Building Team USA - ignore the other one

[DrReality]

You gotta think that this will be a big confidence booster for JJ. And with him leading the other young guys confidence can be infectious. Would be 180 degrees different start from last year when Collier died. Would be great to see them get off to a good start and JJ's work with team USA has gotta help.

[BusBoyIsBack]

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You gotta think that this will be a big confidence booster for JJ. And with him leading the other young guys confidence can be infectious. Would be 180 degrees different start from last year when Collier died. Would be great to see them get off to a good start and JJ's work with team USA has gotta help.

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Bingo. Even though we're losing our 2nd best scorer there are so many other advantages to starting out this season than last.

Speedy Claxton starting at PG over Ivey/Lue (Most underrated acquisition in this year's FA)

Joe Johnson going into the season with confidence instead of pressure (Last year he had a rough start because he was obviously nervous about all the pressure to be the man because of his contract and all the trouble ATL went to get him with the ownership fiasco. This year he'll go into the season with all that behind him and instead of apprehension he will go into the season confident as Captain America.

Josh Smith and Marvin Williams picking up where they left off. (Both players really improved their games every single month of the season last year. With more experience for both players they will contribute much more than they did last season from the start)

Shelden Williams over John Edwards and Estaban Batista. I don't think some of you realize how big this is. Zaza was forced to play 36 minutes per game last year because the guys behind him were terrible. Now with Shelden we can limit Zaza's minutes and don't have to rely on guys that don't belong in the NBA.

No tragic death. (Or at least I hope so!)- Just as any team would be in such a tragedy, we were completely unprepared and overwhelmed.

All these factors combined and we got off to a terrible 2-16 start. With all the new factors combined, we will start at least 3 times as good as last year's start.