thecampster

Arbitrary stats? Arbitrary range of games? Last 2 months is not arbitrary. points, rebounds assists, steals, blocks, turnovers are not arbitrary. These are the main stats in basketball. they are the baseline of all things.

You can't win this argument man. I just supplied 2 months of stats that show Joe and Al performing worse than the first half of the season and Josh performing better. The stats also show Josh performing as well or better than both. Yet people ignore the obvious evidence and follow the mob mentality. 2 months of stats don't lie. The haters will continue to hate and they are the ones that will scream the loudest.

I love how you turned 43% shooting in a quarter into costing us a game from a player who shot 62% for the game scored 33 and grabbed 12 boards....and completely ignore your boy Horford scoring 8 points on 12 shots and can't see that as being why we lost the game. Or how you are ignoring Horford's averages over the last 2 months of 14.3 points and 8.9 rebounds and only drawing 2.3 free throws a game. Or how you are ignoring JJ's 16.2 ppg and 2.4 t/o a game and only 2 Free throw attempts a game in February and March and are continuing to ignore that Josh has led the team in scoring at 17.7 a game on 49.4% shooting the last 2 months while averaging 8.4 rebounds, 2.9 assists and lowering his turnovers over that time. People on this board need to to start paying attention to the stats and stop being blinded by their hate. Josh has been the statistically best player on this team for months now. Here are the stats the last 22 games (since the losing began) .....................Josh..........Al..........Joe Points.........17.7.........14.3.......16.2 Reb..............8.4............8.9..........3.9 *ss..............2.9.............3.8..........4.1 STL..............1.3........... .8............. .7 Bks.............1.4............ .8.............. .1 T/O............. 2.3 .......... 1.5 .........2.4 The problem is your 126 million dollar man and Al's dip since the all star game. Jamal has been just as big a problem.

No they don't but in all fairness, Niremetal is one of the more fair in general. (and definately not kissing up as he and I butt heads in other areas) In my opinion, Josh has been the best player on the team for 2 years now. Joe to me is a volume shooter that only gets to the line in the last 2 minutes of wins. To me, Al is dependable, tough and a very, very good player. A very close second. But Josh affects every part of the game. The only argument in my opinion against Josh is his high number of unforced turnovers. But his overall play more than makes up for that. We complain a lot about Josh and to some extent Al handling the ball a great deal far from the basket but that is the role they've been cast in because Joe is not the ball handler his reputation foretold.

Those stats are skewed. Jamal and Joe shoot the free throws at the end of games when we have leads and shoot all the Tech foul shots. Those are not foul shots earned but instead, given.

My biggest one recently. I moved back to Georgia in 2007 and when I came I was fortunate enough to have excess money. So not sure what to do with it I just put it down on my house thinking "property is always a solid investment". Also, I bought on the west side of town excited about how much house I could get for the money. I got a great deal when I bought it...it appraised for 232k, bought it for 215k. It is now worth about $160k. I work north side now. 50 mile drive to work and can't sell the house without losing the money I put down. So I now do a 100 mile round trip commute 5 days a week (2200 miles a month). This great deal in housing costs me $300 a month in gas now. I was so wrong. On a different note, anyone living within 15 minutes of Alpharetta want to trade houses????? 5 bed, 3 bath, mountain views :) :) :) and on a more basketball related note. I thought the Priest Lauderdale pick was solid.

There's a lot of truth in this. Last night while watching the game with my boys, I kept commenting during the game that the problem with Teague isn't ability, it's confidence. That he was fairly ruined last year by our old coach and at times has played tentative. Specifically I said, "You can't drive the lane hoping not to make a mistake." Especially late in the game, there was an extra step on his drives to the basket as he wasn't afraid to miss.

But to be fair, the 16 million a year Joe eats in salary could be being used on a player that fits better with them. that's a consideration .

Old thread...very pertinent in light of there now is "Crying in Basketball".

For the record, I stated repeatedly before the season started the Heat would not be world beaters due to lack of point guard and Center play. This isn't shocking to me. They are not well constructed. Not signing Bosh and instead obtaining an equivalent 1 or 5 would have been a better constructed team. Similarly, the Hawks are also poorly constructed in that they are not big enough (both height and weight where it matters) and evenly balanced offensively.

That I even have to make this case is just a sad commentary on the state of Hawksquawk. If you have been watching the games you would know that the hawks are 37 and 26. Joe Johnson has played in 22 of those 26 losses. in those 22 losses his stats are: 17PPG 154 of 362 (42.5%) 7 of 16.5 average 20 of 95 from 3PT for (21%) What is my point? 22 losses, on average Joe gets 17 points on 16.5 attempts (basically 1 point a shot), he's attrocious from 3. these numbers are even skewed a little by a 23,23 and 34 point games in losses at the beginning of the season. After that point he's averaged less than 16 points a game in our losses. This means that when the Hawks need him, he's just average. That's not what a max player is. He's supposed to pick his team up, not just be average. These numbers are extremely telling. compare it to Marvin's body of work during the year. Marvin is only taking 8.4 shots a game but is averaging 10.5 points a game. This means that Marvin is getting 1.25 points per attempt and we kill him nightly. Joe is getting 1.03 points per attempt in our losses. Chew on that....let it sit on your pallet and see if it doesn't make you want to vommit. Average Marvin offensive efficiency is 22% better than Joe's efficiency in our losses. As a further comparison...Josh is 16.7 PPG on 13.6 attempts a game for the year (1.23 points per attempt). Al is 16.0 ppg on 12.3 attempts a game this year (1.30 points per attempt). Since joining the team, Kirk Hinrich is 11PPG on 8 attempts a game (1.375 points per attempt). Now really really really chew on it...Joe is on average .21 to .37 points per attempt worse than each of these players averages when you look at Joe's performance in losses....16.5 attempts.... .3 points per attempt worse = 5 points a game. Now go through our losses and see how many games were we within 5 points in the last 3 minutes. That is why it's Joe johnson's fault. 14 of our losses are by 10 points or less. Joe Johnson is currently giving you no more than Stephen Jackson or last year's John Salmons but at 2 to 3 times the price.

And a +1 for you sir...sorry I can't make it a +100. That's the point. Offense is for show, Defense is for Dough.

Next year, those numbers are wrong by about 8 million. I have a thread I made on this around Sunday ish.

Actually, not completely true. Just as important in my opinion is the subtraction of Mo Evans. I can't understand why Mo got so much burn. His team concept defense was almost as bad as Bibby's man defense. Mo drove players on this team nuts by being in the wrong spot on both ends of the floor. Being a long term Hawk, he had to be barked into the right spot way too often and was just as bad as Bibby fighting through screens. Clearing space for Wilkens to get time on the floor was nearly as important. If Damien can rediscover his just average offensive skills, this move does set us up for a run. New York only beat us on Guard and Bench Guard play their one win, Miami only gives us trouble when playing off screens (that is no longer a problem now). Rondo is no longer a world beater with Kirk slowing him down. The only real match up issues left are Dwight Howard and our own injury situation.

When in Chat, I like to read more than post. you guys can be hilarious at times.

Actually Josh went out in the loss, he's was in for the 2 wins.

Come on...someone....anyone. Hinrich just stuck it in the Bulls eye.

OMG...i can't believe you guys are even discussing this. in order for Mike to score, Wade/James/Bosh has to pass him the ball. I'll take Mike shooting on a kick out over James getting and 1's all day long. Hawks chances will be determined primarily by HEALTH. Our defense is light years better now. But take away 2 pieces (see last night) and that solid D quickly evaporates.

I understand where you are coming from but you need to reread my post. The entire roster of 7 is pretty much committed for the Dwight sweepstakes. One of the main draws of bringing Dwight is to play with his best friend Josh Smith. Josh, AL, Joe together will be making $44,952,645 in Dwight's free agency year. The current NBA Salary cap is $58 million. There is talk of the cap going down, not up. Bu assuming we gave away Teague, Zaza, Marvin for nothing (or expirings), let Kirk walk and signed no one else, we would only have about 13 million a year for Dwight (he's a max player obviously). Also, if you haven't traded Josh by then you won't do so at all because Josh would be expiring at the end of that year and that's a huge draw for someone. This is it and or Joe has to go and we aren't keeping Craw. If you also look at Marvin/Zaza's combined cap hit in 2011/2012 it's 12.25 , million. In 12/13 Zaza is a FA...and Marvin is on a player option for 7.5 million (which at this point I'm sure he'll have to take). We are hosed if we can not do it this year and or trade Joe's monster deal.

I've been looking pretty heavy at the Hawks after the Bibby trade and trying to make sense of their cap situation. Current situation for 2011/2012 is this: 7 players under contract. (all signed through 2013 except Kirk) Joe - $18 million Josh - $ 12.4 million Al - 12.0 million Kirk - 8 million Marvin - 7.5 million Zaza - 4.75 million Teague - 1.6 million Total: 64 million. Meaning as currently constructed we can only sign new players for the minimum or the exception except for our own players. Given the current numbers we only have 8 million before the luxury tax and must sign 5 players minimum. Givens: Etan, Powell will not be back. there are only a couple of possibilities I can see for juggling the roster. the way I see it, Joe - Marvin - Zaza are our 3 albatross contracts. Josh, Al, Kirk (assuming he's 15/6 like his career when starting at the point) give you reasonable production for their salaries. But Joe's salary is just too large when making choices between he and Al/Josh at 2/3rds the cost. Either Joe or Jamal will get traded.....either Jamal in a sign and trade or Joe in a multiplayer shakeup. The Hawks can not afford both with Josh/Al eating up 24 million (1/3 of the Luxury Tax threshold). the problem is created because Joe/Al/Josh get a combined 9.2 million dollar raise next year. (mostly Al then Joe). So I'm guessing Joe is traded in the offseason for 2-3 contracts, one of which would be a starting caliber shooting guard. Then, 2 of the 3 of Zaza, Marvin, Jamal are then trade for 3+ players. I think this is it guys...this is the ASG's run at a title with this core...I think there is a small blow up in the offseason if we do not reach the ECF. The roster will get too thin otherwise without cap/LT room to replenish.

That's what I was thinking. At least we're getting something out of being shorthanded. At this point, the regular season doesn't mean much to me. I'm much more interested in being completely healthy (something we haven't had in the past) and focused come playoff time. I think tonight we learned some valuable things. We Kirk this week we were just burying good offensive teams due to better flow, defensive intensity. We were in control of this game before Josh went down. We were up 10 around the time he went out and it went south from there. I'm not saying that these 2 players are the team. I am saying that unlike past playoff years, we at least are developing a core identity that when clicking and healthy is hard to beat. Lastly, if Kirk was injured and made that big of a difference, imagine Kirk healthy....Teague getting 15-20 and playing confident. This team will be much improved in April.

Speaking truth to power like always. The reality is Teague can do good things for us when he's in with the main starting 4. But for now, he's got a way to go before he can stand on his own...tonight shows that.

And honestly I'll take the warning to stop people from constantly hijacking legit threads.

Notice the effect of my statement. An obvious exxageration and lampooning. Your comments on Teague and Hinrich are so far of a reach that they seem just the same. I love Teague man. I think in 2 years he will be the real deal but there is a reason that 1 year college point guards rarely succeed out of college. The BBIQ required to play the point in the NBA is so much higher than any other position on the floor it's unreal. As shown by the change in the team by just removing Bibby's SPF-3 level defense from the floor, the team is playing out of it's mind defensively. The same is true on the other end of the floor. When Bibby, Crawford, Joe and at times Teague were running the squad, our bigs eventually went rogue and just started running the break themselves (or worse yet playing facilitator at the top of the key during half court sets) because they could not trust the Guards to beat them down the floor and or give the ball up to a finisher at that end. On what other team in the league are the Center and PF the most effective at running the break? There was a play tonight where Hinrich was on the right side of the floor, took the screen from Josh and drove right. He pulled the Double and didn't even have the ball. He had discretely bounce passed the ball behind his back to Josh on the pick and pop. Josh actually missed the shot because he had no rhythm. When the bounce was head right up into his hands he had a look of absolutely shock on his face that the return pass was there so quickly and on the money. He lazied into position assuming he would have time before getting a return. You can't fault Hinrich. He is just so far ahead of that part of the game right now that it is he that looks out of sync at times. in time, our studs will mesh with him at the point and things will get downright Globetrotter for short stretches (you've seen some of that already). If you truly love Teague that much than you should be loving this trade. Most PGs in the game have some form of serious flaw in their game. Nash is a weak in a number of defensive areas. Some are bad outside shooters. Some are below average passers, foul prone, etc. In Kirk you have good at all, master of none PG. But he has no glaring deficiency. Teague can truly learn from him by guarding him in practice, working with him in drills on the side, picking his brain, etc. Your boy's best friend should be Kirk Hinrich because it's from learning from someone fundementally sound like Kirk that JT will take that step to having a 12 year career as a starter instead of going the way of Salim.