Alright, so today I wanted to dig into those Hawks trades this season. Figured I’d put my own spin on it, see what really clicked and what kinda fell flat. Here’s how my little deep dive went down.
Getting Started
First thing, I pulled up the Hawks roster. Just the basic list, ya know? Easy enough. Then I hit up the NBA website to grab the actual trade details. Dates, players swapped, those conditional picks that give everyone a headache. Copy-pasted all that mess into a notepad file. Simple start.
Next step? Spreadsheet time. Opened up Excel – cause everyone’s got that, right? Started plugging in the players involved in each trade. Names here, teams there… then tried to add stats. Oh boy. Here’s where the fun began.
Hitting the Wall
Man, stats are everywhere. Points, rebounds, assists, minutes played, plus/minus… it gets deep fast. My spreadsheet looked like a toddler threw alphabet soup at the screen. Real messy. Trying to compare guys before the trade and after, figuring out who actually got more minutes or played worse in a new system? Absolute chaos.
Tried to find some “player impact” numbers online. Found a few sites throwing around complex numbers I didn’t recognize and definitely didn’t trust. Clicked through like five different pages, getting bombarded with pop-ups every other second. Super annoying. Gave up after maybe twenty minutes. Waste of time.
Pivot Time – Keep it Simple
Scrapped the spreadsheet. Too much. Decided to go low-tech. Went back to my notepad file. Just listed out each big trade:
- Traded Player A to Team X for Player B and Player C
- Got Future Pick from Team Y for Player D
Basic stuff. Under each one, I asked myself two questions:
What did they want this move to do? (Fill a hole? Save cash? Get younger?)
What actually happened right after? (Did the team win more? Did the player play well?)
Sometimes that “right after” part was obvious. Like, if they traded for a point guard because their starter got hurt, and the new guy started lighting it up? Easy. Win. Other times? Crickets. The guy sits on the bench mostly, or the team keeps losing. Then you gotta wonder… why bother?
Building My “Review”
Armed with my notepad scribbles, I tried grouping the moves. Didn’t overthink categories, just:
- No-Brainer Wins: Trades that solved an immediate problem and worked out exactly how you’d hope. Found maybe one or two of these. Felt good to spot ’em.
- Meh, Whatever: Stuff that didn’t move the needle much. Player swap that kinda balanced out. A future pick that’s way down the road. Not exciting, not terrible.
- Head Scratchers: The ones where you stare at the list and go “Huh?”. Maybe they traded away a decent player for almost nothing back. Or brought in someone who just didn’t fit at all. Had a couple contenders for this pile.
- Too Soon / Jury’s Out: Late-season stuff. Not enough games played to really know. Gotta just shrug and wait.
Made a little table on a piece of paper. Like four boxes. Wrote the trade examples I picked for each category inside. Actually drawing the boxes helped me see it clearer.
Wrapping It Up
So, what did I figure out? Well, honestly? Their best moves were the boring ones. Fixing a specific hole with a decent player. Solid. The worst? Usually when they tried to get too cute. Swinging for the fences on a complicated trade that just… fizzled. Or giving up useful depth pieces for basically just hope.
The big takeaway for me? Forget the fancy stats for a quick review. Just ask: what was the plan? And did reality match up? If the answer’s yes, it’s probably good. If it’s a confusing “maybe” or a clear “nope”… well, then you found the not-so-good ones.
Poked my written notes and my little hand-drawn chart into a photo. Took maybe five tries to get my handwriting looking halfway decent. Still kinda messy. Published that with my rambly thoughts. Boom. Done.
