Losing Kyle hurts. No doubt about it. From a fan standpoint, this was about as shocking and devastating a move as our front office could have made. But from a basketball standpoint, maybe it shouldn't have been that shocking. It pains me to say this, but the Hawks had a logjam on the wing -- six talented players who all deserved minutes -- and only one of them was in the stage of his career where his performance was starting to fall off and wasn't going to return. In previous years, Kyle was one of the biggest plus-minus superstars in the league. But this year, that just hasn't been the case. His net rating has been among the worst on the team, and his plus-minus has been dead last. If the Hawks had been planning on re-signing him, that would have meant that they were pinning their playoff hopes on the belief that a 35-year-old player would not only not decline, but would significantly improve by next summer (at which point he would be 37). As harsh as it is to admit, that just wasn't going to happen. Korver's durability is uncanny, but aging only works in one direction. And the deeper you go in the playoffs, the shorter your rotations get -- so a 3-man wing rotation of Bazemore-Sefolosha-Hardaway simply wouldn't have had room for a 37-year-old Korver. This was already becoming apparent in last year's playoffs, when the Hawks performed noticeably better once Kyle was removed from the starting lineup -- and it has been just as much the case during this regular season. Like it or not, it should have been clear by yesterday morning that Hardaway had overtaken Kyle as this team's third wing, and that the distance between them would only continue to grow. Likewise, it's clear that Prince and Bembry's trajectories are quickly rising, and they will need more minutes for themselves as well. So aside from sentimental reasons, there's just no reason to expect that the Hawks would have re-signed Korver after this season. Unlike Paul Millsap, who genuinely seems up in the air, we were definitely going to lose Kyle one way or the other; it was just a question of whether we would lose him in a few months for nothing, or lose him now and actually get something in return. The alternative would have been re-signing him and just having him sit on the bench all year (quite possibly even inactive in a suit) as Hardaway and the other wings continued to surpass him. So what else could the front office have done except grit their teeth, fight back the tears, and rip off the proverbial band-aid for the good of the team?
It sucks. There's no way around that. But if Kyle wasn't coming back anyway, there really was no other choice. He may have been surpassed by other players in the Hawks' rotation, but he's still a good player, and even at this late stage of his career he doesn't deserve to just sit on the bench in a suit all season. I like to believe that at the very least, the front office traded him to a contender out of respect for everything he's done for us. He'll have at least one more year than he otherwise would have had to make a real difference and possibly even win a ring for his team. And as for the Hawks, they'll have one more first-round pick in their pocket to help bring them closer to the top (which, quite frankly, is a much better return than an aging role player on an expiring contract should reasonably be expected to fetch).
There has been a lot of talk about how this trade is a sign that the Hawks are blowing up the team. I don't think that's true. They MIGHT blow things up, of course, but I don't think Korver was the canary in the coalmine. Grudgingly, I have to admit that this trade made sense by itself.
We're still going to miss you though, Kyle.
Submitted January 06, 2017 at 01:47PM by Buteo_jamaicensis