thecampster

Source: http://www.nba.com/playerfile/josh_smith/bio.html Have another drink of Haterade? I'm guessing if he had the top GPA on a team like Oak Hill, he can read a little. To clarify your Josh can't read comment, the proper start of your sentence should have been, "I mean, we're down". As long as we're calling someone iliterate, I thought you might appreciate the grammar lesson.

And yet another game where Joe Johnson has 5 turnovers, 6 points and is a non factor at both ends and instead Josh is criticized for shooting 43% for the night..1 make short of 50%. Has 7 assists and was the only Hawk not benched in the first quarter for lack of effort. Way to go Hawks fans.

You say Miami is easily better and I don't see it. We've had some real injury issues (35 games lost to our top 6 due to injuries/suspension). Tons of Back to Backs early on. a new offense to institute. 3 more road games than home and up until a few weeks ago, a break neck pace of games (we were fastest to 40 games by like 8 days). 4 games in the standings with a 3 game difference in road vs away between the teams is hardly (easily better). I really think it could come down to the last week of the season between these 2. That heavy home schedule and lack of quality opponents on the road is a big deal.

Let's put it this way. On the list of problems on this team to deal with...Smith is behind Mo Evans getting real minutes Marvin's inconsistency Bibby's defensive deficiencies/age Jamal's looming contract The size of Joe's contract Teague's lack of development Insert other common complaints Here Here Here Josh has shot less than 40% 14 times this year in 51 games. Of those times, he took more than 14 shots 4 times. I choose these numbers because the sampling is easily skewed with lower shot totals and shows a willingness in that game to defer. at 15 shots it takes 6 makes to shoot 40%. 8 to shoot over 50%. So only 4 times all year the guy has missed at that rate and continued to shoot. Compare that with Joe. in 10 less games played he shot less than 40% 18 times (4 more than Josh in 10 less games). 12 of those times he took 15 shots or more (8 more than Smith). Now I understand with JJ much of this was the elbow (I'm not saying switch the rhetoic to him). But I'm saying, the hate Josh gets is extraordinary comparitively. 12 of 41 games (29% of the time), Joe did what people were losing their minds at Josh for. 4 of 51 times Josh did it (8% of the time). It's so ridiculous it's beyond belief. If this was enough to call for Josh's head, by those numbers alone, Joe should have had the same happen 4 times as often (especially considering he makes 40% more). The overreaction a little over a week ago was crazy. When you look at the stats among the top minutes people on the team (lets say top 9). Josh is 1st in Steals, Blocks, 2nd in Points, 3pt %, rebounds, 3rd in FT attempts. I think the Hawks issues go much deeper than Josh Smith. If you really want a person to ship out of town, I would have to say tops of the list is Mo Evans. He's getting almost 18 minutes a game and is shooting 39%, 31% from 3, 1.8 rebounds a game, his defense is less than average, he's slow to rotate on the wing and it seems every game, at least once I see him cut left when someone is trying to feed him going to the basket or he stops short, pass goes off his hands...something. I think you can just up the t/o ratio of the team by his very presence. That Mo is getting 18 minutes a game when Damien Wilkens (at 1/10th the price) was out of a job 50 days ago is ludicrious.

The rest of February is mostly on the road making a huge disparity of Road vs away games to start the season. But March and April are not as bad as they seem. We should be healthy (says a prayer for Al's back as he says this). 15 of the last 22 are at home. In March, 12 of 15 are at home. Yes the teams are tough but we will be only traveling 3 times the whole month. 1 is the front half of a back to back with 2 days off. The other 2 are the back half of a back to back but they are at the Sixers and at the Cavs which are both winnable games. The Bulls by comparison have 7 home, 9 away in March. They play us once at home, 2 away. We control our own destiny with the Bulls. Not only do they play us 3 times but also Miami and Orlando on the road, Utah and the Hornets at home. Miami has to play 10 at home 5 on the road but teams they must face include....Orlando, San Antonio twice, Lakers, Chicago, OKC, Philadelphia, Houston and Denver. The reality is the Hawks have a much more favorable schedule than they are given credit for. The have 31 games left. 7 are road games against likely playoff teams. Take care of the home court, beat the teams you are supposed to beat and you could go 24-7 to finish the year. I'm not saying that will happen, I'm saying with only 14 road games left and those not being extremely tough, you have a shot to move up as high as number 2. They have 3 left with the Bulls with a 2 game margin. They have 2 left with Miami with a 4 game margin and many more home games than either. Only 7 back to backs left scheduled. 2nd or 3rd seed is very doable. I'm betting on 3rd seed, the Bulls schedule is not friendly. But Miami has a slew of teams to go through and their big 3 will not be getting much of a rest because of All Star weekend.

I am in no way discussing the "untouchable" status of any player. I was commenting on the ridiculous knee jerk reaction of a couple nights ago when Josh had a bad game and 9 or 10 members were yelling he was a bum and to get him out of town. I hate those fair weather, can't see the forest for the trees approach posts. You could have Josh having bad shooting nights but still shooting around 50%, blocking shots, getting steals, boards, assists and playing good team defense or you can get a different forward in here playing matador defense and getting abused. The same people yelling he's a bum are the ones screaming we should get an all star PG and NBA quality starting center in return for him. Which is it? Is he a bum or is he worth and allstar and a starter? Then he comes back on a night with AL out, other players hobbled and rescues the team on a night they probably should have lost to a very low quality opponent. News Flash, no Josh in that game and you lose to the Wizards. Just like the previous night...no Horford that night and you lose to the Clippers. More often than not it's Horf and Smith that win this team games by doing what it takes to win. Other players get their points, Horford and Smith win ball games.

This decision has nothing at all to do with the Hawks. Neither you, nor I have any idea what the Drews said around the coffee table in regards to his decision. You and I have no clue to their perspective. Sometimes people leave teams because of personal issues, family issues, maturity issues and most commonly with college athletes because they only get one shot at making it big. You have to take care of you because no one else will. There are only a few slots out there to make it big and if there is any chance you can slide into one, you need to do what you can to make that happen. Its easy to armchair quarterback and call him a quitter but he's been working his whole life for this one shot at riches and glory. His whole life, countless hours in the gym, getting yelled at by coaches, hitting the books to make sure his grades were right. As the father of two kids who played sports nonstop throughout their life and both were upper eschalon but just not quite there, you have no idea how much work there really is. I'll give you a clue. The sport is baseball. Starting in tball, 2 seasons a year for 3 years. 6 seasons, 72 games, 140ish practices later. Good thing its supposed to be fun at this age. 7-14. Two routes to take here. 2 seasons plus allstars in the summer or travel ball all year and fall ball in the fall (that is assuming you aren't a 2 sporter). If you do the 2 season plus allstars thing...it's 12 games a season plus 4 practice games at the beginning and a few playoff games at the end (we'll call it 4). So 2 20 game seasons a year...2 practices for every 1 game played. Allstars in the summer for 8-15 games with another 15 practices. Each year is about 50 games and 70-90 practices. in 8 years that's 400 games, 600 practices. Now the fun part of this, is that doesn't count all the one on ones with your father in the yard because few kids play high school ball at a school 2000 kids or more unless they had some commitment at home. If you play travel ball, you play for most of 5 to 7 months straight. About 60 games and practice 3 times a week. 4-5 day a week commitment. Then high school. Workouts start in November, 2-3 times a week after school to lift or throw in the gym. Then tryouts at the start of February and 5 day a week practices (6 for Varsity). This goes through November. Either games or practices. When all said and done a season is about 12 weeks 40+ practices and 20 games. Then a month off with only voluntary workouts and then you play the "voluntary" summer schedule. but if you don't play with voluntary high school team in the summer, you won't see the field much the next year. Summer is about 6 tournaments, 3 games + each and another 20 ish practices. So each year of high school ball is about 20 days of lifting/throwing...60+ practices and 40 games. 240 practices in 4 years and 160 games. Now imagine you are that kid who is a freshman in college. To this point, you've put endless hours in with you parents or paid professionals on the side. Played in over 700 games, over 1000 practices. You've not been able to work part time, haven't been able to get a car, or buy cool clothes for prom without begging off of your parents. Your parents have dropped an average 3-5 hundred dollars a year on your baseball for 14 years. You go to a school and find the opportunities you've worked for are getting snuffed by politics. You decide to leave school and attend a smaller school where you can be the man and get more personal recognition and maybe have a better shot. 700 games, 1000 practices, thousands and thousands of dollars later, people start questioning your commitment and calling you a quitter. Just putting it in perspective. You really have no idea what was said when Larry and his son talked it out. By the way, I've gone through it twice now (son is a junior in high school). I'm sugar coating it. It's really crazier but I didn't want it to seem ridiculous. Travel ball being the worst. Every weekend spent at tournaments...driving back and forth or dropping money on hotels and eating out. I honestly don't know how much time and money we put in over the years with both boys. I wouldn't trade it for the world but trust me, no one who's made it through to college D1 is really a quitter.

All of you that were screaming to trade Josh last week. Mr. Smith says, "How do you like me now?"

Check the Smith vs david lee thread. I show the defensive points per possession and the worst are primarily when crawford/bibby are on the floor together.

Just a side story. Before the season, myself and a few others were saying "why not consider Doug Collins". The Sixers started the year 3-13 and were left for dead. They have gone 19-13 since then and are currently the 6th seed. I love LD but I'd still take Collins in a heart beat. All he's ever done is develop talent and then have someone take over for him and finish what he's started. Just saying...I wish Collins was here.

Decided to use the same numbers for the offensive side. Josh's 5 mans are 1.056 points per possession (90 possesions = 95.04 ppg) Lee's 5 mans are 1.069 points per possession (90 possessions = 96.21 ppg) So Lee's offensive impact is 1.17 points per game more which can easily be attributed to system or any number of minor variables. comparisons like this are no different that polls or other samplings. They have a +/_ points of accuracy variance. This 1.17 offensive would probably fall in that variance. 8 ppg defensively would most probably not.

If you go deeper into the 5 man unit rotations, there are some really telling stats. On the Def stat line (points per possession of the opposing team) here are the 20 teams listed...in Bold are groups Josh is a part of. 1.05 1.12 .96 .99 1.04 1.00 1.02 1.28 1.02 1.01 1.32 Jamal at the point...small lineup 1.09 1.25 Bibby and Jamal on the floor at the same time with mo evans...very small lineup 1.02 1.01 .82 .80 FYI...best defensive lineup is still small but features Wilkens at the 3. .90 1.21 .94 Horford at the 4. Okay, now let's look at these same numbers for David Lee 1.05 1.20 .99 1.12 1.20 1.25 1.19 1.21 1.30 1.20 1.04 1.00 .95 1.46 .88 1.11 .90 1.27 .95 1.08 The best numbers for Lee all correspond to when Dorrell Wright comes into the game. It's an average of 1.10 points per possession when Lee is in the . In a 90 possession game that's 99 points a game. For Josh, it's as low as .8 and as high as 1.32 depending on personnel but it averages to about 1.02. in a 90 possession game, that's 8 less points a game. Imagine if you had 5 guys on a team who all made an 8 point per game difference defensively. Defense turns into easy transition baskets and is really worth twice it's weight. Answering the argument of Josh scores 16.1 a game with 3.4 assists and what does Lee have to do to be as worthy you could extrapulate from these numbers that Lee would have to score 24.1 points a game (currently 16.0) and maintain his current 3.5 assist level to equal Josh's impact.

Source: http://www.82games.com/1011/1011ATL2.HTM Josh is a part of 9 of the top 11 floor unit his team puts out. So is David Lee. So we need to compare deeper. Going further. David Lee's production while he's on the floor. Own 17.7....Opponent 18.9 (-1.2). Josh's production . Own 20.2...Opponent 14.7 (+5.5). You can score all you want...if you can't stop the other guy you lose.

hey...I appreciate that. Good news is I'm laying up my treasures elsewhere and don't need internet validation to feel good (still thank you).

Here's your what if question of this thread. If Josh, Joe, Al we dropped into the Jerry Sloan coached Utah Jazz 15 years ago to be paired with John Stockton and Greg Ostertag, would Joe Johnson still be the MVP of this team. I would venture to say that if Jerry Sloan were running the show and a solid pick and roll point was the floor general, Al and Josh would both be averaging 20+ and Joe would be averaging 15 points a game much like he was in Phoenix. Offensive stats are inflated/deflated based on philosophy and personnel. But what can't be disputed is the impact the 3 of them make on the defensive end of the floor. Al is only a truly solid, great defender at the 4 but does a very good job when asked to step out. Joe is very good against shooters, not the best against small, fast guards and not at all good in help/break defense. Josh is the only one of the 3 that can guard well in all 3 roles and is the only one other teams plan their offensive game plan around. I think Sekou was thinking more of Josh the all around player, instead of Josh the offensive player. All around, I believe Josh is more valuable to this team than either but if we are talking properly coached, with the right personnel and positioned...it would be Al. If we are talking points scored and ability to get your own shot than of course a guard wins.

He spends the first 3 quarters listening to you bash him I guess. Seriously. Let's start with a little Mo Evans bashing before we even touch the real players on the team. Why did we even sign Damien Wilkens if we are going to give Mo Evans this kind of undeserved burn? Josh played 23 minutes scored 17 points on 50% shooting and grabbed 7 rebounds but fouled out and was not happy about it. Other than the attempted tap out where he smacked Nowitski in the head, I didn't see anything happen by him that was worse than what happens to him on every non foul called drive to the basket.

Milwaukee scored 34 points in the 4th quarter. They scored an average of 21.3 the other 3. That's why they lost. Crappy 4th quarter defense loses games every time. Before you guys ship Smith out of town, I'd like to point out he is the only Hawk of the starting 5 to have a positive +/- for the night. In order. Bibby -14 Horford -13 Johnson -6 Collins -4 (13+ minutes) Smith +1 Notables Marvin -6 (12+ minutes) Evans -5 (13+ minutes) 3 blocked shots by Smith (0 for rest of team) 11 rebounds (led team).

I have noticed less travel during back to backs this season. During most of them we've seemed to play at least one game at home. That's one airplane right, not 2. Also, i think LD's rotations have limited the wear and tear on players this year (although injuries haven't helped). Also, if you remember during the offseason, LD was hyping conditioning. The players were running non stop and there was a lot of talk about it. That might be helping some on the back to backs.

just to add some clarity. Josh was 6 of 18 but Joe was 8 of 24, Al went out with a sprained ankle, no Marvin again. Given the opportunity for happy Josh shooting poorly or putting the game in the hands of Mo Evans, I'd have to take happy Josh. There were a few sets out there where you would have had to consider Jason Collins your number 3 option (eeek). Crawford was 8 of 15 and Bibby shot well too. Personally on nights Joe is not shooting well, I'd like to see a draw and kick game with Joe and Bibby for Bibby to get more 15-20 foot jumpers. He just automatic from there if he catches in rhythm and it's our best way to take the burden off Joe and Crawford.

And Miami is losing to the Clippers at the half by 10

One of the biggest reasons for that is Al and Josh are willing to give the ball up to each other and their teammates (as evidenced by their assist numbers). The same can not be said for our guards (other than Bibby) as they tend to dominate the ball whenever allowed. Even Teague has fallen into this trap. In a game last week he had 3 break aways with players trailing and each time he insisted on trying to take a bigger player to the bucket alone instead of using the trailer. Joe won't pass unless there is no shot there or time is running down and Jamal and Jordan Crawford have little conscious. Running more through Al and Josh would be beneficial. Much like the Jordan/Pippen Bulls did. Pippen and Grant handled the ball and facilitated a great deal.

That reason is he was 40lbs overweight....an issue that has been corrected and shows in his athleticism. He would be a terrible fit for a team that has trouble scoring. He would be a God send for a team like Golden State who was badly exposed tonight in the paint. for our team, a team with 2 very athletic players in Smith and Horford, his difficiencies are easily compensated for.

Discovered something disturbing in my stat digging this morning. The hawks have played 31 games thus far. They are 19 and 12. they have played 18 games against team who are not currently in the playoffs. 13 against teams that are. That means they've played a soft schedule and it's going to get harder. By contrast San Antonio has played 28 games, won 25. They've played 14 playoff teams, 14 non playoff teams. Not only has San Antonio won more but they've played a harder schedule. Boston has played 16 playoff teams only 11 non playoff teams. A much harder schedule. and of course they are better. This does not bode well for the Hawks. I know we've played with injuries and played more games (fatigue) but these numbers suggest we are really barely better than a .500 club. piling on to something graymule said in another post. Fatigue may have something to do with it. We've played more games that anyone else in the league right now, 31. A few have played 30. most have played 28 or 29. Sacremento has played only 26. I know there were a lot of back to backs but didn't realize we were that far ahead. That may help with rest come playoff time.

He was a consistent outside shooter in high school. A do it all player. No idea why he couldn't shoot at first in the pros.

That is not it...period. The author does not know what the problem is but was only offering conjecture based on widely held opinions. Truth be known, none of us know what is said in the locker room or behind closed doors. We don't know he's defying the coach and neither does the article writer. Logic would tell us that if he's shooting 3 times as many jumpers this year, it's because it's a part of the offense. This is just another national writer who doesn't know anything about the Hawks making wild conjecture. Josh wasn't benched because he shoots jumpers. Josh was benched because he was already 4-13 but hoisted up 2 more shots back to back, that were forced and missed them. He wasn't playing team ball. He was not only off but caught JJ disease and tried to shoot his way out of it. He tried to be a hero and I've noticed from Drew he'll have none of that. He pulled Crawford a few games earlier for the same thing. These bash Josh threads have really got to stop. The guy is 3rd on the team in points and assists, 2nd in rebounds, 1st in steals and blocks, has his FT percentage over 70% and is 2nd on the team in 3 point %. Other than 2.6 turnovers a game, he isn't hurting his team at all. Joe Johnson on the other hand signed a 120+ million dollar contract in the offseason while hiding an elbow injury from the team. He has seen a reduction in points, steals, rebounds, fg%, 3pt % and ft %. If you want to see someone who's killing this team right now, just look at ole' number 2. They are winning without him. The Hawks would not be so fortunate without Josh.