TheNorthCydeRises

They're counting up from 500 to 1. Right now, they're at 250 and going to count today to 241. So far, these are where the current Hawks rank according to their "experts".#312 - Ivan Johnson#319 - Deshawn Stevenson#398 - John Jenkins#457 - Jordan Williams#481 - Mike ScottIt'll be interesting to see how many top 100 players they say we have. Smith and Horford will be locks. We'll see where they rank the rest.

Well they had 36 clips of him shooting a 3, but one of those clips played twice. So that's 35. And another clip could've been ruled after the buzzer, because I'm not sure if he got that shot off before the end of that quarter. So it may have well been 34 threes for Millsap. LOL . . and at least 40% of those threes were end of the quarter or end of game threes. They didn't have a shooter they could rely on, so if he got his hands on the ball, he'd fire it up. On a side note, I see why Utah wanted Marvin now. That team had no 3 point shooting at all last year. Harris was actually their best 3 point shooter ( amongst the guys who played all season ) at 36%.

LOL. Then again, Synergy does give you the ability to look at each offensive play. When I get home tonight, I'll have to watch and count what they said was a 3 by Millsap, and see if it equals 36 attempts.

Synergy counts both regular season and postseason in their final calculations. If I were to count the regular season only, Millsap's PPP would stay at 0.96 while Jefferson's would go up slightly to 0.99 Look at the screenshot of Millsap's production via post-ups. He's not an efficient post up player at all. He's a slasher and crasher.

???? So drawing contact and getting to the FT line doesn't give you another opportunity to score? So on one hand, you're fine with a stat like points per shot, that simply counts every shot you make as points, compared to the actual official FG attempts counted against you . . . but doesn't count every FT trip to the line ( unless you make the shot ) While you're not cool with Synergy's calculation of points per shot, that actually counts every trip to the FT line as a possession as well as your official FG attempts and turnovers?

If you have a beef, argue with Synergy The numbers are what they are. And they show that Millsap is nowhere near as good as Jefferson in the post, but better than him when cutting to the basket and getting offensive put backs.

(( sigh )) . . . I guess I have to post Millsap's Synergy then. Give me a minute.

LOL . . they're not MY numbers. Blame SynergySports . . the entity that most of these NBA teams use to evaluate players, if you disagree with the numbers. And aren't you forgetting trips to the FT line when evaluating Points Per Possession?

Matter of fact, this gives me an idea. I think I'll start a Synergy Screen Shot thread for those of you who are curious about what our current crop of guys do in particular situations, and what their production is when they take that type of shot. I may start that thread sometime late tonight or tomorrow.So I'll take requests on that thread and post whatever you guys want to see.

Well . . I'll post it anyway, to let you see the major difference between Jefferson and Smith as offensive players. And efficiency is much more than just points per shot. It includes a lot of things, which is why you can't look at one particular stat, when you may have other stats that speak directly against the "good stat". All of Jefferson's efficiency stats speak highly of him as an offensive player, outside of points per shot ( which isn't bad either ). It's just amazing that a guy who has a PER of almost 23 . . and an NBA Efficiency that is top 10 in the league . . and an Offensive Rating of 112 . . and a guy that takes most of his shots from 15 feet and in . . is still dissed like he's a worse offensive player than Josh Smith, because Josh has ONE offensive stat that is in his favor over Jefferson. By the way: Points Per shot Paul Milsap - 1.232 . . . ( 24.64 points per 20 shots ) Josh Smith - 1.125 . . . ( 22.5 points per 20 shots ) Al Jefferson - 1.116 . . . ( 22.32 points per 20 shots ) Points per Possession ( regular + post season ) Al Jefferson - 0.98 . . ( 19.6 points per 20 possessions ) Paul Milsap - 0.96 . . ( 19.2 points per 20 possessions ) Josh Smith - 0.88 . . ( 17.6 points per 20 possessions ) But somehow . . Jefferson is an inefficient player?

AHF . . . I have to make a run right now. But when I come back, I'll post Josh Smith's Synergy screen shot. I'll try to get that up in about an hour. After I do that, I'll let you compare the two. The ONLY knock against Al Jefferson, is that he doesn't offensive rebound the ball enough ( which is a major knock on Josh Smith as well ) . . and he doesn't draw enough fouls on his shots. But when you shoot 50% from the field, and don't have to use many more possessions than shots to get those points, it makes Jefferson a highly efficient scorer. But like I said, I'll post Josh's screen shot when I get back.

2009: ( 49.7% FG ) 2010: ( 49.8% FG ) 2011: ( 49.6% FG ) 2012: ( 49.2% FG ) . . . . his career low, so I guess by Hawksquawk's standards, he's in decline. And I guess in those previous 3 years, we can't round up to the higher percentage, and in the last year, round down to the lower percentage. Career 50% FG shooter . . . ummm, I mean . . . 50.2% shooter. Hasn't dropped below 52% TS EVER, despite having a low FT rate Part of "working hard" means getting in position to receive the ball. And since Jefferson shoots half of his shots via post ups, he is "working" to get that shot. Also, Dirk Nowitzki has had over 60% of his FG makes the past 3 years come via assists. Does that mean that Dirk can't create his own shot ( which was my original point about Jefferson )? Terrible passer means that he turns the ball over a lot. Jefferson doesn't do that. He actually had a 2.2 ( oops, I can't round up . . . ) a 2.18 to 1 assist/turnover ratio last year. What Jefferson is . . is a "black hole" . . because he doesn't normally pass the ball if he can get a shot off in the post. That's not a bad thing if you can make right at or close to 50% of your shots. True. Although he is the main option in the post, he doesn't work hard enough to grab offensive rebounds when he doesn't have the ball. Al's career low 7.3 offensive rebound % last year is actually the career average of another PF that should be crashing the boards on offense, getting his team ( or himself ) extra possessions . . . instead of shooting up a lot of jumpers like he's a great shooter. He was actually fouled on less than 8% of his regular season shot attempts last year ( that drops down to a little over 5% if you include regular season + playoffs ). But it's not because he's not forcing the defense to react to his presence. The dude is taking 17 shots a game, with most of them coming 15 feet and in, so they have to react to him. Jefferson just has the knack to score the basketball at a pretty high rate, without drawing contact. A lot of jump hooks, short spot up jumpers, nifty post moves, and cuts to the basket are Jefferson's choice of shots on offense. And once again, he's making at or around 50% of his shots without using a ton of extra possessions to score his points. Should he draw more fouls? Yes. But once again, he's producing points on half of the possessions he touches the ball. * 22.8 PER last year ( 2nd highest of his career ) . . . no Hawk has posted a 22.8 PER or higher since Dominique in the 1992 - 93 season * .173 win score/48 last year . . . would've easily led the Hawks last year ( especially with the absence of Horford ), and may have been even higher * 112 offensive rating . . . . would've led the Hawks last year * Only 4 three pointers taken all year . . . because he knows where he needs to be shooting the ball to be most effective * #8 in the league in NBA Efficiency * #3 amongst centers in NBA Efficiency * Has averaged more blocked shots than Josh Smith and Al Horford the past 2 years. * Can actually defend bigger centers successfully in the post. Are you done with this? Or are you going to act like this dude can't ball at a high level. Or do you want Zaza to continue to play center for the Hawks, because he brings the "intangibles" like hustle and heart to his game . . and will grab offensive rebounds ( even if they're his own offensive rebounds when he misses lay-ups )?

Testing Click on the image to make it larger, so you can read it.

You haven't learned anything if you think that 20 points on 20 shots is the exact same across the board. Jefferson can go 10 - 20 FG and not even go to the FT line .... and most important .... only use 20 to 22 possessions to score those 20 points. Meanwhile, a guy like JR Smith may go 7 - 20 FG, but make 3 threes and 3 FTs to score his 20 points. Of course, the problem with him is that it may take 25 - 27 possessions for him to score that 20. So while one guy ( Jefferson ) is getting right at 1 point per possession, even as a high usage, self shot Creator ...... the other guy ( Smith ) may only be averaging 0.75 points per possession. When a guy like Jefferson takes 50% of his shots via post ups, and can get right at 1 point per possession, that's top 20 in the league off of post ups. And that will help ANY offense. Nevermind though. 20 shots to get 20 points is the same across the board.

You're down 1 with 6 seconds left. Who is taking your last shot?

Kobe Bryant scored 81 points against a bad Raptors team. Is that discredited as well? But if you want a better game from Jefferson, do a "mediocre" Mavs team count a little more? http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9sxWlA8kmI Take note at who took over at the end of that triple OT game to finally win it for the Jazz. All I know, is that I would even concede Josh Smith moving to SF, if we could assemble a Jefferson - Horford - Smith frontline. That is better than the current Jefferson - Milsap - Favors frontline Utah has right now.

Well if that's the case, we might as well keep Zaza at center. I mean, his Total Shot ( or True Shooting % ) is higher than Jefferson's, due to Al's inability to draw fouls ( or initiate contact ). S there's no need to add a guy like Jefferson, who you could possibly throw the ball down to in the post, and let him create a shot to win a game . . since shot creation doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

Number of NBA regular season Jazz games in the last 3 seasons: 230 Number of NBA games Jefferson has played in the last 3 seasons : 219 The injury label could be placed on him during his first 5 years in the league, but not now. He's played in 95% of the games in the past 3 years.

I agree. History says that this lineup will not work, but we'll see. All of those shooters we have are highly dependent on people creating for them, so we'll see what plan Drew has to get those guys shots.

Why do you say stuff like this? Neither Smith nor Horford can do the things that Jefferson can do down on the block. If Jefferson is a "has been", then Horofrd and Smith are flat out bums. He did this a few days after his grandmother died. There will be no easy fast break points in this clip. Every basket is within the half court offense. http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SV1R5LWJSI Plus he hung 28 points - 17 rebounds against us in that 4 OT game we played against them. Al Jefferson would be an easy All-Star pick for center in the East.

Can he be a starter?

Finally got to hear the entire interview(s). At least you don't get the sense that Ferry is bull ( bleeping ) you when he talks, unlike Rick Sund, who was the "master of spin". I used to hate even reading Rick's interviews, because you knew it would be full of crap.And I like the fact that Ferry will be looking more at analytics. That's the one thing I always questioned about the Hawks, especially when it came to addressing Josh and his jumpers and with the way JJ was used. It was pretty obvious that the Hawks did NOT use analytics. People were playing that had no business playing.Ferry must've seen what we were doing, and said . . "wow, you guys are so behind the times, it's pitiful." Like I said a few weeks back, it really reminds me of the Cincinnati Bengals when Marvin Lewis became head coach, and pretty much had to tell owner Mike Brown what he needed to make the team and organization better.We'll see how much the Hawks improve in the front office decisions, especially when it comes to the draft and with the trades they make.LOL @ a player development program. That was the one thing that was OBVIOUSLY not here. I bet guys like Salim, Shelden, and Acie wished there was a player development program in place when they were Hawks.

NO. Deron is a future Hall of Fame caliber PG and Brook Lopez ( when healthy ) is a top 5 offensive center in the NBA. What JJ said isn't a slight on Teague and Horford at all. He simply told the truth.

Betrayal shouldn't even be in the vocabulary when discussing the Josh situation. "Betrayal" is sort of what Carlos Boozer did to the Cavs, after "having an understanding" to sign a one year extension with them, with them then giving him a big money extension. Instead, Utah swooped in, gave Boozer a deal he couldn't refuse, and he decides to sign with Utah as a restricted free agent. And even that situation is "just business", not "betrayal". These pro franchises could give a damn about a player, if they feel that his services are no longer needed, or if they need to trim payroll. There's no loyalty in professional sports, from either side.

Or . . . the ASG simply didn't want to pay Josh what he was actually worth. If I'm not mistaken, I think the initial deal he got from them, was a 5 yr - 45 mill deal. Josh thought he was worth more, and got more. So I doubt very seriously that when it comes time for him to get a new deal, that he isn't going to give the Hawks a "hometown discount". He's going to get paid, because this will more than likely be the last big money ( close to MAX ) contract he'll get.