TheNorthCydeRises

Good stop by Horford and Smoove. Like I said, they win games defensively. Looks like Jj will take the game winner.

JJ FINALLY makes 1. Now we need another stop.

LOL . . . even the women know what's wrong with this team. Rebounding and defense. They women behind me were screaming all throughout the 4th quarter that there was no one to rebound the basketball. JJ and Crawford misses 2 jumpers and Smoove got a charge call. Down 3 with the ball . . . Craw at the line. At least he's scoring from there. We may need a transiton basket to win this game. JJ another miss that goes in and out. Salmons hits 1 of 2. Hawks down 2. Wow . . . who can make a FG?

JJ ice cold. Crawford ice cold. Horford not effective at all in the post. Smoove gets a foul call 1 every 2 times he gets fouled. With JJ ice cold, Bibby and Marvin may have to hit big shots for us to pull this game out. Oh well . . Crawford back in. No chance for Marvin. Down 7 . . . somebody needs to step up . . namely our captain.

16 pts for Stack so far. He and Salmons look like All-Stars . . . while JJ and Crawford are strugling big time.

Interesting first 6 minutes of the 3rd quarter. Both Josh and JJ are starting to get frustrated with the number of non fouls being called. JJ with 2 hockey-like shoulder block fouls to stop a fast break. The first one I thought was going to be a flagrant 1. Smoove still playing great, other than him not playing the man instead of setting up a block attempt. This team has to play better halfcourt defense and rebound defensively, to pull this game out. JJ with 2 back to back buckets after the timeout. Maybe he's awake now. Spoke too soon . . . he just picked up his 4th foul with 3 min to go. Evans in. Hawks down 3. Remember this point in the game.

Overall a C- performance for the 1st half. They started out great, but have been erratic as hell since about the 6 min mark in the 1st qtr. Halfcourt defense is pretty bad right now. Offense is worse, because as usual, people can't make jumpers. We have to have at least 7 turnovers already, with the way they were throwing the ball around. JJ may have went to Magic City AND Body Tap, because he's passive as hell this game. Josh Smith, I believe, has more points than JJ, Horford, and Crawford combined. He was the one bright spot of the half. stack with 12 pts? Come on mannnnnn. We're damn lucky to only be down 2. This could easily be a 10 pt decifit.

Hawks outscored 7 - 2 with the Teague - Crawford - JJ lineup. Not Teague's fault though. JJ must've went to Magic City last night. He looks kind of sluggish. Crowd looks like it will peak at 10K actual attendance.

Stack playing like he's 26. I have to agree with Hotlanta's thread about Stack. I wonder how long Woody will stick to the full court pressure? This has definitely helped the energy of the 2nd unit on defense. Two real bad shots by Crawford before the 9 min break. No wild 3 point attempts yet though. Teague - Crawford - JJ lineup in the game. This is what ya'll want to see right? Hawks up 31 - 28

JJ got hacked on that last turnover, but no call. Bucks on a big run right now after the subbed Ridnour in for Jennings. Arena is still over half empty. I guess the ATL fans are "punishing" the Hawks for blowing that game Friday night. That . . . or Milwaukee isn't a popular enough team to watch. Stackhouse bouncing around out there like he's 26.

1) There may be 7,000 people here . . . if that. This is a Kids Day game in which if a parent purchases a full price ticket, the kids get a free ticket. Crowd still coming in . . but this is pitiful. 2) Hawks came out in a soft full court press that caught the Bucks off guard and forced a few turnovers 3) Ridnour sparked the Bucks as soon as he came in.

You can get any choice of coach you want, you STILL have to have the personnel with the skill set to run the offense. The lack of a low post scoring option on this team kills us when our shot isn't falling or can't get to the FT line. All I have to say is . . . look at Roy Williams and North Carolina this year. Roy is a great coach . . but look at Carolina's record. Think about it. Just about every close game we've won this year, especially on offense, has been due to JJ, Crawford, or Bibby hitting a big outside shot. Smoove and Horford have won games on the defensive end for us, but not on offense.

LOL. I was like . . OK . . is that really Dolfan? Definitely a bad loss last night. I'm at a college b-ball tournament in Charlotte ( lol . . actually, I'm doing a lot of partying ), and I was in my hotel room watching that game. I told the guys in the chat that if we lost the lead, I wasn't going to watch that entire game. That means I didn't see the Kidd - Woody incident live. I left the chat when our lead went from like 13 points to 7 points. I kind of saw the run coming, because at that point, JJ had missed his last 3 shots, and Crawford and Horford weren't playing well offensively at all. By the time I put on my coat to leave the hotel room, we were were only up 1. I was like . . . "here we go again . . let me get the hell outta here." Luckily, you can always count on intoxicated fine women to take your mind off of things. Now I'm watching Chile earthquake coverage on CNN. Kind of puts the Hawks collapse in perspective. Oh . . and as for that Kidd play . . that was the most bush league play I've ever seen in my life ( seen the highlights on Sportscenter ). For anybody defending Kidd, or calling that a good veteran move, you really need to watch that play again. I mean, who in the hell does that at a critical junction in a game? If the refs would've done what they should've done, and that's give Kidd a TECHNICAL FOUL instead of Woody, then Kidd would've gotten blasted for costing the Mavs that game. Coaches are out on the floor all the time. And Woody had got off the floor by the time Kidd gave him a forearm. LOL . . it is what it is though. The Hawks will never get the benefit of the doubt in situations like that. Definitely a bad loss . . . and we have a hot Milwaukee team coming to ATL. I'll leave Charlotte Sunday morning and drive to ATL to be at that game, before returning to TN. Hawks just need to get that win back.

I don't know if it's because of whatever injury he suffered before the All-Star break or what, but the play of this dude is starting to become a major problem for this squad. As great as he was playing before the All-Star break, this dude has completely went south in these past 6 games. 23 - 70 FG ( 32.8% ) 10 - 37 3FG ( 27% ) Let's stop right there. Look at the shot selection. 37 threes on 70 shots? That means that almost 53% of his shot attempts are coming from 3 point range. And for whatever reason, he's ICE COLD. This was the Crawford that I was afraid that we were going to get. The horrible shot selection version of Crawford. This is the Crawford that Woody must limit time on the floor for. The dude refuses to take people off the dribble and use his long midrange jumper ( a shot in which he's the most accurate shooter on the team ). Instead, he'd rather dribble or use a pick, to set up his 3 point shot. Defensively, I don't think it's a coincidence that some of these major offensive runs that these teams are going on, are happening when he is in the game. Hubie Brown pointed out something that I hadn't realized all year. He pointed out early in that game about our transition defense. For those of you who don't know what that is . . . that is the defense a team plays after the other team gets the rebound and pushes the ball up the floor. Too many times last night, we missed a shot, and Dallas had 3 on 2 . . 3 on 1 mini-fast breaks going. Guys aren't getting back on defense, and Crawford is one of the main culprits in this. Whichever one of you guys kidnapped the pre All-Star break version of Crawford, need to quit playing. The joke is over . . we get it . . now please return the January version of Jamal . . not the NY Knicks, Golden St, Chicago one.

For the guy who gave me a -1, do you still disagree with me? Look at what Al Horford did last night. He got the ball in the post and tried to be a back to the basket scorer vs Brendan Heywood. Horford is not a strong player doing this vs centers, so teams don't double team Al in the post. This entices Al to try to score on his man 1 on 1. The result . . . . a 4 - 16 FG night for Horford. The same thing that happened to Smoove against Golden St, happened to Horford last night. Smoove simply needs to keep driving to the hole by facing his man and take him off the dribble. And Horford needs to stick with the midrange jumper, especially bigger guys.

Somebody might want to tell Mr. Err, that the last time Crawford scored 50 points . . he scored SIX POINTS in ATLANTA the previous night on 3 - 15 FG. Both games were out of the ordinary. But it illustrates just how red hot and ice cold Crawford can be. In the Atlanta game, I believe he didn't shoot a single free throw. In the Charlotte game, I think he got to the line 18 times, making 17 free throws.

Jason Kidd made Mikki Moore a lot of money a few years back. Dude is basically garbage. IF he can't come in and play ahead of Zaza or Joe Smith, I see why the ASG doesn't make a move to bring him in. For his size, he is really a poor rebounder. As for Larry Hughes . . . ugh. Only if he has in his contract that he must not try to be a playmaker or shoot the ball beyond 15 feet.

It is an impressive feat by Smoove. The only problem though, with comparing him with those great players, is that those other players had much more impressive numbers that went over 15 - 8 and 4. Nonetheless, what Smoove has done so far this year is impressive. Lamar Odom has done it twice in his career. 03 - 04: 17.1 ppg 9.7 rebs 4.1 asst 06 - 07: 15.9 ppg 9.7 rebs 4.8 asst And he got very close to doing it 4 other times in his career. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/stats?playerId=617

Did you read my entire quote? I'd LOVE to have Chill on this squad right now. I didn't have a problem with Chill as a player. He's an energy guy. Yeah, he would disappear at times, but he was liable to come up big time as well. The luxury of being able to go with a Crawford - Evans - Chill lineup with the 2nd unit, would be great for this team. But I guess you'd want to start him over Marvin. I wouldn't have a problem with that either. Marvin's advantage was that he could hit the midrange jumper with more consistency than Chill could. But with Marvin's shot being off, I wouldn't have a problem at all with Chill starting.

Damn . . that's right!! LOL @ Isaiah . . . screwing the Knicks 6 years into the future. My God . . Imagine if Utah lucked out and got Wall . . . or better yet Demarcus Cousins?

It was announced that Woody was the leading candidate for the Nets job next year.

Uh oh . . . you guys have gotten Ex started on Chillz. He would be great on this squad, because you then have another legit player to bring off the bench with Crawford. At that point, all we would need is for either Zaza or Joe Smith to give the team consistent play, and we'd be set. But Chillz as a defender? Ummmm . . . no. Chillz was an energy guy. An offensive rebouding "monster" for a guy who played SF and didn't have any plays called for him. But seeing that our weakness is actually defensive rebounding, I don't know how much he would help in that area. Would love to have him on this team though.

Great post. JJ is the 21st century version of Mitch Richmond ( although Mitch was a little better than JJ ). And like you said, it's MVP awards and championships that usually determine a guy's Hall of Fame status. JJ would need 4 - 5 great playoff series, playing at a very high level . . and maybe at least 2 championships . . to get into the Hall. Until Paul Pierce won his championship, even he may have been left out of the Hall of Fame. I think he gets in now though. databasebasketball.com has something that they call the Hall of Fame monitor. It's a system in which they try to come up with a formula of achievements that is an indicator of who may get into the Hall of Fame . . or who is close to getting in. ******************************* The Formula ( from their website ) 75 points for each NBA MVP award Being an NBA MVP has been the best way to get into the hall. Every NBA MVP who is eligible for the Hall of Fame is in the Hall of Fame. When a player wins an MVP award, its almost as good as getting enshrined. 15 points for each All NBA First Team selection Being elected NBA First Team carries some weight with the hall. 80% of players who were All NBA First Team two or more times and are eligible for the hall of fame, are in the hall of fame. The percentage jumps to 96% for players with three or more NBA First Team selections. Being selected to an All NBA First team should be slightly easier for a forward or guard than a center because two forwards and guards are selected as opposed to one center. 1 point for each point of NBA career Approximate Value and .33 points for each point of ABA career Approximate Value Approximate Value is a statistical calculation that provides an idea of how much a player contributed to his team over the course of a season. The career AV will provide an idea of how much a player contributed to his teams over the course of his entire career. This component gives players credit for long, solid careers. ABA AV is not given as much credit as NBA AV. The AV is also slightly biased towards centers and forwards. 2.5 points for each point of NBA career Efficiency Efficiency is a measure of a players impact per game. Since it is a per game average, it helps players who had short, but spectacular careers. It is also the only component that can decrease over time. So a player who has a career EFF of 20.1 after five seasons, may fall off and only have a career EFF of 17.3 after 10 seasons. This means that the HOF Monitor score can actually fall for some players over time. EFF is slightly biased towards centers and forwards. 3.5 points for each NBA Championship Winning an NBA Championship is a good thing in the eyes of the Hall of Fame voters. It also gives that player some publicity and possibly enhances the perception that he is a great player. Players who play on multiple championship teams have a slightly increased chance of making the Hall of Fame. (-20) points for centers and (-15) points for forwards The slight bias towards centers and forwards that AV and EFF have needs to be acounted for with a penalty. Centers are penalized 20 points and forwards are penalized 15 points. Each player in our system has been assigned one single position. This is not ideal, but in most cases works out fine. Players who play multiple positions were given the position that they played most over the course of their career. *************************** According to them . . . the number a player needs to accumulate in his career is 135, in order to have a good shot to get into the Hall of Fame. 85% of the players who get to that 135 number, get into the Hall. 99% of the players with a number of 160, are in the Hall. Current players and their number, through the 08 - 09 season: ( all of these guys are locks ) Duncan - 441 Shaq - 366 Kobe - 331 Nash - 309 Garnett - 294 Dirk - 262 Iverson - 249 Lebron - 245 Kidd - 216 T-Mac - 136 ( he's definitely borderline. . . if his career ended this year, I don't know if he gets in ) Pierce - 128 ( I say he's in . . he's definitely in over T-Mac ) Wade - 125 ( he's in . . definitely ) Ray Allen - 123 ( he has his ring . . and is the most prolific 3 point shooter of all time . . so he's in ) Vince Carter - 121 ( hmmmm . . . close . . . if he wins a title this year, definitely ) Grant Hill - 119 ( I say no . . too bad he got hurt though, because he was a lock. ) Howard - 119 ( not yet. . but he'll be a dominant force for 7 - 10 years . . so he probably will ) Chris Paul - 117 ( if he stays healthy . . . yes ) Shawn Marion - 114 ( no ) Elton Brand - 111 ( no chance now ) Andre Miller - 108 ( no ) Stoudamire - 104 ( if he would've gone to Cleveland, probably . . right now? . . no ) Billups - 102 ( thought his number would be a little higher. If Denver wins it all, this helps his case to get in ) Mike Bibby - 100 ( surprised? But no . . definitely not now with him regressing ) Sheed - 99 ( nope ) Pau Gasol - 99 ( if he keeps playing with Kobe and they win another title or two . . he may have a shot ) Baron Davis - 98 ( no chance ) Parker - 97 ( He has 3 rings, but probably needed to win a Finals MVP at least once ) Jamison - 97 ( no ) Jason Terry - 95 ( no ) Joe Johnson - 87 In other words, he has a long way to go.

But if the 06 - 07 Hawks had been as healthy as the 09 - 10 Knicks, wouldn't the Hawks have a much better record than the Knicks? I mean, the running joke that season was that our projected starting 5 ( Speedy - JJ - Marvin - Smoove - Zaza ) had played like a total of 5 games with each other all season. We were missing one and two starters all year that season. Then, when it looked like we were finally going to get everyone healthy in March to make a remote run at that 8th spot . . . JJ goes down, and management decides to basically deactivate him. To say that team underachieved, when they were so young and so decimated by injuries, is unfair to that group. I mean, good lord . . . 13 different people started a game for the Hawks that year. Lorenzen Wright started 31 games. Royal Ivey started 18 games. LOL . . even Cedric Bozeman started 5 games. That squad easily wins 35 - 40 games if relatively healthy. That wasn't a 30 win team. Woody gets a complete pass from me in Year 1. That was a D-League team led by Antoine the Gunner. Year 2 was JJ's first year, and the team doubled their win total, but that team was garbage also Year 3 was the 06 - 07 season, which was killed by injuries. Year 4, was the 07 - 08 season. That's the season in which you can say that they underachieved . . but was saved by the Bibby trade and made the playoffs. Year 5 we make the big jump and post our first winning record in a decade, and win a 1st round series And now we're in Year 6. D'Antoni is in Year 2 up in New York. They're worse offensively this year, than they were last year. Maybe T-Mac makes them a little better this year . . . or maybe they tank the season in a few weeks and try to luck up and get John Wall. Like Woody, he's going to need some players, before he sees things turn around up there. His coaching alone isn't going to turn those guys around. He's not all that hot of a coach anyway, if you listen to Suns fans.

Hmmmmmmm . . . . let' see. Missed games by the 06 - 07 Hawks: Speedy - 40 Chill - 27 Lue - 26 Johnson - 25 Marvin - 18 Smoove - 8 Zaza - 8 ( LOL . . . I know it was a "long time ago", but this shouldn't have faded from your memory bank. Hmmmmmmmmm #2 Record of 06 - 07 Hawks going into Feb 23, 2007: 21 - 33 Record of 09 - 10 Knicks going into Feb 23, 2010: 19 - 36 Hmmmmmmmmm #3 Final Jeapordy question: "His NBA teams over a 4 year span averaged an offensive ranking of 1.5 out of 30 teams, when Steve Nash ran his offense. When Nash didn't run his offense, his teams over a 3.5 year stretch averaged an offensive ranking of 17.25 out of 30. Name him.