I know a lot of poster won't like this but

[Peoriabird]

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Peoriabird is placing Smoove into the scapegoat role. He will be the Harrington, Walker, JT, etc. of this year. Battle lines are being drawn between Marvin fans and Smoove fans. We are Hawks divided instead of Hawks united.

I call b*llsh*t on Peoriabird.

Why start this battle? Why not just enjoy the talent that we have? Someone will start, someone will come off the bench, but EVERYONE who PRODUCES will PLAY. It's as simple as that.

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Wow! didn't know that I was making anyone a scape goat. Just thought I was talking a little strategy. The only thing that I was saying is that I thought that Shelden was the best power forward on the team and should be matched up against the opposing team's best power forward. Same with Marvin at small forward. He should be matched against the opposing team's best small forward. Players coming off of the bench will shine against the other teams backups. A role that Childress and Lue prefer.

[Peoriabird]

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SW is a pure Pf and is developed as a former college senior for a major team but he isn't remotely as talented as either MW or JS. W

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I just don't know what you mean by this statement! What talents are you referring to?

[unknownjdb]

My apologies to you. After re-reading this thread I realized you weren't neccesarily against Smoove. I guess I'm still a bit more a fan of Smoove than I am of Marvin, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy both and want what is best for the team. Anyways, it seems fans of Smoove are a bit more passionite with this subject and I actually should have directed this to them. Again, sorry for the rash choice of words.

[Peoriabird]

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My apologies to you. After re-reading this thread I realized you weren't neccesarily against Smoove. I guess I'm still a bit more a fan of Smoove than I am of Marvin, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy both and want what is best for the team. Anyways, it seems fans of Smoove are a bit more passionite with this subject and I actually should have directed this to them. Again, sorry for the rash choice of words.

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No problem. Apology accepted.

[gheorghe]

man, i'm tired of people who doesn't care to write or pronounce right the names of foreign players. For example Batista, he is in his second season, and i can't understand how some of you name him "Estaban" or "Batiste", the same with the greek guy. His name is Glyanadakis, is that so imposible to write well?. I see all the variations of his name here. When an american player comes to a foreign country, everyone tries to spell and pronounce his name in the right way, so guys let's make an effort!!!!! Maybe that's not important to you, but it shows how some people only cares about what happens in their own country. Of course i'm glad that some guys in here know where Uruguay is, spell the names Glyanadakis (who is greek and i don't know anything about him)and Esteban Batista correctly and try to support those guys. I don't put you all in the same page, but i think that is a little sign of xenophobia, the " i don't give a [censored] on this guy's name whatever it is" thing. Excuse me if i'm wrong

[Blunt91]

Trace Smoove & Marvin got outrebounded by Josh Howard because he wanted the ball more than them not because Howard is bigger or stronger than them. I don't think Smoove knows how to effectively use his 240lb frame at the SF position.

[unknownjdb]

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Trace Smoove & Marvin got outrebounded by Josh Howard because he wanted the ball more than them not because Howard is bigger or stronger than them. I don't think Smoove knows how to effectively use his 240lb frame at the SF position.

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This is becoming a thread of corrections... Listen, Josh Howard plays for the Dallas Mavericks; DWIGHT Howard, plays for the Orlando Magic. Can we please try to keep these two straight?

[Packfill]

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I don't care where Smoove starts (though I think he is more of a small forward then power forward), nor do I care who starts with him. Rather, I think the battle for the other starting position is between Sheldon and Marvin.

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Are you interested in wins or just seeing Josh Smith play? Not everyone can win like Phoenix who just throw atheletes in the game regardless of their natural position to play with Nash. Most teams need a power forward that can rebound and play rugged interior defense. Shelden has demonstrated that he can do that at the NBA level. Josh Smith and Marvin Williams have not.

So it come down to in my opinion who plays Small forward. Marvin has much better skill sets to compete with starters at the Small forward position. Many players can get garbage points and hit shots to pad their stats. Hedo Turkoglu is a prime example. But does Turkoglu have the kind of skills to make him an elite small forward? No! But Marvin does.

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I think you are putting too much stock into pre-season games. It has yet to be demonstrated who is best between Smoove, Marvin and Sheldon. Only real game play will determine that. By virtue of his relative "success" last season it seems to make sense to put Smoove in the starting line-up until he is beaten out by someone better - as evidenced by regular season game play.

[Peoriabird]

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I think you are putting too much stock into pre-season games. It has yet to be demonstrated who is best between Smoove, Marvin and Sheldon. Only real game play will determine that. By virtue of his relative "success" last season it seems to make sense to put Smoove in the starting line-up until he is beaten out by someone better - as evidenced by regular season game play.

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I'm not basing my opinion on preseason only. My opinion is based upon what each play has the ability to do. We all know that Shelden is an enforcer that adds inside toughness and rebounding on a consistent basis. Something we sorely lacked last year. In fact we had the worse interior defense in the league last year based on the numbers. Those are facts that cannot be disputed. In comes Shelden who has a reputation of being a rugged interior defender in college and in high school. And then in the preseason, demonstrates the same thing. The logical conclusion should be that he may in fact be a rugged interior defender and a reliable rebounder. Shelden is not a hybrid power forward Small forward, He has all of the qualities of a power forward. So he should be our starting power forward at some point.

Now let us talk about Marvin. Based on his skill set i.e. being able to dribble and shoot at a high level and having freekish quickness for a man his size make him the prototypical Small forward. Even the coaching staff concedes that Marvin is a 3, Shelden is a 4 and Smith is a 3/4. Why go into the season not putting the best player at their respective positions on the floor to go against the other teams best players? We don't have a good enough team to waste time experimenting with lineups at the beginning of the season. We need every win we can get.

[macdaddy]

This has been beat to death but I think you're missing the point. The real experiment would be to award starting jobs based on potential and not performance. Marvin has yet to show all this outstanding ability in a real NBA game. Smoove has shown great ability for 2 years to play at a high level and has gotten consistently better. I'd like to stick with the proven commodity until someone proves to be better.

[Peoriabird]

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This has been beat to death but I think you're missing the point. The real experiment would be to award starting jobs based on potential and not performance. Marvin has yet to show all this outstanding ability in a real NBA game. Smoove has shown great ability for 2 years to play at a high level and has gotten consistently better. I'd like to stick with the proven commodity until someone proves to be better.

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So you would start Smoove over Marvin. Fair enough. The was the only question that I was asking. My point is that a Smoove-Marvin forward tandum is o.k. against backups but against starter won't work very well.

[Diesel]

For fans to give up their pet players for the team. Coming into the preseason, a lot of people questioned the very existence of Shelden and presumed that Marvin/Smoove had the foward positions locked up. Now after a few preseason games, it's evident that out of all of our players, Shelden is best suited to play the PF. Therefore, Shelden may start the games, but eventually, the times will be equally in our three forward rotation until somebody proves that he should be playing more. That doesn't validate or invalidate anybody... it's just the situation we're in. It has been left up to Woody to find out his best combinations. Once somebody does "Step up", I suspect trades will be in order.

[Guest Walter]

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My point is that a Smoove-Marvin forward tandum is o.k. against backups but against starter won't work very well.

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My point has been that the Smoove-Marvin forward tandem requires a particular type center. Skill-wise they compliment each other, but neither are Pfs. Otherwise we should trade one of them (and soon) if only because neither will (or should) remain on a team to come off the bench and we need talent at other positions.

It looks like BK won't even seriously attempt acquiring the right type center so we best prepare for life without Childress and JS (as he will either leave or be traded). My fear is that we won't get needed value for them even if we do trade them, SW with MW or JS is not as talented as MW and JS or talented enough to contend for a title, and in the meantime we're building without the players that will remain...not good for the long-term.

One can make the case that:

ZaZa,

SW,

MW O-R JS

...is > talented than...

prospect center acquired using Harrington/Childress,

JS,

and MW

I just don't believe that two borderline starter-quality prospects in ZaZa and SW starting, particularly alongside each other, results in title contention. Just my take. Can't be sure Prospect center, JS, and MW would be either, but I at least think there is a chance of title contention with these. I don't with ZaZa and SW at the 4 and 5.

W

[Diesel]

I don't disagree that one will probably be traded. It only makes sense. BUT nothing right now. I think BK should let Woody work his rotation with all three forwards AND THEN if one of them steps up, we should trade the other. Also, when we trade the other, we should trade him only for NEED... For Instance, Josh Smith to LAL for Andrew Bynum or something like that.

[Guest Walter]

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Also, when we trade the other, we should trade him only for NEED... For Instance, Josh Smith to LAL for Andrew Bynum or something like that.

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Uh, we could've gotten Bynum for Al and Childress. Shame we didn't.

I disagree that we solely need to consider need. We need to consider talent heavily also because SW isn't talented enough and the loss of talent without JS, especially considering we're a 26 win team, spells M-E-D-I-O-C-R-I-T-Y.

Shaun Livingston anyone?

W

[Guest Walter]

SW has a 11.17 PER and Bynum has a 10.7 PER in the preseason. Considering Bynum is 3 years younger and less experienced and we wouldn't have issue with benching MW or JS, I'd d@mn sure rather have him than SW!

W

[gsuteke]

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SW has a 11.17 PER and Bynum has a 10.7 PER in the preseason. Considering Bynum is 3 years younger and less experienced and we wouldn't have issue with benching MW or JS, I'd

d@mn

sure rather have him than SW!

W

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in case you run a bit low there's a sale on negativity on aisle 3

[thesheedera]

What was Zaza's PER?

[Guest Walter]

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SW has a 11.17 PER and Bynum has a 10.7 PER in the preseason. Considering Bynum is 3 years younger and less experienced and we wouldn't have issue with benching MW or JS, I'd

d@mn

sure rather have him than SW!

W

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in case you run a bit low there's a sale on negativity on aisle 3

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Would you rather have a 19 yo Bynum (eventually starting) at center with MW and JS starting or an equally productive 23 yo SW at Pf with ZaZa and JS or MW starting? It's seems easy to me, but of course you can't handle the truth without crying foul about the messenger.

Answer the F-ing question.

W

[Guest Walter]

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What was Zaza's PER?

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Not bad relatively, but he's older than Bynum, has had more (professional ball with regards to SW) experience than the others, has less upside than Bynum, and is a hybrid center incapable of aligning with MW and JS at the forwards.

I'll take the almost equally as good 19 yr old that doesn't sit our best talent, who has the most uupside, and who can justify a 2, Sf starting lineup.

W