I don’t know that’s just that it’s interesting to me I’m going love to see how you know that pans out because you know it’s no no secret just like you guys were mentioning before you know him being one amongst two and

Probably the only only one and I say that kind of quietly the only one that is untradeable on this team is what it’s been seeming and sounding like lately um but you know he’s definitely a critical piece you know and a very intricate piece to this team because he could do

So many things kind of like a Swiss army knife showing more defense than he used to have and than I ever thought that he had and just so many so many just a fearlessness I think the main thing is another part is he’s setting an example

For the rest of his teammates the guys that don’t want to go out there and boss sometimes or trying to decide if tonight will be their night or if it’s not or if they should just mail it in he’s playing hard 110% every single night even when

It’s not his night so I think he’s setting a very good example to we always talk about the leadership maybe he’s not the vocal leader maybe he’s not the emotional leader when you talk about guys who are leading by example for if not nothing else just this one

Particular year he’s got to be somewhere at the top of that list yeah and you know we are starting to hear more about his leadership piece he talked about the conversations he was having with Kobe buffkin about the transition from the g-league to the NBA and some of the

Nuances to how you make that transition a bit smoother that’s leadership and I’m not trying to be funny going back to him yamming on Austin Reeves but he stood over old boy okay and was like yeah and that’s the kind of grit and grime that we’ve been saying we’ve we thought was

Missing from this team for a minute the other piece there I wanted to say is this we always talk about Trey as being the best player on the Hawks team this is true but jaylen’s the most valuable the reason he’s the most valuable is because Wing defense perimeter

Offenseive perimeter defense are a thing and yes we know that obviously Trey’s perimeter offense is off the chain when it comes to hitting a three but you need somebody who can defend the three and this guy is a stretch if we’ve ever seen one and he continues to evolve the definition of a

Stretch for a stretch on the front court because really He’s listed on the depth chart at three four and five let’s just be real and he can play them all solidly so that’s why it’s going to be very interesting to see how they manage this because we know that you have got to

Play you’ve got to pay a wing Defender premium money in this league if you want to be a contender when we start to get down to the end of the season and into the postseason that’s just kind of the way it’s going in in the league right

Now so when we come back we’re going to talk a little bit more about this final stretch of the season and the Hawks having to make a decision on how they’re going to manage through it this episode of our Atlanta Basketball party is brought to you by

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Left man can’t even believe 14 games are left you can say that number exactly you yeah you could really you could you could hear that and see that however you want to good people but 14 games are left in this season deshaan and the Hawks for all in and purposes are locked

In as the 10 seed in the playin tournament there’s really no way for them to bump up to nine and quite honestly no way to bump back to 11 and be out of the play and that said should Quin Snider start resting players to avoid more injury and the reason I

Thought about that Deshawn was because you know it scared the the jbi out of me when Jaylen Johnson went down and rolled over and that was his ankle I you know I went back into the prayer closet so it really got me to thinking is this the time where maybe rest management should

Uh game management should be a thing first of all I don’t know exactly what beibi is but if it was anything like what I felt when he went down uh it was probably very similar to what you were feeling um you know it definitely did bring the thought you know to our heads

Instantly like why is he in the game especially when you know it’s it’s not you’re down comptitive exactly um in addition I think that there has to be like a very fine balance there somewhere because I don’t necessarily know if you should just rest them without playing

Per se because I’m not sure how much that’s going to help you I think this team needs more and more basketball probably as much as it could probably get um but in the same in the same breath you don’t want to have injuries so I think just putting guys on minutes

Restrictions and things like that or you know when things are clearly number one when things are clearly going off the rails as we just talked about they were that’s just at the top that’s where guys need to be sitting down but as long as games are competitive I think you kind

Of have to get a feel for it and it’s you know they’re playing time being kind of spotty um because what I don’t want to happen to see happen is that um we’ve all heard of the analogy instead up you know playing to win guys start playing

Not to lose I think the more basketball you play better I think you sometimes have a bigger risk at injury from not playing and putting those guys out the floor on the floor um than you do from them actually playing in game so I think it’s just a balance um but the stuff

That just makes sense to the average basketball head or lack thereof you have to make those kinds of decisions you have to be sitting your guys resting your guys having real conversations with them about what how they feel do they feel good about it not making them feel

Like you know because obviously was a rule that was recently put in place and I know this is something a little bit different you know that if you don’t play x amount of games then you can’t be considered for all NBA awards MVPs and other stuff like that I know that this

Isn’t exactly that but that also created something to make guys feel like I’mma give it a go even though I know I probably shouldn’t have those sit down with your players have those realistic conversations with them and come to somewhat of like a happy medium like a a

Mutual agreement of them being on the floor and what they do and shouldn’t be doing go out there and shoot your jump shots and try to be competitive and whatever else but don’t try and go out there jumping over folks and clearing them like he did the other night I’m not

Sure if I would be willing to go that extent it’s just hard to turn that switch off when you’re a basketball player and when

When the Atlanta Hawks traded John Collins away before this season, there was an assumption that Jalen Johnson would take over in his place. Johnson did much more than that, he has solidified himself as one of the most exciting young players on this roster. Tenitra Batiste, Jarvis Davis and Deshaun Tate talked about how the Hawks may have a conundrum when it comes to contract negotiations this summer.

Secondly, Quin Snyder has had to deal with plenty of injuries at different times during the season. Trae Young is one of them that has gotten most of the attention. The team talked about how Snyder may or may not have to consider resting players to prevent further injury.

Lastly, the Hawks finish out their west coast road trip against the Phoenix Suns. Tenitra, Deshaun and Jarvis talked about big keys to finishing out on a high note with a win.

#atlantahawks #atlanta #nba

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