The Hawks have officially made two additions to their front office, the team confirmed today in a press release.
Former Pelicans general manager Bryson Graham has been hired as senior vice president of basketball operations, while former Pacers and 76ers executive Peter Dinwiddie will be the new senior VP of strategy and analytics. The news was first reported on June 9 by ESPN.
Both Graham and Dinwiddie will reportedly work under Onsi Saleh, who was promoted to GM in April after Landry Fields was fired.
“We are fortunate to be able to add Bryson and Peter to our leadership team,” Saleh said. “Bryson is widely regarded as one of the league’s top young talent evaluators and Peter is one of the most strategic minds in the NBA. Ownership has empowered me to build a robust and dynamic front office, and adding two extremely talented, experienced and respected executives in Bryson and Peter is a home run for our group.”
Graham, a former intern who steadily worked his way up the Pelicans’ front office over the past 15 years, has been credited with identifying talented young players such as Trey Murphy, Herbert Jones, Yves Missi, Jose Alvarado, Naji Marshall and Jordan Hawkins.
He also was on the staff that drafted Dyson Daniels, who captured Most Improved Player honors with Atlanta this season after being traded from New Orleans last summer. The Hawks control the 13th and 22nd picks in next week’s draft.
As for Dinwiddie, he spent 14 seasons with his hometown Pacers, most recently as senior VP of basketball operations, prior to joining Philadelphia’s front office in 2020. For the past five years, he has been the Sixers’ executive VP of basketball operations.
Please remember that in the stretch of the season when we were at our healthiest, during the in season tournament, we beat Cleveland (twice), Boston (twice), Milwaukee & NYK all on the road. Dre is gone but Caris gives us basically same production Dre did. These guys should be even better in yr2 together & Kobe Bufkin is gonna make his presence felt as well… link to m.youtube.com
Those 2 wins against Cleveland were impressive, I watched those games.
Where do you stand on Trae? Indifferent? Impressed with the way he changed his game in recent seasons? Tired and wanting to move on? Excited to watch him every time he’s on the court? Want to hold on to him at all costs? Seeing him as the main reason the team is in that unappealing lower-mid portion of the conference table?
Trae’s lack of size/inherent toughness sorta just naturally goes against what I like as far as a pg tbh. Me having been a guy who modeled my game after Walt Williams/Paul Pressey & with Joe Johnson being my fav player I always favor a big, versatile pg who can be a strong head of the defense & lead the offense efficiently. I appreciate him trying as much as possible but he’ll always be a minus defender & I’ve low-key wanted to trade him ever since we got him. All that being said I feel like he is extremely underrated by most casual fans. I’ve watched the vast majority of his games in the league & I promise he’s 1 of the best NBA pgs the league has ever seen. Anybody that ever gave props to Steve Nash needs to understand that Trae’s stats are gonna dwarf Nash’s & if his young teammates ever rise to the level of help that Nash had throughout his career then he’ll have even more team success. Trae is arguably the best passer in the league, he’s a top3 ball handler & his basketball IQ is elite as well. People get hung up on his shooting but he’s arguably the best floor general in the game & that’s what has allowed him to be as successful as he has without ever having a true, prime all-star to play with in his career.
But yea I’d def trade him. Id also move on from Quin for similar reasons. We have potential to be 1 of the best defensive teams in the league if we move on from those 2 (talented & valuable) guys & replace them with more defensive oriented, tough-minded guys. Scoot Henderson & Kelvin Sampson would both be top of list respectively.
Good stuff. You speak highly of him, I’d agree that most people do not see him as one of the best PGs ever. Maybe it’s because his total package doesn’t live up to the ‘best ever’ category.
Personally, I’d like to see how Atlanta would look without him. That team does give impression like it could shape it’s identity based on what you’ve said. I don’t call it ‘defense’, though. That term is used so much because in America football is the biggest sport, and people try to take concepts from it and apply them to other sports, including basketball.
Teams in basketball do attack and defend, but they don’t ‘play defence’ and ‘play offence’, they play in possession and out of possession. And every player in basketball is, in fact, a 2-way player by default.
I would describe it as resistance out of possession, making yourself hard to beat, not letting basketball happen to you. Atlanta can become that, emulate what Houston and Orlando have been doing. And in that sense, replacing (trading) Trae with somebody who is not seen as a star, but is suited more for that type of basketball, can improve the team so much that it will come out of the trade much stronger, despite changing a high-profile player in Trae for a ‘lesser’ one. That type of trade could also bring other assets to Atlanta.
You used Scoot as a good example.
And yeah, change the coach :) But not just somebody who professes ‘playing hard’, even though ‘playing hard’ is necessary. Somebody who can actually coach concepts, who understands the importance of positioning at all times and how positioning affects the team from the moment it loses possession and until it gains it back.
You know, I was watching the playoffs, and it was outright comical how some coaches, namely Denver’s coach, were trying to implement zone. That team did not play zone, the players just stood in a zone formation, like figurines in a board game. And that even worked a bit because it confused OKC, and also just allowed Denver’s guys to stand still and take a breather.
But yeah, you don’t want a coach like that. You want somebody who can actually coach. In terms of concepts and applying those to shape the games to team’s advantage. The coach also needs to bring it out from players based on their talent and capacity on that end. No matter how hard Austin Reaves plays, he will never have the same capacity as Amen Thompson. But when the coach has a player like Thompson, he needs to be able to nurture, bring it out of him and apply it in the game, not just yell at him to ‘play hard’ and ‘be strong’.
That’s the kind of coach you want.