TheNorthCydeRises

And it still wouldn't address our defensive issues on the inside. For a team that didn't have a real PG, the offense functioned pretty well. We shot around 45% FG as a team and averaged 97 ppg. If the defense would've been better, then we would've had a better record last year. For the record, Ty Lue pretty much put up the same numbers after the Walker trade in the 03 - 04 season, as Mr. Williams is doing now. Matter of fact, Ty played pretty damn well as a scoring PG for this team during that stretch. His problem was that he couldn't defend anybody. And that will eventually be Marcus' problem in this league. Defensively, this team has to get much better. If not, it really doesn't matter who we have running the point or what kind of offensive weapon we add to this team. This year, it has to begin and END with Defense.

Quote: I think if Salim had a history of being the so-called "model citizen" that people would cut him much more slack. No one is doubting his ability to shoot. Here's the thing for me. Joe was brought in to be our point, and Salim was brought in to be the off-guard (part-time). Now that Joe is going to be our off-guard, and Chill gets most of the leftover minutes that Joe doesn't play, it doesn't leave a lot of time for Salim. That's why the Hawks are trying him at the point. I think we can all pretty much agree that Salim will never be a good point on this team (or any other) on the NBA. Sooooo since Joe as the point doesn't work, and that scenario was why we brought Salim in... where does that leave Salim? Especially since TLue and Chill were much better from 3 point range last year and are both better overall players. My problem certainly isn't with Salim's play (I am wary of the attitude problems though), but where does he fit in on this team if he cannot run any point? LOL. Could it be that the Hawks are trying him at the point because their starting PG is injured right now? If people weren't doubting his ability to shoot, then why are these threads being created NOW? They weren't created back in summer league, when people were ranting and raving about the fact that he shot well during that time, and seemed to have "better handles". These threads have only came about since the preseason started. To say that Joe at the point didn't work, is somewhat innacurate. Joe ran the team very well. But having Joe at the point took away some of his scoring opportunities. That's why Speedy was brought in . . to enhance Joe's offense, and everybody else's. Plus Speedy is a decent defender. What should Salim's spot be on this team? The same spot that these guys had on their respective teams. - Eddie House - Steve Kerr - Earl Boykins - Craig Hodges - Fred Hoiberg - Damon Jones - Juan Dixon All of those guys, past and present, are pretty much known for one thing . . shooting the ball. And when they shot the ball well, they helped their teams tremendously. They weren't great or even good floor leaders, or the best defensive players in the world. And they didn't get many minutes in a typical game. But they could shoot the basketball. And there will be situations throughout each game, in which we will need a shooter/scorer to get the ball to. Salim fills that role better than any other person we have on this team, with the exception of JJ. And no, I don't include Marvin or Smoove or Childress or Speedy in that category, because none of those guys have exhibited the ability to literally take over a game offensively in a short span. Speedy has done it on occasion, but it was during the entire span of a game. And because Speedy can't shoot outside of 18 feet, the extent of his offensive game is limited, compared to Salim's. Salim's shooting and ability to score in bunches, can break a game wide open. And I'm definitely not ready to give up on the guy because of 3 bad shooting preseason games. Even if he shoots horrible the rest of the preseason, I'll still reserve judgement on him, until the season gets underway. As for now, if the Hawks want to still experiment with him playing the point, NOW is the time to do it.

Stop the Hop. If you think that it sounded racist, then you're seeing something that no one else who KNOWS Redick's game, is seeing. And people better check Redick's numbers, and compare them to Salim's in college. You might be in for a big surprise, if you do. Matter of fact, I'll do it for you. JJ's last year at Duke 26.8 ppg 2 rebs 2.6 asst 47% FG 42% 3FG 86% FT Salim's last year at Arizona 18.4 ppg 2.3 rebs 2.2 asst 50% FG 50% 3FG 91% FT And Salim took very difficult shots at times, and knocked them down while at Arizona. Anybody remember the shot he hit in the NCAA Tournament that beat Oklahoma St? He had 2 people draped all over him, and hit an off balanced 3 pointer to beat the Cowboys. The crazy thing about that game, is that he also had 7 assists and 2 steals. Redick's game is "come off screens to get space, and shoot the basketball". Last year, Redick tried to develop a mid-range game, but was somewhat unsuccessful in doing it. But he was such a good long range shooter, especially when he got hot, that his stock still stayed high on the NBA level. Don't be surprised if JJ has the exact same struggles on the NBA level, that Salim had last year. But good lord, Salim did put up these numbers last year: 9.7 ppg 1.9 rebs 1.2 asst 1.34 to's ( which is bad ) 41.5% FG 38% 3FG 90% FT Compare those numbers to some of the other rookie guards in the league last year. http://www.nba.com/statistics/player/Scori...sExp=0&splitDD= Chill out about Salim. He's just in a preseason slump.

JJ is a much better shooter than Salim? And what do you use to base that on? By their college numbers? People forget that Salim shot 50% FG and 50% 3FG in his senior year. That's something that not even Redick can say that he did. The jury is still out on if Redick can even have a good of a year as Salim had last year.

You just have some people on this board who are always in "panic mode". If they're not complaining about something, then they're not happy. Salim "is what he is" . . a shooter off the bench who will probably always have that role. What's crazy, is that everybody was ranting and raving over how well Salim played during Summer League. Now, those same people want him gone. People act like the 38% from 3 point range that he shot last year, is some slouch number. Guys who Salim outshot from 3 point range last year: - Damon Jones - Jason Williams ( the PG in Miami ) - Kirk Hinrich - Gilbert Arenas - Sam Cassell - Sarunas Jasikevicus - Joe Johnson - Kobe Bryant - Vince Carter Salim should know his role on this team. And because it's preseason, it doesn't hurt to play him a little at the point, especially now, since Speedy isn't playing. When the regular season comes, he'll know his role and he knows that he'll have to excell in that role in order to get PT. It's an easy decision for the Hawks. If he's hot, give him more minutes. If he's not, the keep him on the bench. But like bonethugz says. Salim is a 2nd round pick. A lot of the time, 2nd round picks don't even last in this league. And one-dimensional shooters like Salim routinely fail in the NBA. LOL . . but I'm definitely not ready to cut Salim after a bad showing in preseason.

(( shaking my head at the board )) Salim was one of our best 3 point shooters from last year. Now, people are ready to toss him aside because he shot bad in 2 preseason games? Pure comedy. Thank God Shelden got 12 points and 9 rebounds in that Memphis game. If he'd scored 6 points, pulled down 5 rebounds, and had 5 fouls, like he did tonight, people would be calling Shelden a bust. Calm down people. $10 e-dollars says that Salim shoots 50% tomorrow night. And if he doesn't, oh well. The kid won't lose confidence, and his teammates will still tell him to shoot the ball, because they know that he can get red hot and knock down shots in succession.

Jsmoove . . . to make a comment like that, pretty much proves that you've either never played organized b-ball before, or you just don't have a clue how sports work. I don't mean to insult you, but that's just a dumb comment. That'll be like learning how to drive a car, just by watching somebody . . but never getting behind the wheel of a car, until you get on the interstate. Just about anything a person learns, they have to learn while doing that particular job for themselves, even if they've watched somebody do it over and over. How did you learn to type? Did you watch somebody, and came out the gate typing 35 words a minute as soon as you sat in front of a computer? Or did you practice typing, and eventually get better and better as you kept doing it? It's the same thing in sports. If that's the case, every young backup QB in the league, could just step right in and effectively play QB in the NFL, just by watching the starter. LOL . . it's a whole different ballgame, when you're in the action yourself.

Quote: Marvin and Smoove showed that they can be depended on this year. Negatives: Salim I dont want to seem him play if all he is going to do it shoot it every time he touches it and turn it over every time he touches it I would rather see him just sit on the bench and learn how to take care of the ball. LOL . . how can a person learn how to take care of the ball if he's on the bench? This board is straight comedy. Let him learn NOW, when the games don't count. Prediction: If Speedy plays in the preseason, watch Salim's shooting % go back to normal. I wonder if Salim even played the 2 tonight? Hard to tell, seeing that we don't have a play-by-play to look at. If he played the 1 all night, I'm not worried about Salim at all. That's not the position he'll be playing once the season starts.

LMAO . . this board is hilarious. So when Salim goes 6 - 9 . . and hits about 4 threes in a preseason game, you same guys criticizing him, will be all up on him giving him praises. Isn't this the exact reason why we got Speedy? So Salim won't have to handle the ball and just concentrate on shooting? LOL @ trading Salim because he doesn't fit. Good lord. Preseason games are "do or die" with you guys huh? Two bad shooting games in which Salim is trying to be something that he WON'T be during the season ( a PG ), and people want him gone. Let me tell you guys something. This is the EXACT time of year to give Salim extended minutes at the point. He'll probably be the 4th PG on the depth chart, but he still needs to learn how to handle the position. But unless something catastrophic happens during the year, he'll be the "hired gun" for the Hawks. And his main mission will be to SHOOT, SHOOT, SHOOT when he's in the game. And he probably won't be shooting off the dribble with people in his face. He'll be a catch and shoot guy . . ala what Eddie House was for Phoenix last year. If he's hot, leave him in. If he's not, put him back on the bench. Simple as that. What some of you should be commenting on, is the fact that every single ball handler for the Rockets, scored in double figures. That means that Salim, Lue, or whomever else was guarding those guys, had no chance at slowing them down. Which brings us back to the reason why we brought in Speedy. (( Run for the hills . . . the Hawks lost a preseason game and Salim didn't shoot the ball well. Oh woe is me. Woe is me. ))

LOL @ lack of maturity and coaching. LMAO . . give me a break. It's a friggin preseason game. Teams are supposed to look up and down during this time. Come on guys, you gotta keep a level head about preseason. Don't get too high when we win . . or too low when we lose. The Oakland Raiders went 4 - 0 during the preseason. Today, they are definitely the WORST team in the NFL and might not win more than 2 games all year. We all know that this team is going to live and die by the jumpshot, so games like these are to be expected. Hopefully, they won't play this bad in front of the home crowd tomorrow night. But please, don't overanalyze this ish.

4th quarter/end of game lineup G - Ivey G - Salim G/F - Bozeman F - Shelden C - Greek kid They should be able to get the job done.

Winning and losing preseason games isn't important to me. It's kind of like the NFL. What you're really looking for in these games, is how your starters and main rotation guys will play in the first half. JJ shouldn't be out on the court at the end of the game, no matter how close the game is. For that reason alone, you can't put too much stock in wins and losses. But winning does help the overall confidence of these young guys. But you can pretty much guarantee that Houston won't have Yao or T-Mac in the game at the end. And we shouldn't have JJ and possibly Marvin and Smoove in the game at the end either.

All this means, is that Shelden will see a little more time at center. So will Solomon Jones. So will the big Greek kid, if he makes the roster. Good thing we're playing Philly that night. ZaZa, Shelden, the Greek kid and Solomon should be able to handle Dalembert. And hopefully, Smoove and Marvin can make C-Webb work on the defensive end get tons of points over him.

List of songs Hawks fans would sing at Hawks games: - Georgia on My Mind ( Ray Charles ) - Devil Went Down to Georgia ( chorus only - Charlie Daniels ) - You'se a Ho ( chorus only - Ludacris ) - Loser ( chorus only - Beck ) - Player's Ball ( chorus only - Outkast ) . . which would be tight as hell. - Loveshack ( B-52s ) - Bia Bia ( chorus only - Lil John & the Eastside Boys ) . . sing when a player whines about a call.

Teams that should be a playoff lock: - Cleveland - Detroit - Miami - New Jersey - Chicago Possibly move Washington up to that group. Every other team could be shuffled throughout the Eastern Conference deck. It all depends on how the Hawks start the season. If they can stay around the .500 mark until January, they have as good of a shot as anybody to make the playoffs. But we can't fall 5 - 6 games below .500 before that time.

But the Griz beat the Rockets the previous night. So what's the Rockets excuse? In fairness to the Rockets, their starters did build up a big lead, but their reserves lost it.

Quote: Quote: Quote: What in H_ll are you talking about? All I did was post his numbers just like many did during the summer league! These are your words, right? Quote: Now this can't be the guy that you been blabbing you mouth about for 2 weeks. Maybe this will shut you up for awhile and make you realized that the grass isn't always greener on the other side. After 12 minutes you want to talk [censored] but aren't willing to compare after a season?!? What a lame play. W Heeey Little Walter....Hey Little Walter listen....Heyyy Little Walter....sene sucks so face the fact...and Shelden ain't gonna suck like that. For those who don't get it...Rent School Daze...or pick up the best of Tony Toni Tone. LMAO @ Johnny. Hilarious.

I still say that the Hawks biggest mistake with Harrington, was not keeping JT here for one more year, so that he could possibly establish himself as being "the man". Not saying that would've worked either, but when they traded JT for Toine, that killed any chance of Harrington establishing himself as the go-to guy on this team. Al will always be a good complimentary player in this league. But with the Pacers, he's only replacing what Peja gave them last year, plus a few more defensive rebounds. That's why people shouldn't expect the Pacers to be a playoff lock this year. They might not even get there. And LOL @ Walter still finding a way to take a dig at Shelden. The thread wasn't even about him, yet, he still found a way to dig at Shelden. (( shaking my head )) . . you need help man.

LOL . . funny thread. By the way Walter. Regular season b-ball > Preseason b-ball Preseason b-ball > Summer league b-ball Funny how Shelden has by far his most impressive showing during the first preseason game, than he did all of summer league. And he was solid on both ends of the floor. Like I told you last week . . . Sene is a project. And big man projects usually fail in the NBA. If the guy can't even beat out Robert Swift for time, then Sene will only be a novelty act in this league.

Rondo's shot selection is interesting. He took just about EVERYTHING to the hole. He took a few 3 pointers and hit 2 of them. And he scored at least 20 of this points after halftime. Only 1 turnover for Rondo as well. Nice preseason debut for him.

Quote: It's only one game so we can't read too much into this, but it's still nice to see Shelden have a better game than the rest of the guys we were so criticized for passing over. I've got to admit I'm a little surprised at how well Shelden showed for this first game. I wonder if our staff was right to say that Shelden would look better in real games than in a summer league environment. LOL . . well . . they do this for a living. So people should trust what they say if they made a statement like that. A lot of us know our basketball, but we don't know it as much as the coaches or GMs around the league do. They're the professionals . . we're just fans who think we know everything.

Didn't see the game, but I followed it via nba.com's play by play. One interesting note about Shelden's offensive game, is that he hit about 2 or 3 18 foot + jumpers . . . an aspect of his game that he never showed at Duke. But Shelden himself said that he could hit that shot, but it wasn't required of him to take that kind of shot with regularity at Duke. Interesting game tonight. JJ was his usual brilliant self, shooting and passing. Smoove settled for jumpers . . and made most of them. Marvin was in full attack mode to the basket, able to get to the line 7 times. Shelden showed that he's ready and willing to bang on the inside . . plus showed some touch from the outside on offense. And the rest of the team just played to their strengths. Salim's 1 - 5 FG performance is probably the only downside of the night.

Hot . . the only problem with that . . is that the Griz beat the Rockets last night. The offensive balance of this team is there . . and always has been there. We'll see how the defense is, when the offense struggles a little. LOL . . and I'll take 12 points and 9 rebounds from Shelden all season. And Peoria is right on the money. Fans love misery, and they're used to constantly complaining. As a Bengals fan, I know all too well about the doom and gloom naysayers. It took until Week 4 of last year, for the Bengal fan base to realize that we may very well be a decent team. We'd shown promise the previous 2 seasons by going 8 - 8. But the doom and gloomers were never satisfied with the progress.

It's like I told the Minnesota fans on the ESPN board. They really can't expect Foye to come out like gangbusters and tear up the league. Most guards struggle mightily with their shot in their rookie year, and Foye will be no different. Foye will be good, and will show improvement as the season progresses. But he's not going to just come out the gate and be a guy that people talk about, like Chris Paul was last year.

Quote: We don't know who has earned what in summer league, practice at summer league, training camp, practice last year... So let's see what they go with and how it works. The coaches have one goal, and that's to make us a better team. That should be our goal too. They have a lot more info than us and make their decisions for a reason. This can only work if the players are reasonable and unselfish and accept that coming off the bench is not an insult, everyone can get minutes. How do you guys expect the players to accept it when some of you can't even do it? I do think that it will be interesting to see who starts tonight though, because it is fair to assume that whoever starts tonight are the current projected starters in the coaching staff's mind. Even if it does not end up being our starters, whoever is out will have to show something to earn his way back into the lineup. I wonder if we will have a permanent starting 5 in the regular season or if we will change it from game to game depending on matchups. I think that's how I might do it. Marvin/Smith to go offensive or to abuse a slow PF Smith/Shelden to go defensive or to stop a big boy Marvin/Shelden for some balance and a more traditional lineup But it's PRESEASON. You said it right in your opening sentence Lascar. The only thing I disagree with you, is the importance of who is starting tonight. Woodson has 8 games to see which combination works at the forward spots to start off a game. He can keep rotating these guys all preseason, before making a decision on who starts and who doesn't. I just want the lineup out there that gives us the best chance at victory. I could care less who comes off the bench between Smoove, Marvin, or Shelden. And if someone's ego gets hurt, well, maybe that'll motivate them to play harder and get that place in the starting lineup. It may very well be that even Lorenzen is better suited to start for this team, instead of ZaZa. The only guy who should have a secure starting spot on this team, is JJ. Everybody else should be treating this preseason as an audition for a starting job.