thecampster

Boston vs. Atlanta Matchup Bibby vs Rondo - Obviously Rondo Johnson vs Allen - I might be the 3rd biggest Joe hater on this board but Ray Allen is farther behind Joe than Bibby is behind Rondo. Marvin vs Pierce - Despite Marvin's solid Defense, Pierce is a Hawk killer and much much better. Josh vs Garnett - Garnett in his prime would win this matchup but this is old Kevin, not new. I'd take Josh in this matchup. Al vs Shaq - I love Shaq but let's be real about this. At his age and lack of mobility, Al runs circles around Shaq in almost every category. Bench - Audible sigh. Some nights we win this matchup but most nights we don't. It all depends on Jamal and Zaza. Matchup - Atlanta runs circles around Boston as they are slow and plodding and can't recover from their mistakes. Boston mistakes against a running team are guaranteed 2 points at the other end. Most teams can't match up with Boston's size but Boston executes at a snails pace and Atlanta is athletic enough to make up for Boston's pinpoint execution. We are not a better team than Boston but we are a matchup nightmare for them. Atlanta vs. Heat matchup Bibby vs Chalmers - Although not athletically up to Chalmers, I'll take Bibby's IQ in this matchup all day long. Bibby makes people around him better on offense and can still shoot lights out from 18 feet. Johnson vs Wade - Edge to Miami here but only a slight edge. Joe is a better defender and that makes up for his deficiencies in the offensive superstar category. Bron vs Marvin - Lebron wins this matchup going away but in Marvin's defense, he plays Lebron as well as anyone and lessens his impact some. Josh vs Bosh - Bosh is very talented but is not a complete player. He is a talented scorer and good rebounder but he is a space killer on the floor and is only a little better than average defensively. Slight edge Josh. Al vs whatever player they try next week - Al is far and away better than anyone would throw out there. Anyone that argues this is a blind Miami fan. Bench - Slight edge Atlanta. Miami's bench can't score with ours and are just holding the starters spots while they rest. Team play - It is obvious no one knows who to defer to in Miami. summary - We are a better "team" than the heat and a terrible matchup for Boston. Only teams with big centers that are the go to on offensive sets give us real trouble. I think this thread stands on it's claim.

I am so mystified by this thread I don't know where to begin. Jack, does your Josh hatred know no end? It's the preseason. during the preseason, each game the coach works on one aspect of the game. This is purposeful. It was obvious game one he was working on Marvin. It was obvious in the televised game the other night he was working on finding spots for Bibby's shielded J. The season hasn't even started yet and you're bashing the guy. None of these games matter and they are the time to try things, get things out of your system and experiment. Wait about 10 games before you start bashing a guy like this.

I got to watch the last 3 quarters. I'd have to say my high points from the game were seeing improved defensive effort from Joe. Joe getting his points in the flow of the game and not forcing. Marvin showing signs of being much better utilized in this system and maybe the best thing I saw was the multiple curl screens at the top to get Bibby open looks. That curl screen was there all night if they wanted it.

Haven't seen anything yet. Have they announced a date yet?

If you track the record of improvement, there are 2 things you can point to that have very little to do with the coach. The first, is that every year of the "improvement" we added players that were upgrades over the previous players. Second was the maturation of those players. The best example I can give is the year we added Bibby. We finished the year 15-17 after the Mike Bibby signing and that included losing our last 3 games. Before that we were 22-28 and on pace to miss the playoffs again with a 35-47 record. The Bibby signing left us 37-42 with 3 games left. The next season we came together with Bibby as a point guard. Here is the statistical improvement and the team transactions to the right. Year 1 2004-2005 - 13-69 Roster included - Antoine Walker, Al Harrington, Kenny Anderson, Boris diaw, Jason Collier, Josh Childress, Josh Smith, Jon Barry, Kevin Willis, Pedrag Drobnjak, Anthony Miller, Royal Ivey Year 2 2005-2006 - 26-56 Players added - Marvin Williams, Salim Stoudemire, Joe Johnson, Zaza Pachulia. (that was a 10 game improvement..those 4 players) Year 3 2006-2007 - 30-52 Players added - Sheldon Williams, Solomon Jones, Lorenzen Wright, Speedy Claxton (ouch). Remember that the Josh's and Marvin, johnson, salim and Diaw are a year older....only worth 4 games. This year is an indictment as player maturity of those 6 players alone should have accounted for something. Year 4 2007-2008 - 37-45 Players added - Al Horford, Acie Law, Mario West, Mike Bibby. All previous talent matured, added this, 7 game improvement. Year 5 2008-2009 - 47-35 Players added - Maurice Evans, Flip Murray, Randolph Morris. Josh, Marvin, Al all mature plus a full season with Bibby and this is worth 10 games. Year 6 2009-2010 - 53-29 Players added - Jamal Crawford, Jeff Teague. When you look at the steady building of the team, you realize that this team would have improved regardless of who coached it. Many times I perceived Woodson as a hinderance and not a help. Go through the list and only a few impact level players left...Diaw, Harrington and Walker.....Almost the entire team is drafted or traded for in getting rid of garbage.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/Dwight-Howard-makes-a-lady-s-day-life?urn=nba-268206

In my 39 years of being a basketball fan, player, coach, I have always observed, been told and taught that solid defense begins and ends with getting inside the other person's comfort zone and agitating the snot out of your own man. Never have I seen a lack of accountability been employed. "That is your man, stick with him" is the hallmark of any good coach. This is great news. Even if it's just lip service, it's better than saying "don't worry, you don't have to guard your man, just pass him to Josh and Al".

Here me out. Cleveland, decidedly worse. Orlando the same. Miami better but different. Washington, better because they're healthy. Chicago better, New Jersey, New York better, Boston a bit worse because of age. But how much does that affect our win loss total. We were 17-12 against these teams (I think I might be missing a game). That's hardly stellar but there were a number of losses in there we should not have taken. You have to think we could sweep Cleveland this year and just because a few of these teams are better doesn't mean they'll improve their win total against us. Specifically, New York and New jersey both got wins against us. I'll go out on a limb and say the Hawks finish 56-26 barring major injuries.

They used to do sub ratings there. Based on who you sub'd in for you took their rotational position on the floor regardless of what you were doing. My guess is Mo sub'd for JJ a lot and Josh came in for Mo at the substitution. Craw came in for Bibby a lot which by the way they used to do it when I was in to fantasy sports would have made Craw a point guard. Then when Teague they would go 3 guard sets, someone like Bibby would technically be the small forward or power forward based on who he replaced. They would log minutes based on that. Then they would "qualify" a player at that position based on if he played enough minutes at that position. Obviously that system didn't last long. I'm betting it's something like that though. It's also possible that his assist numbers being better than the majority of guards confused some nba illiterate intern filling out data in a database. We did use Josh a great deal last year as a "point forward". A point forward is a player that gets the ball at mid range and decides to drive, dish or reset the offense. Similar to the responsibilities of a point guard but about 10 feet closer to the basket. Again, some lackey filling out data probably noticed that and assumed that made him a guard.

Basketball is so much more than just marquee names. The players have to fit together on the floor. I see nightmares on that roster related to post play and point guard play. Who is going to distribute while driving to the basket? You still have to move without the ball, play your position and play solid team defense. I'm not sold that even with 3 24+ a game scorers that they can do the things necessary to mesh as a team. The Hawks on the other hand are going to have a much better offensive philosophy. They will play for Drew. They as a team had very little faith in Woodson. That alone is worth a couple of wins. They won't be switching Bibby onto small forwards and Horford onto point guards. Lastly, only Mike Bibby will be older in a bad way on this team this year. Horford, Williams, Smith, Teague should all be older in a good way. Do not discount this. It's like a minor upgrade at 4 positions out of our top 8. Based solely on continuity, the fall of Cleveland, the aging of the Celtics, I could see the Hawks winning 55+ games this year. I can see the Heat losing 10 games alone based on sharing the ball issues, an inability to play 5 man team defense and floor spacing. Now if Miami stays together 3 years, I could see them challenging that 71 win mark but not this year. Lastly, remember that it's a very long season. Miami has sunk so much money into the big 3 that if one of them goes down for any length of time, they will not have the system, players to make up the difference. I'm not saying they're a .500 team, but I am saying that it's not what it looks like on paper. I see a number of players on that roster that all move at different speeds, play different types of a team game. Getting the most out of their talent is going to be a nightmare. Getting shots for the anyone not named Bosh, Wade, Lebron is going to be hard and is going to take a mental toll on those players. When players with career averages of 12 points a game start scoring 6 a game, their ego's kick in.

I'm not sure the bad press is unnecessary. Even though I wish hateful things upon his king ness, I'm pretty sure there is an unwritten rule about not tapping your team mate's mama.

That is a good question and it's one repeated on this site it seems weekly. I'll do my best to explain the difference between a salary cap and a luxury tax threshold. The salary cap is kind of like a goal. It's a soft number that is a starting point for the limit you can spend. However, there are a number of exceptions that allow you to spend over the salary cap. The luxury tax is a set in stone number that has no exceptions except that in the event of midseason trades or salaries paid partially by the league only counting the amount you paid to the player against the tax. It is higher than the salary cap (a little over 70 million this year). If your total salary is above the luxury tax, you pay a 100% penalty on that money over the luxury tax threshhold to the league. So if you had a team payroll of 74 million you would pay 74 million in salaries and about 3.67 million in taxes back to the league for violating the luxury tax threshhold. So yes, you could go over the cap and yes you could go over the luxury tax to sign your own players. Going over the cap only proposes the penalty of not being able to sign other teams players for more than the minimum unless you have exceptions. Going over the luxury tax costs you twice as much money and locks up your future money long term.

I also think our fellow squawkers also forget a few things, like there are 29 other teams all trying to do the same thing we are, that the players have to want to come here, that their are restrictions on how a team can operate financially and a host of other things. All in all, we're pretty spoiled as a sports city compared to other teams. Imagine you are a Golden State fan or worse yet, you live in Seattle.

Nire gets an and 1. What else do you want Skar? They won 53 games last year. They brought JJ back (I disagree with the move, but you can't say they were cheap about it). They are 4 million from the Luxury tax and trying to get the best players they can for what little they have to spend. Be educated in your response, but what would you have had them do? Who would you have acquired realistically via free agency for less than 4 million a season that would have put them over the top?

So I read the article, took a second to digest it and have no idea what you are talking about. The article is historically, currently and contexturally accurate. The comparison made was Nowitski to Joe in the article and if you compare Dirk's production to Joe's I would have to say I'd rather have Dirk, it's really no contest and therefore the author's point is well taken that it's a strange world where Joe is paid the max but Lebron, Dirk, Wade are not.

In his prime, I loved McGrady's game but what ails the Hawks he can not fix. What follows is the short list of our pitfalls. -We lack a center that can compete with the top 5 or 6 centers in the league. Horford is getting amazing production given his size but he has limits. -We have been too guard heavy in our previous approach expecting our guards to carry the offensive burden. With Bibby's decline in footspeed, this was a glaring weakness. -Leadership - It has been coming in spurts from a few players but there has been a poorly defined pecking order among the players. Joe is obviously management's choice but the players have split leadership loyalties in a few directions. -Our previous coaches could not gain the players' respect. -Overly simplistic approach defensively and offensively which has allowed us to get taken apart in the playoffs by good coaches. Unfortunately, McGrady doesn't answer any of those issues.

I don't think this has been posted. This is off of www.nba.com/hawks. it's video of Drew mic'd up at practice. His positive encouragement of Teague is welcome but the energy in his voice was just as exciting. What got me most excited was during the practice he points out how he's going to use the out of bounds line as a defender (running a player to the hash) and just before that he tells one of the players he has to move before he sees the point guard move and explains why (it's a timing thing). he understands how the team game is played and that tells me he won't stand for ISO basketball. <object width="388" height="394" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" id="ep"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="movie" value="http://i.cdn.turner.com/nba/nba/.element/swf/1.1/cvp/nba_embed_container.swf?context=hawks_576x324&videoId=teams/hawks/2010/07/12/LARRYDREWMICDUP-1371553" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#000000" /><embed src="http://i.cdn.turner.com/nba/nba/.element/swf/1.1/cvp/nba_embed_container.swf?context=hawks_576x324&videoId=teams/hawks/2010/07/12/LARRYDREWMICDUP-1371553" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" bgcolor="#000000" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="388" wmode="transparent" height="394"></embed></object>

Also would seem to be a slap in the face when Josh played through the bad years and was a big part of the turn around to trade him away and take away his chance at a title.

By resigning Marvin, we weren't just resigning Marvin the basketball player, but also Marvin the commodity. Now if Marvin net's you Shaq and Shaq can play 25 minutes a game in the playoffs against Dwight Howard and and allow Horford to completely overmatch whatever shmoe they throw out there at the 4 and Josh to completely overpower whomever is at the 3 and it allows the Hawks to play straight up man defense successfully then what you have to say is that Sund did a good job at holding on to a commodity. You see, we couldn't just sign Shaq to 7 million this offseason because we are over the cap. But we could trade 7 million for him. This also goes for whatever others would be willing to do for Marvin.

I'll take a crack at this. The emergence of Darren Collison. After Paul went down, Collison averaged about 19 points and over 8 assists a game. All star caliber numbers. We'd trade = salaries making the money aspect null and void but we'd trade them shorter/better contracts. Part of the deal would be to offload Okafer's contract for them. there would probably be a future first involved. Lastly, it is a well known rumor that Atlanta is one of several trade partner's they'd look at. Like most teams they covet Smith and most teams want Marvin even though we don't appreciate him. Marvin's contract is very reasonable given his production, potential and defense. Marvin was stuck as 4th-6th option most nights in Woodson's guard heavy, iso offense. Other teams believe they could get 18-7 out of him easy as a 3rd option.

Yeah.....Lebron is being defended by Jesse Jackson. One more reason to root against Miami.

Answering this question. What we have on our books is a cap hold of 10.89 million for Chillz. If he signs with another team and we do not match, we no longer have that cap hold which gives us flexibility against the luxury tax but we would still be over the cap.

The combined scoring averages of the 3 players now on Miami last season were: 29.7, 26.6 and 24.0 A combined 80.3 ppg. Players have huge egos. How do they share the ball enough? How does Wade react when he's down to 20ppg and seeing Lebron average 26 a game? How does Bosh get his points with these 2 on the floor?

Yeah, this was brilliant, until someone blows out a knee. If Bosh goes down, who the hell will play below the free throw line. They have no salary left. If Wade goes down, they will have no one who drives to the basket with the ball from the top....they would be highly beatable in any kind of an injury situation (think San Antonio and what happened to them before they got Tim Duncan. A few injuries and they were a teens win team).

After all the assanine things Lebron has done the last 3 years, I can not believe you are hating on the owner. The pregame photo sessions, the jackass throwing of talcum in visiting arenas, the taunting of other benches when ahead, the soap opera of keeping Cleveland hanging. The guy is a jerk plain and simple and I applaud the owner.