thecampster

Horford doesn't want to play center any more. He knows its hurting his career and it is time to move him to PF. Lastly, he gets worn down by playing big centers. If we have to play Orlando in the playoffs, having something more than a stiff (Twin) to put on Howard will be a huge upgrade for us.

FYI...Marvin and filler (to make up his trade bonus) works for Varejeo.

http://basketball.realgm.com/tradechecker/saved_trade/5843923

There are better options than the one presented.

Give the Cavs a future first and Marvin, serviceable big in Etan Thomas to finish their season and you could probably get Varejeo.

Teague/Bibby

JJ/Crawford

Smith/Wilkens

Horford/Pachulia

Varejeo/Collins

would be very formidable in May.

It's really about defense. We have the offensive chops.

Darko is going for 2.3 blocks a game in 24 minutes. Is Seven feet and mobile enough to rotate across the lane on a penetrating guard. This frees up Josh to not have to constantly play in out for help defense on the center. Better inside and outside.

I'm not arguing what spot he was going to go in the draft. I'm simply stating i have insider info from boosters and family up at IU that said he wasn't going to be able to attend the school because of grades and lack of IQ.

Wow you really are nieve huh? I'm sure he earned all those grades and didn't have others doing them for him. that happens everywhere at every school. Fact is Smoove has a low IQ and is simply dumb. It is what it is. Defend him all you want. I'm a season ticket holder and have seen enough of this guy since he came here to know.

Sorry I'm typing on a blog for petes sake. Didn't know grammar was so important on message boards.

Again, untrue. Oak Hill is a religious academy/prep school. Class sizes are 8-10 students at a time. Parents that send their kids to Oak Hill expect their children to go to college. Kids who fall to a "C" average are put on probation and given assistance. If he were getting "grades help", they would give him just enough to pass, not enough to be tops on the roster.

Fact: Josh was recruited by UGA, GT and numerous other schools. GT was one of the schools still in the running when Josh chose Indiana. You don't consider Tech if you can't make grades. I've been looking for his SAT/ACT scores online and haven't been able to find them (anyone that can let me know).

Dalembert or Heywood?

I believe that both are available.

Dalembert = 6'11" 250 and he's a shot blocker.

Haywood = 7'0" 263

If Dallas is going to keep chandler, they have to move Haywood. Just to show that they are serious about making Chandler their future.

Dalembert is a free agent after this season.

Haywood/Horf/Smoove = frontcourt...

vs.

Dalembert/Horf/Smoove ?

I would prefer an easier to obtain Darko Milicic which is a 3rd player that could go 3/4/5 giving greater motion flexibility. Neither of those players is motion offense friendly.

I have no idea about Josh's intelligence level and I doubt anyone else here really does either. I mean it's not like that's an easy thing to quantify unless you actually know the person, so I find these personal shots at him calling him 'stupid' and such to be uncalled for and out of line. There is no need for that, no matter how frustrated with him you might be.

Anyway, I think it's pretty obvious he's very stubborn, and seems to have a desire and maybe even view himself as being a finesse player rather than a power one, whereas his strengths would seem to overwhelmingly indicate that he be a power player, and in that role as a power player playing in the paint on both offense and defense, he can be really be quite dominant. So he's like a square peg who for whatever reason is trying to make himself fit into a round hole, and rather than going with and emphasizing his natural strengths, far too often he seems to want to go against that, and that's what's so frustrating. If he would stick to his strengths, he has proven to a dynamic player and a true difference maker with a singular skill-set that makes him quite unique and also one of the better power players in the NBA, and in my opinion that's just being bull-headed and stubborn. He goes with what he desires to be rather than what his strengths would seem to indicate he ought to be.

You might want to check my other post on this subject. Josh had the highest GPA on the Basketball team his senior season at Oak Hill Academy.

Players on that team his senior year were Rajon Rondo, Dayshawn Wright, Brian Johnson, Brandon Jennings, Nolan Jennings, Alex Legion, Julian Vaughn and Howard Thompkins.

Yes, Josh isn't perfect and has some flaws, but so do other Hawks. Why is he bashed more than anyone else?

Why none of Josh critics tried to guess what numbers posted by HawkNJersey mean?

My guess - these are points scored by Josh and Joe in recent blow outs. Am I right?

I don't even have to look to know you are right.

This is a non-blockbuster with blockbuster change potential for THIS team. Fills positions we need filled well. Doable. I'd like to trade ZaZa if we do this.

W

Yea, these were just the primaries. You could easily mold it to make it palatable to Minnesota.

http://basketball.realgm.com/tradechecker/saved_trade/5842258

Plus add next year's first.

This trade allows Minnesota to dump salary for next year.

fixes our deficiencies at Center and PG.

Lineup looks like this:

Telfair / Teague

Johnson/Crawford

Smith/Wilkens

Horford/Williams/Pachulia

Milicic/Twin/Pachulia

Reasons....

Telfair can get to the paint and is a stop ball pg. He won't be as pressured to score as early in his career. He's currently averaging 7.8ppg/3.1apg and shooting 39.7% from 3 in under 20 minutes a game. Give him 32 minutes (teague 16) and that playes out to 13 ppg, 5.7 apg and much better defense. Telfair runs the pick and roll and fast break extremely well. He is fast. Biggest strength is court vision.

Milicic. 7.0, 275 2.3 bpg center in only 24 minutes. averaging 9.3 PPG 5.4 RPG in the same 24 minutes. 32 minutes numbers would be 12 ppg/7.2 RPG/3.0 BPG. He doesn't have to be superman, he just has to not be a strong defensive presence who could score if asked and allow Al to move to the 4, Josh to the 3. It's the Collins lineup except Milicic is better than Collins.

Starting lineup is 6.0, 6.7, 6.9, 6.10, 7.0.

I think you give Smoove a little too much credit on his intelligence. Try watching one of his interviews again. The guy can barley form coherent sentences. He had to jump to the NBA out of high school. I'm from IU and a huge Hoosier fan and we had him committed. Turns out he was too dumb to even go to school there from what I heard internally.

Again, untrue. Going into the draft that year, Josh was projected to go as high as 5th overall and fell due to questions about his work ethic to the Hawks at 17. Originally, the Hawks were going to take him 6th but after reports surfaced about his work ethic he dropped in the mocks to as low as 20. Never did he fall out of the mock draft's top 20 and with guaranteed big money on the table, went pro instead of going to Indiana.

See: http://www.collegehoopsnet.com/Draft/2004mock.htm

For an example. This one had him going 12 to Seattle.

Most Mocks that year had the Hawks taking Luol Deng 6th. The 2004 draft was extremely strong and any variance from perfect weighed heavily that year. For a refresher, take a look at the players that went in 2004.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_NBA_Draft

Duhon and Varejeo were 2nd rounders. Much of that first round are solid NBA'ers today. Which is rare.

You hit the nail on the head ther Jack! Smoove might be the DUMBEST player i've ever seen in the NBA. I mean were down 20pts last night going into the 2nd qtr and Smoove's dumb *ss comes down and take a jumpshot right in front of the 3pt line and air balls it. I mean the guy is just an uneducated idiot. I bet he can't even read. It's time to trade him and get a REAL PG and CENTER that can contribute. Bibby is completely finished as well.

Source: http://www.nba.com/playerfile/josh_smith/bio.html

Received the Academic Award at Oak Hill for the highest grade point average maintained during the 2003-04 season.

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.

Orlando has officially become a one man team. Their outside shooting which was their bread and butter has been deteriorating and Jameer Nelson is having a pretty bad year. Overall I think we are a better team this year. Chicago is playing great defense but their offense is really nothing that strikes fear into my heart. Outside of Rose and Boozer they have NO ONE that is really any good on that side of the court IMHO. It will be interesting to see how we match up against them. On paper it seems like a horrible match-up considering how PG defense is our weakness, but for some reason I think we can take them. Boston and Miami are easily better than us though.

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.

I see what you are saying but really there is literally only like one poster on the entire site who is a Josh hater. The rest of us I think are pretty much fair with the guy. We are all Hawks fans and have watched Smith play since he was a teenager so these reactions are hardly "knee jerk", they are simply frustrations that arise form seeing a 7 year pro continue to make the same damn mistakes over and over again. The guy is obviously talented and a rare multi demensional player, and you are totally kidding yourself if you don't know that 99% of posters on this site fully understand this. Problem is the guy has been up and down his whole career and we already have a player on the roster who could play his position at a higher level with better consistency and without all the whining and childish antics. For me the main reason I was always against the idea of trading Smith was because of his potential to become a Kevin Garnett (in his prime) type of player... well, that possibility is starting to seem pretty damn unlikely. At this stage, considering the state of our franchise if we can trade Smith for a player of close to equal value at a position of need, it is the right move.

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.

Well if we don't do any trades, the games after the All Star break and March will show us what this team is REALLY made of. I personally have never seen a team have to play so many good teams at once.

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.

As a Hawks fan I have a major problem with Drew Sr. apparently orchestrating his sons removal from the UNC basketball program. He has apparently taught his son that starting jobs are a birth right and do not have to be earned. What kind of father (and coach) condones his son quitting on his team in mid season and then encourages this cowardly behavior by making the phone call himself (allowing his son the easiest way out)? This is a huge embarassment to the Hawks organization and the coaching fraternity in general. Thoughts?

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.

I would like to see Biibby-Crawford-Johnson-Horford-Collins more, at least for the periods of time where the frontcourt defense can compensate for the back while the threes rain.

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.

I think you are confusing the stat thecampster posted with +/-. All your comments apply to +/-. The stat thecampster was talking about was the PER of the playing Josh is guarding on the floor and the PER of the player Lee is guarding on the floor. That is a player specific stat and the only explanations are (a) one guy is playing better defense or (b) one guy is facing much tougher competition. Since NBA players all play a pretty comparable spread of opposing talent, Josh's vastly superior defense seems like the credible explanation for why the guys he is guarding put up much lower numbers than the guys Lee is guarding.

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.

Next time Smith shuts down his own man let me know. Who cares if Smith blocks a few shots on a SG or PG? Man on man, he is no better than Lee. Smith doesn't add 15 points worth of value per game more than anyone other than perhaps Jason Collins.

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.

It's truly sad that only two people here plus 1 you on this topic. Great post and I 100% agree.

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.

What is it about the 4th qtr that makes Josh's brain leave his head? On the other hand Joe played like a superstar tonite.

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.