This year the Hawks have five picks in the three rounds on days 1 and 2, and two picks in four rounds on day 3.
So last year when the Hawks had a ton of day 3 picks JS thought that day 3 was where the talent was, and this year when the Hawks have a ton of day 1/2 picks but not many day 3 picks JS thinks all the talent is in day 1/2.
It COULD be true, but it also sounds a little convenient.
Three options:
(1) This is actually true, and just by chance over the last two years the Hawks have happened to have a lot of picks where the talent is and not a lot of picks where the talent isn't (by their non-motivated and impartial evaluations).
(2) This is just typical GM fan-speak, and not really something to listen to.
(3) JS has used motivated reasoning to convince himself this actually is true.
For Hawks fans, #1 is good, #2 is meaningless, and #3 is a problem.
Unfortunately there's not really any way to know, or to ever find out.
EDIT: And an explanation of why #3 would be a problem -- let's say you like Germaine Ifedi, and you think you'll have a shot of taking Ifedi when your pick comes up. That leads to a slight cognitive bias in which you then might like Ifedi more on your draft board BECAUSE he might be available to you.
That's a big problem, as you're now letting your evaluations of players be positively and negatively influenced by if you think they'll be available to you or not, whereas it should be the reverse (e.g. you rank players independently of what picks you have, and then take guys or move for guys based on perceived value from that objective ranking).
Just to reiterate though, I'm absolutely NOT saying that #3 is what's going on. #1 is entirely possible too, and #2 is what I'd probably put my money on.