It helps that Game 1 isn't for another five days, but I doubt it. Even though he can participate in pre-game workouts, I doubt he can handle the rigors and pounding of an actual game right now.

Oh my gawd, my poor, feeble brain can't handle the fact that MY BUCKS ARE IN THE FINALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EDIT: Now I'm finding Game 1 is on July 6 instead of July 8, so yeah, no Giannis. If it were up to me, I might not even let Giannis get on the plane to Phoenix, and just have him focus on rehabbing in Milwaukee, then I'd see where he's at after Game 2 to consider a possible comeback at home.

Good run by the Hawks most people had them loosing in five and they came close to forcing a game seven best Hawks team since the team moved to Atlanta in 1968 and on the Western side we had the best Clippers team in franchise history including their stints in Buffalo and San Diego. I have the Suns winning it all which will make it the best Suns team ever.

Simply getting farther doesn't mean a roster is the best ever.

I could make the argument that the '15 Hawks that won 60 games is better than the current edition. That team ran into LeBron in the ECF.

I could also make the argument that the '93 Suns is the best Suns team ever. That team ran into Jordan in the finals.

The Nets went to the finals two years in a row early in the century; does anybody think that those rosters are better than the current Nets?

'15 Hawks team was one of the most overrated 60 win teams of all time the current Hawks team is much better and deeper the only 60 plus win team in the last 20 years that was considerably worse was my '07 Mavericks team that won 67 games and lost in the first round to Golden State.  Also this years Suns team is deeper and better then the '93 Suns team the backcourt alone is miles better and deeper.  The Nets going to two finals in the early 00s just shows how bad the east was back then.  Heck I kinda agree with Collen Cowherd that the East has been the inferior division ever since the Bulls title runs ended especially since the only great east team since then went 2-2 in the finals and Doc Rivers Celtics underperformed and the Pistons should have won more then one title also. 

"'15 Hawks team was one of the most overrated 60 win teams of all time the current Hawks team is much better and deeper "

Please elaborate on why you feel the current Hawks are better and deeper

"Also this years Suns team is deeper and better then the '93 Suns team the backcourt alone is miles better and deeper. "

Please elaborate on this too, namely on how the whole team is deeper and better. The backcourt I will give you, though you're selling Kevin Johnson a bit short.

"The Nets going to two finals in the early 00s just shows how bad the east was back then."

Which proves my point. The modern Nets play in a much more competitive conference. But by the logic of "Iteration of a team that went farthest must be the best iteration of that team", you're saying those '02 and '03 Nets are better than the '21 Nets because the former made it to two finals, while the latter got stopped in the semis.

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.

"The East as whole was a lot weaker in '15 then it is now."

Here we go again with Chris Hu's greatest hit, "The East sucks, so nothing any EC team does is valid." That song gets more play than Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'"

"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."

...which is a point in the favor of the '15 Hawks... that means that they were consistently the better team all year long, they didn't suddenly get hot halfway through the season.

And no, this year's Hawks didn't almost force a seventh game in the ECF. Did you watch Games 5 and 6? The Hawks never lead AT ANY POINT in those games; the only times that the score was tied was at tipoff. Two games in which they didn't have to see the two-time MVP of the league that was having his way with their frontcourt throughout the series up to that point. The last time they saw Giannis was early in the third quarter of Game 4. So that's about 40-45 percent of the whole series that they didn't have to face the most dangerous player they had seen all playoffs, and they still couldn't get it done. Before you bring up Young, since you didn't get it the first time, I will remind you that Young hurts the Hawks on defense as much as he helps them on offense. When Young was out, the Hawks got better on defense, turned the ball over less, and guys like Gallinari got going with more opportunities to have the ball in their hand. Young missing those couple of games hurt the Hawks more than helped, but it some ways it helped. Giannis missing those two and a half games only hurt the Bucks. Yet, the Bucks rose to the occasion and the Hawks did not.

The '15 Hawks faced a fully healthy LeBron James, a fully healthy Kyrie Irving, and an otherwise healthy squad that was really only missing Kevin Love as a key contributor. You love to declare victories or prematurely drop mics based on teams that have the biggest stars and household names: the '15 Hawks lost to LeBron still in his prime and a young Kyrie still healthy  before his freak injury in the Finals. You've made it clear how little you think of the Bucks because you've given them zero credit throughout the postseason, so which Hawks opponent was tougher, the '15 Cavs led by LeBron and Irving, or the '21 Bucks that played 40-45 percent of the series without Giannis?

And while you're pretending to think about that, consider these facts as well: the '21 Hawks lost each of their ECF games by double digits, and getting BTFO by 34 in Game 2, when it still mattered; the '15 Hawks only lost by double digits twice, one of them being in Game 4 after they had thrown in the towel; they took Game 3 to OT and lost by three.

"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."

Good thing you're not a GM.

"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."

That wasn't the point of the discussion, but way to try to change the subject. We're talking about entire rosters, not individual players. Like I've said so many times, this is real life, not NBA Jam.

Anyone willing to bet this guy had never even heard of KJ until I brought him up?

Also, since your replies tend to be the same old regurgitated "nothingburgers" that may have been relevant years ago, let me do the work for you:

Chris Hu said: "BLAH BLAH BLAH The East Conference sucks and nothing any East team does matters until I decide its relevant BLAH BLAH BLAH Player X is better than Player Y, therefore Team X is better than Team Y  BLAH BLAH BLAH Player Z and Team Z is better than Player A and Team A because I heard the talking heads on TV spend more time on them and I used that guy on my custom team on NBA 2K BLAH BLAH BLAH

There ya go, already took care of your reply for you. You can go outside and enjoy some fireworks now, Happy Fourth!

So who do you all have? Suns or Bucks?

Without Giannis, I'm thinking Suns.