TheNorthCydeRises

Josh is putting up increased numbers because his usage is that of a superstar. That increased usage isn't putting up superstar or even all-star numbers, because he's so inefficient as an offensive player. His current Usage % is 26.7%. Al Horford's is currently at 21.6% ( a career high as of this moment ). If the Hawks want to improve in the coming years, those numbers BETTER be flipped, with Horford getting the star-like usage, and the chance to put up much better numbers. As for JJ's so-called apathetic and declining play, he had one of his most efficient seasons just last season, with JJ also bailing us out of games with "hero ball" after the All-Star break. But his raw numbers were down because . . . . his Usage was down. This season, his usage is down even more because he's arguably playing with 2 better offensive players. He's been playing bad since the All-Star break, so that definitely has contributed to his numbers being down. As for his escalating contract, I'll say what I said when he signed it. If a team wants to get out of that contract in Year 5 and especially in Year 6, they'll be able to do it quite easily. The contract will represent too much money about to expire, for it to not be a highly attractive deal for a team that wants to get significantly under the cap. The Nets won't nearly be as hamstrung as people think they may be in a few years.

I never said "all". But some in this thread definitely fit that train of thought. And if you know my history on this forum over the past 7 years, you should know that I could care less about my perceived "credibility" here. I simply do what others do, and express my opinion on things. But check this out. Despite Joe Johnson not leaving the Hawks on his own, a vocal minority of Hawks fans have taken it upon themselves in 2 games now that he's come back to Atlanta, to boo him. I've never seen a guy who didn't want to be traded from a team, turn around and be booed by that same team's fans every time he touches the ball. I've seen it when a guy chooses to leave on his own, or when that guy forced the team to trade him. But never when the team traded him just to be getting rid of him. It's strange that no other player in the league gets booed at Philips every time he touches the ball, not even the hated Paul Pierce or Kevin Garnett. But they boo Joe Johnson? Why? Because they never liked him . . they blamed him for whatever financial situation the franchise was in . . and because they don't want him to succeed in Brooklyn as a secondary/main guy, when he couldn't get it done as the main guy in ATL. If you don't think that some of these things aren't factors in this thread, then I don't know what to say.

Gray I disagree. Regardless of what the Nets did to us last night, I don't think any team in the East, outside of Miami, is significantly better than us. I think any of those teams seeded 2 - 7 can beat each other in a playoff series. We're not winning a championship, but I don't think any fan wants to see us crash and burn in the playoffs either. Staying out of that #8 spot is imperative. When the Hawks started the season red hot, that kind of changed expectations amongst some fans ( myself included ). If we're a #6 seed, and we're playing the Pacers, Bulls, Knicks or Nets in that 1st round, I'm not writing us off by any means. The same goes for the 2nd round vs those teams. But this is the point in the schedule where they cannot crash and burn. If they do, Milwaukee will catch us and we'll be the sacrificial lamb to the Heat. The best case in a series vs them, is that we duplicate what we did in 2008 vs a very good Boston team, and push them to 7 games. But we're not winning a Game 7 in Miami. So if we're not going to fall all the way out of playoff contention, we need the best seed possible, so we can at least enjoy a few rounds of playoff basketball.

But 95% capacity, for a team that has been sorry as hell the past 5 years ( and for the history of the franchise in general ), and coming into an area DOMINATED by the Knicks and its fans, is pretty dang good in my book. It would be like the Cleveland Browns moving to Ft Worth, TX, and expecting the Browns to all of a sudden sell out a 70,000 seat stadium . . . when you know that metro area ( and state, for that matter ) is dominated by the Cowboys and its fans. So if the Browns could move to Ft Worth and draw 65,000 a game in the Dallas-Ft Worth metro market, and produce a good team in the process, that would be a major accomplishment. The same goes for the Brooklyn Nets, who have made themselves back into a relevant franchise in just one year. I'm sure that most ( not all, but most ) NY sports fans aren't the bandwagon type. So it's not like the Nets were going to convert all of the Knicks fans who live or were born in Brooklyn, over to Nets fans overnight. It's still a Knicks town, and will probably always be a Knicks town. But you make it sound like the Nets have been a failure, because they're not selling out 100% of the time. Only about 7 or 8 teams in this league do that on a nightly basis. All I'm saying that when the playoffs come, the Barclays Center will be sold out for every home game. And if that team does win their home playoff games, and get to the 2nd round, their growing fan base will become even more rabid and support the team. And if that team makes noise in the playoffs this year, I'll GUARANTEE YOU that their attendance will increase next year. It's just amazing that Hawk fans, of all people, can sit back an criticize a franchise like the Nets, when in just one year they've jumped from the bottom of the barrel, to at least 60% up the barrel and are right at our level ( or a little above ). It's highly unlikely that anybody is beating the Heat and getting to the NBA Finals. But any team in the East that can avoid playing the Heat in the 2nd round, has as good of a shot as any to make it to the EC Finals. The 2nd place Knicks in the East would be the 6th seed out West. So there are no great teams in the East outside of the Heat. Just good ones. Even if we got to the 2nd round as a 7th seed, I'm not discounting our chances if we have to play the Knicks, Pacers, Bulls or Nets. We can beat any of those teams in a 7 game series . . if we play to our strengths. And you can say the exact same thing about the Nets if they got to Round 2, and played any East team other than the Heat. So the "good" team that can get to the EC Finals and play the Heat, can be the team that says that they had a successful season. And if they happen to push the Heat in the EC Finals ( ala what Boston did last year ), their fan base will be happy. Like I told Eddie earlier in the thread, I understand why Hawks fans specifically do not want the Nets to succeed. It flies in the face of everything we've did, and what we will do in the future, when trying to build a contender.

SMH @ you. Always the Grim Reaper around here. If the Hawks only won 40 games, that means they'll finish the season with a 6 - 14 record. So we'd . . . - finish below .5000 - be the #8 seed and face the Heat and probably lose in 5 ( hopefully not get swept ) - have the fan base totally turn on Josh, and possibly Teague, and whomever else - and still not get a ping pong ball to get into the lottery That's the absolute worst case scenario right there.

Got dragged into a halfcourt battle tonight . . and we essentially got blown out. The 13 point margin isn't indicative of how much of a defeat the game actually was. Hardly any fastbreak points for the Hawks tonight. And Teague and Harris were non-factors. No way we can beat the Nets in a series playing half court. Got to run them out of the gym.

At least the crowd semi-booed JJ. But that was drowned out by a few bandwagon Nets fans that made their way to Philips. Wish the crowd will put that much "energy" in booing Kobe on Wednesday night. But it'll be just the opposite. Hawks essentially have 2 more road games to play, before they play at home vs Phoenix on Friday night.

@ Boston - LOSS vs Brooklyn - LOSS Don't do it Hawks. Don't decide to not show up during the most critical stretch of the season.

Nets are averaging over 17,000 a game, at a 95% capacity. But don't believe me. Believe your own newspaper. http://offthedribble.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/09/nets-make-full-effort-to-fit-into-brooklyn/

We can't be TOO BAD though. Because in 2 years, it's Al Horford that will be up for free agency. If this team is in rebuilding mode, he may not stick around for that, unless the Hawks grossly overpay him. Sound familiar?

Games like this prove that he's still a young kid, who has great talent . . . when focused. When he's not focused, the talent doesn't show up. Just have to keep him focused on a nightly basis. But I think the only way to do that, is to give him COMPLETE CONTROL of the team. And I don't know if the coach is willing to do that yet. And we know a certain teammate definitely isn't ready to do that yet. Maybe Teague was sulking for not having enough touches in the OT last night vs Boston.

Because Cuban doesn't like losing. It's probably killing him knowing that the Mavs will miss the playoffs for the first time in 13 years. Plus, people are starting to see the writing on the wall that Dwight Howard isn't going to leave the Lakers. Chris Paul isn't leaving the Clippers either. So Cuban probably figured he could add Pierce now, and add someone like Josh Smith or one of the UTAH forwards to the roster. Cuban probably knows a lottery pick around #11 isn't going to be a franchise changing player. So he may as well get a guy who still has a lot of game in him in the form of Paul Pierce, to play alongside guys like Dirk and possibly Mayo ( if he re-signs him ).

( sigh ) Not the worst loss of the season, but it's close. JJ plays like crap, and we're losing by 20? And all of a sudden, we're 7th in the East . . . with the Heat and Lakers staring us in the face in these next two games. Like I said in that thread earlier this week, this schedule isn't going to do us any favors. No cupcakes.

LOL . . . if fans in Atlanta come out for Hawks playoff games, I'm pretty sure that the Barclays Center will be rocking when the Nets get into the playoffs. It's definitely a Knicks town . . for now.

Nets are a nortoriously bad 3rd quarter team. Lets hope this continues. Teague needs to get his head in the game and take it over.

OK . . well this will be the one then. Just when I was about to be irritated as hell with Drew starting Petro . . the dude comes out looking like a young Patrick Ewing. Nets fans rolling over in their graves right now, about to have a fit that Johan is balling right now. Keep it up dude. End this game quickly if you can.

The revenues for those teams were high, because the team was winning. And one of the major reasons why those teams won, is because management had no problem going all out to bring in the type of talent that wins games. Hawks lineup 2009- 10: G - Bibby G - Johnson F - Marvin F - Josh Smith C - Horford 6th man - Crawford C - Zaza G - Evans G - Teague F - Joe Smith C- Collins G - West That team was close to the Luxury Tax line, but never went over it. They had their MLE and their LLE that they could've used that season to bolster that squad. In essence, that would be a 5 million and a 2 million dollar player. Total payroll would've been somewhere around 76- 78 million. Teams that are serious about winning a championship, especially when they've assembled a squad that has nice pieces across the board, will have no problem using these exceptions to bolster their squad. But the ASG, who ran the Hawks like a business ( as you referred to as some owners doing ), had no intention of doing such a thing. Remember this, when Ferry tries to retool this team over the next 2 - 3 years. Watch and see what types of moves we make, and if claims of financial constraints keep us from doing such a move.

I follow it very closely sir. The teams that want to win, will go all out to win. And running their NBA franchise like they would their own business isn't part of winning.

The current Brooklyn Nets ( with 36 wins ) have already surpassed the high win total of the Shareef, Big Dog, Ratliff, and Jason Terry Hawks, whcih was 35 wins. Yeah, we'll agree to disagree. Even if I'm right. The current Nets team is more comparable to the 2008 - 2010 Hawks. That 2008 team won 45 games. The 2009 - 10 team won 53 games. The Nets should fall somewhere in the middle of that pack, and probably post the 2nd best franchise win total since they've been in the NBA. When the Hawks won those 53 games that season, this fan base was sky high. Then we struggled vs a tough defensive Milwaukee team. Then we lost to the one team that we didn't match up with all year in Orlando. That was the beginning of the end for "the core". But what if management had used the MLE that year to get a more capable backup center than Zaza and especially Collins, and went into the Luxury Tax? Who knows how that playoff series, and the playoffs in general would've turned out.

An NBA franchise owner usually does NOT run his NBA franchise like his own business. Onwers over the years have said just that. An NBA franchise is their "hobby", their "toy". Mark Cuban initially thought that this new CBA would reign in a lot of owners. Then he saw his team go from NBA champs, to non playoff fodder, and all of a sudden, he announces that the "Bank of Cuban" is open. - Dan Gilbert in Cleveland had no problem taking the Cavs close to 100 million in payroll when they took a gamble on Shaq. - Jerry Buss consistently maintained an 80+ million payroll with the Lakers. - Paul Allen ( Portland ) was routinely in that 80 - 90 million dollar range, just to try to compete with the Lakers. - Richard DeVoss of the Magic constantly took chances on high salaried players to improve Orlando. - And we all know about Cuban and his exploits. And look what he reportedly tried to do at the deadline. He tried to swing a deal for "old" but still effective Paul Pierce. And in the summer, he's going to try to grab whomever the top free agent is on the board ( and probably MAX that player out, or come close to it ). The new CBA may force some of these owners to reign in some of their spending, but it's not going to keep them from going into Luxury Tax land. It's the owners that continuously worry about the "bottom line" of the franchise, that places a premium on not paying the Tax. As for the reasoning for this topic, of course the topic was/is going to be about Joe Johnson. And because Ferry was the one that dealt JJ, that's why it was brought to the board. But don't think for one minute that some of the hardcore fans on here aren't watching to see what the Nets are doing, or will do. We're directly tied to each other, with the deal that we made. And yes, some of the people who dislike JJ are the very ones posting in this thread. Even if they liked JJ, but didn't like his contract, seeing JJ fail in Brooklyn will be validation that we did the right thing. Even I wasn't totally against the move, if we could've gotten back a few assets that could've helped the team. But we got back junk, and a lot of cap space ( that will probably be used to re-sign either current Hawks or overpay for a free agent ). The one thing that they can't deny however, is that the Hawks went all out ( if just for one season), to build the best team possible in Atlanta. We've never done that, and we probably never will. Whatever great team Ferry constructs, will probably have to be within the restraints of the Luxury Tax. God forbid if we go 4 - 5 million into the Tax for just one year to try to get that extra player to get us to the next level. The Hawks may go bankrupt.

LOL . . this is a silly post, considering that the playoffs haven't even started yet. Remember 2011 for us? Almost every fan of this team was throwing dirt on the Hawks because they were going into the playoffs having lost 6 games in a row, and the coach worried about if his team could just "flip the switch" and play better. Hawks vs Orlando . . with us as the road team . . and us not having won a playoff series as the road team in God knows how long . . and the Hawks DID flip the switch. The Nets have basically been playing like we have over the last 16 games ( basically a .500 team ). So the "novelty" may have very well worn off. But that's until the playoffs roll around. We'll see how hyped Brooklyn gets then. And we'll see how a team that is built for the slow grind of the playoffs plays as well.

The OKC model is about as much of a pipe dream as the Detroit model of no superstars on the team ( although that was a defensive star laden team ). The OKC model means the Nets ( or any other team ) would have to: - draft a Hall of famer . . . . Durant - draft an All-Star ( 2nd or 3rd team All-NBA caliber player ) . . . . Westbrook - draft another All-Star ( 2nd or 3rd team All-NBA caliber player ) . . . . Harden - draft one of the best shot blockers in the game . . . . Ibaka All within a 3 year period. They literally didn't miss on a single high level draft pick. If it were that easy to do, the Charlotte Bobcats, Sacramento Kings, and Washington Wizards would all have high caliber playoff level teams right now. No . . . what Brooklyn decided to do, is follow the blueprint that Miami, New York, and Boston have done in the East. Go out and bring in a bunch of veteran star level players who couldn't get it done as "the man" on their former team, and team them together to see if they can get it done on the same team. So if you want to fault a real bad team for paying a boatload of money to beccome a mid level playoff team, it is what it is I guess. All I know is that I wouldn't want to trade places with Charlotte, or Sacramento, or Washington for the world.

There is no such thing as "foolishly spending money", when you have the money to spend. Floyd Mayweather makes $500K bets on college basketball games sometimes. To 99.9% of the people in the world, that's "foolishly spending his money". But when he makes 80 million a year, and sometimes win on those large bets he makes, it's nothing more than a form of high stakes entertainment to him. And it doesn't hurt him financially. Why look at the NETS future now, when they were obviously constructed to compete NOW ( this year and next year )? Why should that franchise continue putting out a losing product and save money, when they had a chance to instantly build a playoff team for their new fans to cheer for? I know why there is so much talk and even a little animosity toward the Nets. That franchise is basically the polar opposite of how our "think tank" operates in Atlanta. And most Hawks fans would not be happy to see Joe succeed in the playoffs with some other team, when he couldn't get it done as the main guy when he was in Atlanta. And the other thing has to do with Deron, who should've been our PG for the last 8 years anyway. For a guy that people supposedly didn't like, there sure is a lot of interest in how Joe Johnson and his new team is doing around here. The guys who supported JJ hardly bring his name up, or even start topics about him, until one of you guys start talking about him and his new team. Maybe the best thing for Hawks fans is for Brooklyn and Atlanta to meet in that 1st round, so we can all get it out of our system. If we beat them, that will give some of you validation that we made the right move. But if they beat us, with their old, overpaid, non-exciting team, it'll simply give the majority of Hawks fans even more grief. But we have "cap space and flexibility", so that'll save us in the future and get us that NBA title ( or at least an EC Finals appearance ). The real sad thing is this: The "core" in ATL should've been Deron - JJ - Smith . . . not JJ - Smith - Horford.

Pretty good actually.

( sigh ) Oh well . . . game over.