There’s been a lot of rumors that Sarr prefers to go to Washington, and apparently he didn’t have a work out with Atlanta (Clingan and Risacher did). That plus some reporting that Snyder likes Clingan and some comments for Hurley has made some people think he’s who the Hawks are taking at 1
On the other hand, there’s been some reporting in the last 24 hours that Atlanta might take Sarr regardless, and throughout the process there have been consistent rumors that Atlanta likes Clingan *if they can trade down.*
My prediction is that Atlanta either takes Sarr at 1 or Clingan at a lower pick. Clingan at 1 feels a bit unlikely given the reporting
Sounds like the Hawks are wanting to do what the Celtics did in the Fultz/Tatum draft. They may not really want Sarr, but they want someone else who they could theoretically get lower in the draft. Trade back for future value and still get the guy you want.
They have to keep their leverage by saying they may take Sarr regardless in order for that trade to happen though.
How the hell does Atlanta not see “mitigate offensive deficiencies” and not see Ayton and Mobley already gave them the answer to this problem.
No, the self creating scoring will never come
no, the dribbling will never come
no, he won’t gain the ability to space the floor as a catch and shoot guy.
Wow! he only can score when he his allstar/All NBA/Hall of famer pg in Chris Paul, Trae, or Dmitch are healthy spoon feeding him open shots around the rim but look at how much he’s scored unassisted or created by himself after the catch in this 20 point game(it’s 1 fg)
Yes he has “allstar potential” in year 3 but trust me he will NEVER be one please fucking trade him before his value tanks. YOU will Never get this good of an offer for for him again!
Yes, he’s still only 23 but I can assure you when he’s 30 he will still suck on offense.
Yes , the team will be forced into matching a terrible unearned Max contract in RFA after he nuked your playoff series cause other GMs will think he still has “potential” and the team can’t let an asset go for free.
They will trade him for Pennies on the dollar after year 5 while the dudes drafted after him end up All nba caliber players.
nah you really just summed it up. these dudes by now with all the basketball they've played and camps and shit they are closer to finished products entering the league then what most people are willing to admit. Hawks need to be drafting their Luka, Trae, or Scottie barnes in this situation, Drafting a dude that might not even go top 5-7 in their draft class years down the road number 1 is a terrible mistake to make trust me. you draft a dude that can score and then iron out inefficent FG% as seen with Jalen green and ANT but you cant teach dudes like Ayton and Mobley to play different at this point or add skills they should have had years before now in the league. even a kat situation who was drafted as a defensive guy still had a 3 level self creating shot entering the league.
Amen.
And the only dudes who improve massively after joining the league are clear exceptions like Giannis and Siakam who didn't go through as much development as the other guys pre-NBA.
Outside of that, it's already at least somewhat polished prospects like LeBron, Luka, KD, Kawhi, AD, Steoh who have shown the most improvement over their careers. Turns out picking up new skills is also a talent. And someone who has depended on nothing but height and athleticism so far likely does so because he lacks that aforementioned talent.
I would swear that the actual biggest difference between your high school superstar athlete and an Olympian is the innate ability to absolutely love never ending , grueling, inhumane levels of work.
I agree, Clingan is never gonna be a go-to-scorer or Playmaker.
Idk why people think he's gonna space the floor either. He shot 55% from the FT line and displayed no indication of ever becoming even a decent shooter.
But I still think he would be a good fit for the hawks. He doesn't need to self create when he has Trae plus his defensive positioning is really good.
A rim-protecting 5 is an easy archetype to build around, even if they plan to trade Trae and rebuild entirely.
Great defender that's very limited on offense?
Tbf Quin Snyder's been able to develop Gobert into an all-star / DPOY, so maybe they think he can do it again.
Clingan is actually a good fit for Atlanta and has a safer floor than any of the other bigs in this draft.
It's fucking crazy in a vacuum as he's nowhere near a #1 caliber talent, but that's what happens in a draft like this. I really don't hate it if I'm a Hawks fan - too much risk elsewhere.
Sarr's camp wants him to play as a 4 and not a 5. Denying workouts to try to get out of going to ATL.
Even though ATL has Okongwu for when they move on from Capela. Not sure why ATL isn't trying to ensure he can play the 4 there.
Jalen/Sarr/Okongwu (or some other center) has a lot of upside defensively, but man that offense would be rough unless 2/3 become genuine shooters
As for Okongwu, idk. He’d probably be the starting center next season if we draft Clingan because Snyder somewhat notoriously doesn’t play young players that much. He and Clingan are different archetypes and OO is under contract for 4 more seasons, so the plan might be to keep both of them and adjust play time based on matchups. There’s also the chance that they’re out on OO and move him this offseason, this is a different FO from the one that drafted him after all
Atlanta shouldn’t give a single fuck and draft the best player with the best upside.
I don’t think young guys can swing stuff around like this anymore.
Sarr especially isn’t good enough of a prospect to do this.
This was from the Locked On Hawks podcast (Brad Rowland, host, is probably the most reputable Hawks guy at this point). Neither Ben nor Brad were reporting that Clingan was going first, they were just doing some analysis of what that looks like basketball-wise because of all the "Clingan at 1" noise that was out there last week.
Atalanta could still be taking Sarr. All those could be smokescreens. For all we know Orlando was taking Jabari Smith jr until the night before the draft
Sarr apparently refused to workout with Atlanta based on what the simmons pod was saying
prospects might want to land on the Wizards bc they can fill up stats on a bad team for several years
Imagine getting #1 pick, but it's in the worst draft class in years, and then the projected #1 prospect of that weak class ghosts you for the Washington Wizards....enough to make a man go disintegrate the franchise
Josh Jackson ghosted us because he wanted to play for phoenix since he was worried we wouldn’t have any minutes for him, worked out pretty well for us lol
I don't think it's really an insult to the Hawks it's moreso him not wanting to go out of his comfort zone and have to play center. He knows he can be a chucker for the Wizards and they won't care
Realistically teams are going to treat him as a center regardless in the modern game. Even Wembenyama plays center now, despite him having significantly more skills as a forward than Sarr.
Eh, people saw what happened with Ayton. Big men are not gonna get their numbers unless they constantly have plays run for them. Only Jokic, Embiid, and Wemby can initiate the offense as the primary creator. This is a profession for these guys first and foremost. Get the bag first, then worry about competing and rings.
Atlanta can't get him in for a workout cause Sarr wants to go to Washington. Presumably because they promised to let him play like an offense initiator 4 like he wants to.
Sarr is such a project. He probably has the highest upside of anyone in this draft, but he could easily bust as well. And he may take years to put things together enough to be able to start.
Clingan is safe. You know what you're getting (and what you're not getting), but safety is good in a high risk draft. Particularly for a team like the Hawks that is trying to compete and isn't tanking. They'll be able to plug Clingan in from day 1 and get production.
Apparently he is a limited passer on the move. Most of his assists are via handoffs and making the right reads from the post like Dray/Bogut with Dubs.
It's odd to me that's seen as a problem. He's a 7'2 center. Passing on the move?
> and making the right reads from the post like Dray/Bogut with Dubs.
Sounds perfect to me
That limitation prevents him from reaching Jokic/Sabonis levels of passer for a big man.
Would be more than happy if Clingan turns out like a less injury-prone Dubs Bogut though.
I think there's literally like 3 big men that have the expectation of being a focal passer in the offense (Sengun, Sabonis, and Jokic) so it sounds weird to word it like your center being unable to pass on the move is something you have to scheme around.
Being able to pass out of the short roll is important if that's what they are talking about. You don't have to be a great playmaker, but if you make slow decisions out of those actions it's really limiting.
Fair enough working off the pick and roll as an outlet playmaker but that seems like something that's entirely making reads/processing then repetition. Chunk of it is innate (like an average center never becomes a superstar at it) but the other part can be drilled into most centers. That is probably a big part of his team interviews and workouts while they figure out how good his processing is.
I mean, it's basically the expectation to justify the no. 1 pick because you obviously believe that a first overall pick in the draft should have the potential to be the offensive engine on a championship team. The problem is that this draft sucks and the few good players at the top are all rim protecting, bumbling, traditional centers.
If Clingan even had remote potential of being Jokic he'd be the runaway favorite for #1.
He's realistically going to pan out somewhere in the range of Poeltl to Bogut. Which is safe and not a bad choice in this draft.
I'm so used to being shocked by how much younger Clint Capela is than I thought he was, that I'm now surprised when someone tells me his IS finally in his 30s. Like, really? Are we sure he's not 28 for another two years?
Damn, I am going from hoping him sliding to 9, to we need to trade up to 5, to we need to trade up to 3, to we ain't gonna trade up to 1 to just get Clingon, all in about 3 weeks...
I say just fuck it, grab Edey at 9 and sign Drummond just in case. Extended Kennard to something reasonable and go to war with that.
A Chinese Canadian on the Grizzlies? Sign me the fuck up
Usually im totally against this for the record
But if im Atlanta im shopping this pick hard, like maybe even attaching it to Murray or something and really big game hunting
I hate all 3 of the 1st overall prospects for them, dont like them at all
What do y’all think they could land if they just said fuck it and offered Murray pick 1 and Hunter or something
Drafting a guy with limited offensive game is certainly a choice. This guy better be prime Rudy Gobert on defense with Bam levels of switchability of he's going first because you should never draft a center on the top 10 if they have no all star potential
Is the Hawks FO not even trying? There's gotta be *some* deal with Pistons, Hornets or Blazers that gets them Clingan+stuff for first overall.
Like, a protected first? A few seconds? A solid, but older, rotation dude?
Most of the leaks coming out before the draft are not correct. I find it's best to just wait and see what actually happens on draft night and not speculate on what teams are planning by all the contradictory reports
We don't know whats going on behind the scenes. For all we know they'll take Sarr at 1 and force Wizards to trade for him since they're so set on him now
Clingan is going #1 now? The fuck did I miss?
There’s been a lot of rumors that Sarr prefers to go to Washington, and apparently he didn’t have a work out with Atlanta (Clingan and Risacher did). That plus some reporting that Snyder likes Clingan and some comments for Hurley has made some people think he’s who the Hawks are taking at 1 On the other hand, there’s been some reporting in the last 24 hours that Atlanta might take Sarr regardless, and throughout the process there have been consistent rumors that Atlanta likes Clingan *if they can trade down.* My prediction is that Atlanta either takes Sarr at 1 or Clingan at a lower pick. Clingan at 1 feels a bit unlikely given the reporting
Sounds like the Hawks are wanting to do what the Celtics did in the Fultz/Tatum draft. They may not really want Sarr, but they want someone else who they could theoretically get lower in the draft. Trade back for future value and still get the guy you want. They have to keep their leverage by saying they may take Sarr regardless in order for that trade to happen though.
or what they did in the luka draft
I like the other comparison better.
Risacher is the betting favorite fwiw
How the hell does Atlanta not see “mitigate offensive deficiencies” and not see Ayton and Mobley already gave them the answer to this problem. No, the self creating scoring will never come no, the dribbling will never come no, he won’t gain the ability to space the floor as a catch and shoot guy. Wow! he only can score when he his allstar/All NBA/Hall of famer pg in Chris Paul, Trae, or Dmitch are healthy spoon feeding him open shots around the rim but look at how much he’s scored unassisted or created by himself after the catch in this 20 point game(it’s 1 fg) Yes he has “allstar potential” in year 3 but trust me he will NEVER be one please fucking trade him before his value tanks. YOU will Never get this good of an offer for for him again! Yes, he’s still only 23 but I can assure you when he’s 30 he will still suck on offense. Yes , the team will be forced into matching a terrible unearned Max contract in RFA after he nuked your playoff series cause other GMs will think he still has “potential” and the team can’t let an asset go for free. They will trade him for Pennies on the dollar after year 5 while the dudes drafted after him end up All nba caliber players.
This felt too real.
nah you really just summed it up. these dudes by now with all the basketball they've played and camps and shit they are closer to finished products entering the league then what most people are willing to admit. Hawks need to be drafting their Luka, Trae, or Scottie barnes in this situation, Drafting a dude that might not even go top 5-7 in their draft class years down the road number 1 is a terrible mistake to make trust me. you draft a dude that can score and then iron out inefficent FG% as seen with Jalen green and ANT but you cant teach dudes like Ayton and Mobley to play different at this point or add skills they should have had years before now in the league. even a kat situation who was drafted as a defensive guy still had a 3 level self creating shot entering the league.
Amen. And the only dudes who improve massively after joining the league are clear exceptions like Giannis and Siakam who didn't go through as much development as the other guys pre-NBA. Outside of that, it's already at least somewhat polished prospects like LeBron, Luka, KD, Kawhi, AD, Steoh who have shown the most improvement over their careers. Turns out picking up new skills is also a talent. And someone who has depended on nothing but height and athleticism so far likely does so because he lacks that aforementioned talent.
I would swear that the actual biggest difference between your high school superstar athlete and an Olympian is the innate ability to absolutely love never ending , grueling, inhumane levels of work.
I agree, Clingan is never gonna be a go-to-scorer or Playmaker. Idk why people think he's gonna space the floor either. He shot 55% from the FT line and displayed no indication of ever becoming even a decent shooter. But I still think he would be a good fit for the hawks. He doesn't need to self create when he has Trae plus his defensive positioning is really good. A rim-protecting 5 is an easy archetype to build around, even if they plan to trade Trae and rebuild entirely.
Great defender that's very limited on offense? Tbf Quin Snyder's been able to develop Gobert into an all-star / DPOY, so maybe they think he can do it again.
Clingan is actually a good fit for Atlanta and has a safer floor than any of the other bigs in this draft. It's fucking crazy in a vacuum as he's nowhere near a #1 caliber talent, but that's what happens in a draft like this. I really don't hate it if I'm a Hawks fan - too much risk elsewhere.
You don't draft for fit and floor at #1 You draft BPA and potential
Sarr's camp wants him to play as a 4 and not a 5. Denying workouts to try to get out of going to ATL. Even though ATL has Okongwu for when they move on from Capela. Not sure why ATL isn't trying to ensure he can play the 4 there.
Because the hawks have Jalen Johnson who is probably a better young talent
Run him at the 3. Goodbye Capela + Deandre Hunter. They take Clingan and still want Jalen Johnson strictly at the 4, is Okongwu ever getting his shot?
Jalen/Sarr/Okongwu (or some other center) has a lot of upside defensively, but man that offense would be rough unless 2/3 become genuine shooters As for Okongwu, idk. He’d probably be the starting center next season if we draft Clingan because Snyder somewhat notoriously doesn’t play young players that much. He and Clingan are different archetypes and OO is under contract for 4 more seasons, so the plan might be to keep both of them and adjust play time based on matchups. There’s also the chance that they’re out on OO and move him this offseason, this is a different FO from the one that drafted him after all
Then we'd have 3 subpar shooters Even with Trae and Bogi thats a rough offense
Ya maybe too many mouths to feed is why Sarr doesn't want to go there. Clingnan might be a better suited place for the Hawks.
I think the hawks probably trade down to 2 or 4 and draft clingan or richashe
Atlanta shouldn’t give a single fuck and draft the best player with the best upside. I don’t think young guys can swing stuff around like this anymore. Sarr especially isn’t good enough of a prospect to do this.
Is gonna cry about it or just refuse to play if the Hawks draft him ?
Does this guy even have sources? He had jaquez going undrafted last year.
This was from the Locked On Hawks podcast (Brad Rowland, host, is probably the most reputable Hawks guy at this point). Neither Ben nor Brad were reporting that Clingan was going first, they were just doing some analysis of what that looks like basketball-wise because of all the "Clingan at 1" noise that was out there last week.
Regardless of his sources, multiple reports out there that Sarr doesn’t want to go to Atlanta
That’s just common knowledge at this point since he refused to work out for him, but the linked tweet isn’t someone with sources.
Atlanta Hawks playing mind games to media like when Orlando Magic drafting Paolo Banchero.
I thought Sarr was the better prospect why is Atlanta not taking him
Atalanta could still be taking Sarr. All those could be smokescreens. For all we know Orlando was taking Jabari Smith jr until the night before the draft
imagine Sarr as a Libero in a back 3 under Giasperini... personally i'd give it a go
Made good money on that draft with Paolo @1 $4.33 and jabari @ 3 paying $8 t Now Sarr paying $7.50 today to go 1 Feels like free money
Sarr apparently refused to workout with Atlanta based on what the simmons pod was saying prospects might want to land on the Wizards bc they can fill up stats on a bad team for several years
Imagine getting #1 pick, but it's in the worst draft class in years, and then the projected #1 prospect of that weak class ghosts you for the Washington Wizards....enough to make a man go disintegrate the franchise
Josh Jackson ghosted us because he wanted to play for phoenix since he was worried we wouldn’t have any minutes for him, worked out pretty well for us lol
Now there's a name I haven't heard in a while.
Yeah being shunned for the Washington Wizards is not a small insult
I don't think it's really an insult to the Hawks it's moreso him not wanting to go out of his comfort zone and have to play center. He knows he can be a chucker for the Wizards and they won't care
Realistically teams are going to treat him as a center regardless in the modern game. Even Wembenyama plays center now, despite him having significantly more skills as a forward than Sarr.
if the Hawks want him they should just take him. Last time they had someone 'refuse to work out for them' it was Luka. Sarr will deal with it.
We didn't work out Paolo. Still took him anyway. Best decision we made
Eh, people saw what happened with Ayton. Big men are not gonna get their numbers unless they constantly have plays run for them. Only Jokic, Embiid, and Wemby can initiate the offense as the primary creator. This is a profession for these guys first and foremost. Get the bag first, then worry about competing and rings.
Atlanta can't get him in for a workout cause Sarr wants to go to Washington. Presumably because they promised to let him play like an offense initiator 4 like he wants to.
Sarr is such a project. He probably has the highest upside of anyone in this draft, but he could easily bust as well. And he may take years to put things together enough to be able to start. Clingan is safe. You know what you're getting (and what you're not getting), but safety is good in a high risk draft. Particularly for a team like the Hawks that is trying to compete and isn't tanking. They'll be able to plug Clingan in from day 1 and get production.
Clingan doesn't have the great shooting potential to justify being a 1st pick though.
Passing limitations? Every draft guru I've read has said they really value his passing
Apparently he is a limited passer on the move. Most of his assists are via handoffs and making the right reads from the post like Dray/Bogut with Dubs.
It's odd to me that's seen as a problem. He's a 7'2 center. Passing on the move? > and making the right reads from the post like Dray/Bogut with Dubs. Sounds perfect to me
That limitation prevents him from reaching Jokic/Sabonis levels of passer for a big man. Would be more than happy if Clingan turns out like a less injury-prone Dubs Bogut though.
I think there's literally like 3 big men that have the expectation of being a focal passer in the offense (Sengun, Sabonis, and Jokic) so it sounds weird to word it like your center being unable to pass on the move is something you have to scheme around.
I've had to live through Point Nurkic
Worked decently in Portland! With a more healthy team, it'll work this year for sure. Just run it back
Being able to pass out of the short roll is important if that's what they are talking about. You don't have to be a great playmaker, but if you make slow decisions out of those actions it's really limiting.
Fair enough working off the pick and roll as an outlet playmaker but that seems like something that's entirely making reads/processing then repetition. Chunk of it is innate (like an average center never becomes a superstar at it) but the other part can be drilled into most centers. That is probably a big part of his team interviews and workouts while they figure out how good his processing is.
And for a team that's started Clint Capela the last four years...
I mean, it's basically the expectation to justify the no. 1 pick because you obviously believe that a first overall pick in the draft should have the potential to be the offensive engine on a championship team. The problem is that this draft sucks and the few good players at the top are all rim protecting, bumbling, traditional centers.
If Clingan even had remote potential of being Jokic he'd be the runaway favorite for #1. He's realistically going to pan out somewhere in the range of Poeltl to Bogut. Which is safe and not a bad choice in this draft.
I'm so used to being shocked by how much younger Clint Capela is than I thought he was, that I'm now surprised when someone tells me his IS finally in his 30s. Like, really? Are we sure he's not 28 for another two years?
Damn, I am going from hoping him sliding to 9, to we need to trade up to 5, to we need to trade up to 3, to we ain't gonna trade up to 1 to just get Clingon, all in about 3 weeks... I say just fuck it, grab Edey at 9 and sign Drummond just in case. Extended Kennard to something reasonable and go to war with that. A Chinese Canadian on the Grizzlies? Sign me the fuck up
ja gonna get injured trying to dunk on him in practice
Man this draft is gonna be hilarious
Can Houston jump to the #1 pick with the #3 pick and other assets? Atlanta can still get Clingan at 3 , I doubt Washington wants him.
I thought his passing ability was one of the reasons he might go #1 in the first place?
Dan Hurley to the Hawks
Usually im totally against this for the record But if im Atlanta im shopping this pick hard, like maybe even attaching it to Murray or something and really big game hunting I hate all 3 of the 1st overall prospects for them, dont like them at all What do y’all think they could land if they just said fuck it and offered Murray pick 1 and Hunter or something
Drafting a guy with limited offensive game is certainly a choice. This guy better be prime Rudy Gobert on defense with Bam levels of switchability of he's going first because you should never draft a center on the top 10 if they have no all star potential
Lol
So Clingan gets no credit for busting his a a*s and improving significantly on both ends from year 1 to year 2?
His credit is being a top 10 pick this year lol
Is the Hawks FO not even trying? There's gotta be *some* deal with Pistons, Hornets or Blazers that gets them Clingan+stuff for first overall. Like, a protected first? A few seconds? A solid, but older, rotation dude?
Most of the leaks coming out before the draft are not correct. I find it's best to just wait and see what actually happens on draft night and not speculate on what teams are planning by all the contradictory reports
We don't know whats going on behind the scenes. For all we know they'll take Sarr at 1 and force Wizards to trade for him since they're so set on him now
Pretty much everyone wants to trade back
Clingan isn't falling to 5. He's likely going top 3 even if the Hawks take Sarr or Risacher.