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Chris Hu on 04 July 2021
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burninmylight said:
Chris Hu said:

Since you don't want to take my word for it there are actually numerous Youtube videos that discuss how overrated the '15 Hawks are the had the best record in the East and got swept in the ECF that pretty much sums it up to be fair there should be a fair amount of Youtube videos on how overrated the '07 Mavs where but at least that team had Dirk there is no one on that Hawks team that is even close to have the same talent as Dirk not only was the team overrated the entire roster was overrated.  Also if you want the simplest and most convincing answer why the current Hawks are better the reason is Trae Young he is miles better then anyone on '15 Hawks team.  Player get judged on how good they play and how far they get in the playoffs the same thing applies to teams so yeah that is why all the teams I mentioned are better then any of the previous ones in the same franchise.

The reason I don't take your word for it is because you always think your word is good enough without offering anything objective to back it up. Your answer for everything is "Player X is better because I said so. And Team Y has Player X, therefore Team Y is better. Because I said so."

Since there are numerous videos on the '15 Hawks, why didn't you bother to take a moment to link a couple here? Seems like that would have been pretty easy to do and would have taken only a little of your time. Instead, you got sidetracked and went on a tangent about the '07 Mavericks. By the way, another reason that your reductive reasoning is flawed: that Mavs squad had just been in the Finals the year before, with largely the same roster and the same coach. Going by your "Iteration of team that goes farthest is automatically the best" logic, the '06 Mavs were the best Mavs team ever - prior to the '11 Mavs - by winning two games in the NBA Finals. Dirk was on both the '06 and '07 squads, so if we also go by your "Only big name stars matter" logic, the Mavericks were largely the same team in both years. So which is it - were they the best Mavericks team ever, or were they overrated trash? I mean, I guess you can be both, but pick one.

But now that we got that out of our system, why don't you ever actually back up anything you try to say with some factual evidence? You have access to all of the same resources I do. Here, let me show you how:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/ATL/2015.html

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/ATL/2021.html

Offense Rating: 2015 Hawks - 108.9 (6th in the league), 2021 Hawks: 115.7 (8th in the league)

Defense Rating: '15 Hawks - 103.1 (6th), '21 Hawks - 113.3 (21st)

Net Rating: '15 Hawks - +5.8 (4th), '21 Hawks - +2.4 (10th)

So as you can see, the '15 Hawks had the better all-around offense, the far superior team defense, and in addition to the better W-L record, they defeated their opponents more handily in their wins.

Here are the advanced stats of the each roster, first 2015 and then 2021.

I'm not going to argue that Trae Young isn't the best individual player among the two squads (on one side of the ball), but to fall into the lazy mindset of, "Hurr durr the guy in all of the commercials and shoe ads must be the best" is again, reductionist. He may have the highest PER among all players, but he is:

  • 12th among all players on both teams in True Shooting Percentage (TS%), 8th on his team. If we only count players who played at least 1,000 minutes to cut out the guys who got high percentages on small sample sizes, he's still 7th.
  • Far and away the leader in Offensive Plus/Minus (OPM), averaging double that of the next closest guy, but also far and away the WORST player among both squads (other than Lou Williams, but Williams is on a much smaller sample size and most of his minutes came from the bench) in Defensive Plus/Minus. In other words, he gives up almost as many points as he scores, and the Hawks are a better defensive team whenever he's not on the floor.
  • 6th among both rosters in Win Shares, 2nd on his own team. In other words, five more players were actually more conducive toward winning games than Young. If you go by WS per 48 minutes, he's actually 7th among all players, and third on his own team.

I could go on, but all this tells us is that the people who say (or used to say before these playoffs) that Trae Young is an empty stat guy were on to something. Just because he's the most marketable player Atlanta has had since 'Nique doesn't mean that he's some transformative superstar.

There, now you try. Give me something better than "Trae Young was on the cover of SLAM Magazine, so the '21 Hawks are better"

The East as whole was a lot weaker in '15 then it is now.  Also since you didn't get it the first time I say it again the '15 Hawks had home court and got swept in the ECF this years Hawks didn't have home court in any of their series and almost forced a game seven in the ECF.  Also just by looking at the stats you don't get the whole picture of this years Hawks they started out the season 14-20 and ended the season in the ECF which is way more impressive then any stats you can throw at me from the '15 Hawks.  Also not only would I take Trae Young over all the '15 Hawks I would also take Lou Williams over any of the players on the '15 Hawks and the guy they traded to get Williams; Rajon Rondo I would take over all the players on the '15 Hawks also.  As for the '06 and '07 Mavs there are plenty of teams that make it to a championship and then completely fall off the next year this years Heat is actually a decent example so yeah the '06 Mavs is still the second best Mavs team ever and the '07 Mavs is one of the most overrated 60 plus win team of all time along with the '15 Hawks.  Also another point about the '93 Suns even though Kevin Johnson was good he still is only the fourth best point guard all time that played for the Suns no one in their right mind would rank him ahead of Steven Nash, Jason Kidd or Chris Paul.