thecampster

<----- has spent the last 2 days shaking his head at this story and the responses. Speeding is bad, tailgaiting while speeding is bad, marijuana is bad, MDMA is bad....all 4 together is even worse than announcing at your wedding reception that Melissa McCarthy is your dream girl for a threesome with your new wife. Can some of you please stop trying to justify any of this this?

http://www.freep.com/story/sports/nba/pistons/2015/07/23/josh-smith-los-angeles-clippers/30560381/ Life, only making $1.5 million this year, must be rough.

Uhm....I have no idea where you get that Bazemore is "far more athletic" nor do I understand that I pay Bazemore the compliment that his game/nba path makes him a good mentor for GR3 and you seem to think I've not paid Baze his due....saying someone should mentor someone is a huge compliment. Jeff Teague might have something to say about that. I really have yet to find another point guard that can stay in front of a healthy Teague. Let's see Bazemore. 6'5" 205 GF/SF, 26, came into the league on his defense and is building a better offensive game. Shot poorly in his first 2 seasons with GS but went to a better fit in the Lakers and up'd his FG% to 45%. Built his game on hustle. GR3. 6'6" 222, SF, 21. came into the league on his defense. Needs to build a better rounded offensive game and improve his shot. Shot poorly in his first 2 seasons but looks to have a better fit in Atlanta. Will make the roster based on hustle. Nope, not similar at all. One last thought. GR3 is ambidextrous.

Speaking of which, Kent Bazemore would be the perfect mentor for GR3, with GR3 having a higher ceiling.

That is a really easy answer. He has played on 2 teams that are both A) heavily invested in other young talent and B) notoriously bad at player development (Philly and Minnesota). See Link http://sports.yahoo.com/news/timberwolves-waive-forward-robinson-claim-center-hamilton-233031769--nba.html Complicating matters, last year in Philly he had a very Josh Smith like year shooting 41.9% FG%, 30.8% 3PT% and 50% FT%. Although extremely talented, he has relied on athleticism to this point and needs to become a gym rat working on his shooting/footwork and positioning. He has been on teams in Minny and Philly who don't have the minutes or patience for a 2 year development plan. However, if he came in here and worked on his game like DMC, the sky is the limit for this kid.

The good news is most of you aren't in charge. The reality is that Josh Smith is a very comparable player to Sap. In Josh's last season in Atlanta, he was statistically a clone of Milsap and would be playing for us right now for 5 million less. But that isn't even what we are talking. Would you take a second Milsap, a slightly worse shooter but superior post player and better wing defender for $4 million. Cuz that's all you got available for Smith...an exception level deal. Would you start Sap at the 3, while bringing Smith off the bench for 20 minutes a game or to guard one of those players going nuts against our bench. I have seen Josh guard Lebron as well as pretty much anyone can guard Lebron and for us to get out of the East this year...we will need an answer to Lebron (even for only 10-15 minutes a game). Anyone who says they wouldn't want Josh on this team, coming off the bench for a piddly 4 million is smoking something.

forward to the 6:50 mark to get an idea of what they are getting.

For those wanting to see Tavares. January game. Begins with Tavares jumping for the tip. By the way...the Gran Canaria Point guard / guards are rough....makes me appreciate Dennis.

One more thing about Pero's 173 3PT Attempts...that was in only 63 games and 19 minutes a night. Using PER36 numbers and 82 games....that's a 426 3 point attempt pace for a season. Given his make rate...that's 298 missed possessions a year if just one player over 36 minutes a game did that. I was one of the stronger proponents of Josh Smith on this board and tolerated his 3 attempts. The posters on this board killed Josh for taking 3's. In Josh's final season in Atlanta, he averaged 2.6 3PT attempts per game, shooting 30.3%. Pero averaged 2.8 3PT attempts per game while shooting 30.1% and playing 16 less minutes per night than Josh. Now if Josh Smith was the biggest A-Hole north of Savannah for averaging 2.6 3's a game playing 35 minutes...Pero is the mayor of A-Holeville for shooting .2 more per game in almost half the time and for a .2% lower percentage. To Josh's credit, his overall shooting percentage that year was 46.5%...and his overall numbers were higher than Sap's this past year....beating him in PPG, RPG, APG. Pero gives you none of that.....not only does he bring every bad quality Smith brings (chucking 3's, complaining to Refs), but he averages only 36% total FG%, 5.7 PPG, 3.0 RPG and was ineffectively defensively and he played exclusively the 5...at least Smith played some at the 3 where you are supposed to shoot those. Chris Dimino for 680 the fan told the funniest joke about Pero this year. He said (paraphrasing), "If those cops wanted to get Pero away from that night club entrance, they should have told him there was a basketball goal above the door. He would have backed up 25 feet immediately". Pero just backed his way all the way back to Europe.

25 minutes a game, Splitter is going to play Center. Horford is going to play Center 10 minutes a game and PF 20-25 min a game. Sap is going to split similar time between the 4/5. Tavares and Moose are going to get about 10 minutes a game each. Assuming we keep Thabo, he will backup SAP at the 3, Korver/Bazemore will split time at the 2 and 3...Hardaway JR will fit into that mix as well as Korver recovers. Teague and Dennis obviously at the 1. The rotation will look like this: Teague/Dennis/ Bazemore/Hardaway/Korver (starter or 6th man if healthy) Sap/Thabo/ Horford/Moose/Scott Splitter/Tavares That right there is 12 players...Mack not included though he should be back. Currently, Scott, Thabo, Mack, Bazemore are all trade bait.

From setting a ton of moving screens to wasting 2 possessions a game taking 3's to being no where near the basket for rebounds (a 265 lb. center has no excuse for only pulling down 1 rebound every 6 minutes of playing time), Pero's BBIQ was Euro trash. If you could justify for me how Pero had a high BBIQ, I would really be interested to hear it.

They owned the rights to the players for various reasons. We signed Demarre and Milsap 2 years ago. They had no bird rights meaning the team could not resign them and violate the cap doing so. This is to stop teams/players from gaming the system and signing 1 year deals and the reupping for the max the next year.

Just a few stats for the people who are wondering why we grabbed Tiago for what will probably be one of the Wizard's 2nd round picks (FYI, a very similar method we used to get Korver). 2014-2015 Splitter - 19.48 MPG - Anti&#263; - 16.27 Splitter - 55.8% FG% - Anti&#263; - 36.5% Splitter - 8.2 PPG - Anti&#263; - 5.7 PPG Splitter - 4.8 RPG - Anti&#263; - 3.0 RPG Splitter - 0 (3PT Attempts) - Anti&#263; 173 Forget everything else you've heard or thought, but a backup Center taking 173 3PT-Attempts and shooting 30% from 3 is idiotic. At least you know Splitter will play close to the basic and at least box out. In 2012-2013, Splitter got 24 minutes a game where he went for 10/6.5. I'll take that.

Lets talk personal defense for a second. The number 1 enemy of defense is missed shots on your offensive end. The worse your offense plays, the more fast break opportunities the other team has. I don't have the stats in front of me at the moment, but there was an article a few years back that detailed the statistics of offensive efficiency based on how the possession started. Baskets after a steal was tops, baskets off a block second, baskets off a rebound on a 3 points attempt was 3rd, followed by baskets off a missed two pointer, then baskets out of a timeout was next and last in the list was taking the ball out of bounds following a made shot. The crux of the article was that defense is inversely proportional to offensive efficiency on the other end. A small part of THj's defensive issues result from a very bad offense. Another part is based on him playing a significant amount of minutes at the 3 and the Knicks being a poor defensive team in general (next to last in the East). Again, reserve judgment until you've seen him in the Hawks system for some period of time. But serious point guard issues (ball control) and an offensive chucker mentality leads to easy baskets on the other end by the wings and reduces the individual defensive stats of the opposing wing.

I think the important piece of missing information here is the guy is only 23. Most players don't even begin to peak until 25-28. Consider Teague who is 4 years older than THjr. Teague's first year in the league he shot 39.6%, played 10 minutes a game and averaged 3.2 points. Both THjr and Teague entered the league at the same age and Hardaway's numbers are far and away better during the first 2 years. I'm more than willing to wait and see the player he is in 2 years.

No, in Atlanta we play a lot of 2 handle guards set....problem being that when Korver was at the 2, he couldn't really fill that role.

Well you obviously failed to see the point of my post.

Player 48-Minute Production by Position Position FGA eFG% FTA iFG Reb Ast T/O Blk PF Pts PER* PG 23.0 .485 4.9 24% 3.5 4.2 .0 .0 4.9 26.5 16.5 SG 20.9 .509 4.6 19% 4.3 3.7 2.4 .4 3.3 25.0 14.0 SF 18.9 .365 3.9 22% 5.0 3.2 2.4 .3 3.3 16.8 4.6 Opponent Counterpart 48-Minute Production Position FGA eFG% FTA iFG Reb Ast T/O Blk PF Pts PER* PG 12.5 .417 9.1 22% 3.5 7.7 4.2 .0 2.8 16.7 9.7 SG 18.6 .533 5.0 22% 5.0 4.8 2.4 .3 3.6 23.9 16.0 SF 13.7 .508 3.3 28% 7.6 4.1 1.8 .6 3.0 16.6 13.7 Net 48-Minute Production by Position Position FGA eFG% FTA iFG Reb Ast T/O Blk PF Pts PER* PG 10.4 .068 -4.2 2% .0 -3.5 4.2 .0 -2.1 9.8 6.8 SG 2.2 -.024 -.4 -3% -.7 -1.1 .0 .1 .2 1.1 -1.9 SF 5.2 -.143 .6 -6% -2.7 -.9 -.7 -.2 -.3 .2 -9.1 Interesting here is a huge PER differential when Hardaway played the PG position and terrible at the SF. I think he's going to play a combo guard for us and this was an analytics decision.

One more very interesting and close comparison. Avery Bradley's 1st year with Boston was a train wreck. His second year was much improved. But In Bradley's 3rd year in the league (same age as Hardaway's last season were. 28.4 mpg, 40.2% fg%, 31.7 fg%, 75.5% ft%, 2.2 rpg, 2.1 apg, 1.4 t/o, 1.3 spg. The next two seasons he pushed his fg% over 43% and his ppg to 14.4ppg. I think if Hardaway could put up those number people here would be very happy.

I will highlight 2 players here. Player one...born Sept 15, 1993. 17.07 mpg, 7.5 ppg, 41.7% FG%, 32.6 3pt%, 79.7% FT%, 1.8 rpg, 3.3 apg, 1.7 t/o, .5 spg Player two...born Mar 16, 1992. 23.3 mpg, 10.8 ppg, 40.8% FG%, 35.3 3pt%, 81.3% FT%, 1.8 rpg, 1.3 apg, .9 t/o, .4 spg There are two main differences between these two players. One of these players had to fight with the constant problems in New York and fight a ball hogging sf/pf in Carmelo Anthony. He had to start occasionally and shoulder the burden of being an instant contributor. The other player was allowed to develop in a system conducive to his skill set and level of immaturity, in a city with low expectations. The first set of stats belong to Dennis Schröder (first 2 years in the league), the second to Tim Hardaway Jr. for his first 2 seasons. I for one am excited to see what Bud and company do with THJ....I was pining for the Hawks drafting him on draft night and I wish he would have developed here.

Laettner in college, 6-11, 235lbs 16.6 ppg, 57% FG%, 48.5% 3pt %. 7.8rpg, 1.8APG Kaminsky, senior season, 7-1, 242lbs 18.8 ppg, 54.7% FG%, 41.6% 3pt%, 8.2 RPG, 2.6 APG Laettner played on a better team and benefitted in many ways. Kaminsky has a much softer touch and better post game but is a better stretch 4 than most. He boxes out very well but is too light to be a great rebounder. If Kaminsky adds 20 lbs...he'll be dominant.

@JetSet How so? IMHO the league is currently geared more to Laettner's skill set than when he first came into the league.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=r80YAlwAAQw Okafor and Kaminsky on Truth or Dance

Kaminsky = Laettner+3 inches.

There is a real possibility that pick (or a combination of that pick and a player) could turn into Frank Kaminsky....Yes...I want the pick.