Hawks near .500; SWilliams making positive impact

[KB21]

Roy may turn out to be the best eventually, but you have to wonder if he's going to have a short shelf life much like Steve Smith due to the injuries. People forget that Roy had a major knee injury early in his college career, and now he is having problems with his feet. I also don't think he would have had much of a role on the Hawks considering that Joe Johnson plays his position.

I agree with you on Adam Morrison. He's a one dimensional scorer that is shooting a low percentage right now. He effects the game in no other way though.....poor rebounder....terrible defender....mediocre passer. He's getting a lot of hype right now because he's scoring 15-18 points per game, but he does nothing else.

I like LaMarcus Aldridge's potential, but he's another guy that you have to wonder if he will ever play more than 60 games in a season. He had injury problems in high school, injury problems in college, and he missed the first 8-10 games of his NBA career with an injury.

Shelden Williams, Craig Smith, and Paul Millsap are playing very well, and I think a lot of that is because these guys came in as polished players whose game translated to the NBA. I believe that if Woody would start going to Shelden more offensively, we'd have ourselves a power forward that averages a double double.

[gsuteke]

it was on after the game.

this young man is a very solid character guy. good pick Billy Knight!

[Popeye]

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it was on after the game.

this young man is a

very

solid character guy. good pick Billy Knight!

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Damn, i forgot about it. I saw that during the game something like "Under The Lights"??

What was it about?? his life??

His girlfriend is a baller, she got 27 points and 10 rebounds last night.

[lifelong]

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it was on after the game.

this young man is a

very

solid character guy. good pick Billy Knight!

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Damn, i forgot about it. I saw that during the game something like "Under The Lights"??

What was it about?? his life??

His girlfriend is a baller, she got 27 points and 10 rebounds last night.

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they rerun it ALL THE TIME. don't worry, it'll be on again.

[TexasPete]

I agree that SW could average a double/double with minutes. The question is...why does Woody not play the rookies enough? I like Solomon's game as well. He is LONG and has the ability to finish, blocks and alters shots, and generally plays well. Why the lack of burn?

[gsuteke]

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it was on after the game.

this young man is a

very

solid character guy. good pick Billy Knight!

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Damn, i forgot about it. I saw that during the game something like "Under The Lights"??

What was it about?? his life??

His girlfriend is a baller, she got 27 points and 10 rebounds last night.

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yes it was about his life up to the first preseason game against the Grizz. that's where it ended.

like i said Shelden is a very solid character guy.

you can drop a guy like Shelden on a disfunctional team and make it better immediately. you can drop a guy like Marbury on a functioning team and make it disfunctional overnight.

i think character is sorely overlooked by most of us when it comes to building a winning team through promoting a winning environment.

[Popeye]

Did anybody saw Salim interview before the game?

He is smiling all the time and he is happy now. I wonder what did Woody do with this guy? He looks like a new guy and waay better than he looked last year when it was all about him. He said i am getting my teamates involved more often now. I think he will come around, because it's allways nice to have good character guys and all of our guys are that way.

Props to Billy!

[gsuteke]

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Did anybody saw Salim interview before the game?

He is smiling all the time and he is happy now. I wonder what did Woody do with this guy? He looks like a new guy and waay better than he looked last year when it was all about him. He said i am getting my teamates involved more often now. I think he will come around, because it's allways nice to have good character guys and all of our guys are that way.

Props to Billy!

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all i saw was as brief snipit of the game at around the 2 minute remaining mark. Lue (i think) hit a huge shot and Portland called a timeout. everybody was ecstatic on the bench except.... you guessed it. Salim had that eat sh!t look on his face as Lue iced the game.

someone's body language tells me alot more than someone's words in an interview. hopefully I am wrong about him. maybe Salim had Chinese for lunch and that look of disgust was focused on his small intestine

anyhow back to Shellhead. you won't have to ever worry about seeing that guy pouting on the bench. he just doesn't have it in him.

[KB21]

I don't know.

It's a very small sample size, but in games that Shelden has played 30+ minutes in, he is averaging 13.3 PPG, 12 RPG, and is shooting 52% from the floor and 82% from the free throw line.

[AHF]

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I don't know.

It's a very small sample size, but in games that Shelden has played 30+ minutes in, he is averaging 13.3 PPG, 12 RPG, and is shooting 52% from the floor and 82% from the free throw line.

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There is also selection bias in those results, though. The games where Shelden gets 30+ minutes are going to be those in which he is playing his best. Unless his per minute rate of production is the same in those games, I don't think they are a statistically meaningful sample from which to predict performance if Shelden simply had his minutes increased in all games.

[TexasPete]

AHF, that isn't always true. I've been to almost every game and some games Shelden is doing well, comes out, and then really doesn't play that much. It's like Woody gets distracted or something. He needs to play the kid. It's not like he is hurting the team. He gives us monster rebounding when he gets minutes and the last time I checked...we needed inside defense and rebounding. Woody just seems to shy away from heavy minutes for rookies. He should have played MW more last year and instead gave AL too many minutes...even though AL couldn't guard a door last year.

[Guest Walter]

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Whatever.

Right now, three of the top five rookies in the NBA are rebounding power forwards: Shelden Williams, Craig Smith, and Paul Millsap.

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...SW gives.

Enough said.

W

[jerrywest]

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Whatever.

Right now, three of the top five rookies in the NBA are rebounding power forwards: Shelden Williams, Craig Smith, and Paul Millsap.

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...SW gives.

Enough said.

W

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Are you saying top power forwards should always be drafted in the 2nd round, like Antonio Davis, PJ, Rodman, Sally etc.? You know, many good ones like Oakly, Dale Davis, Laetner, Horace Grant were drafted in the lotteries.

[Guest Walter]

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Be a man Walter. All you've been doing for the last year and a half is crying about our draft picks. Here we are, obviously a much better team, and what are you doing? Still crying about draft picks. The above statement by you is the biggest chicken squirt statement I've read around here in a while. If you're going to run around for over a year with pockets full of sour grapes, at least be man enough to admit it. Then again, you've never done it before, why start now right?

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Add a #2 and #5 pick to ANY team in the NBA. Tack on $25 million in cap space. Add that we were a 13 win team to begin with. How can we not be "much better"? There is utterly no circumstance where a 13 win team adds a #2 pick and a #5 pick, no matter how poorly they draft, and has $25 million in cap space, no matter how poorly they use it, and has already acquired some young talent, no matter how slowly they develop, that wouldn't be a "much better team". NONE. Even GS got to 39-41 wins a season or two back. Horrible draft selections, none of them as high as ours, cap space, etc. and they became a "much better team". This is NOT important!

There question is whether this team, "much improved or not", has an even remote shot at contending much less winning a title as constructed. I talk about draft picks, some that just happened by the way, because BK is still the GM and can continue to railroad this team into mediocrity. His past piss-poor decisions reflect upon his future ones.

So "be a man" Chill and don't wet your pants over a "much better team" that is designed for mediocrity.

W

[jerrywest]

BK puts his career in line by jumping without parachute in order to get JJ, the chief reason for our resurgence, and you keep harping about 2nd and 5th pick guarantees championship. Tell that to the old Clippers. Well, tell that to just about every NBA team. Its not easy to get out of lotto hell hole unless you get lucky with LBJ, TD type.

[Guest Walter]

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Are you saying top power forwards should always be drafted in the 2nd round, like Antonio Davis, PJ, Rodman, Sally etc.? You know, many good ones like Oakly, Dale Davis, Laetner, Horace Grant were drafted in the lotteries.

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"Should"?!? No. But can. "Should" isn't the issue here, but when you can get MUCH more value for your pick, do so.

I am saying that yes, you can get a "top notch", role playing Pf outside the lottery, particularly when you are selecting amongst under-height, under-reach Pfs (excluding Simmons, assuming we were looking at a Pf) which SW, Millsap, and Smith all are. I am saying in this draft you could get this level of contribution in the 2nd rd. In this very draft TWO "top Pfs" or at least ones equal to SW WERE drafted in the 2nd rd. I doubt any of these three become "top Pfs" whatever that means, but it certainly cost less to draft Smith and Millsap than SW when all are simply quality role playing PFs.

We of course didn't try out Millsap or Smith. Draft promise mistake.

[AHF]

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AHF, that isn't always true. I've been to almost every game and some games Shelden is doing well, comes out, and then really doesn't play that much. It's like Woody gets distracted or something. He needs to play the kid. It's not like he is hurting the team. He gives us monster rebounding when he gets minutes and the last time I checked...we needed inside defense and rebounding. Woody just seems to shy away from heavy minutes for rookies. He should have played MW more last year and instead gave AL too many minutes...even though AL couldn't guard a door last year.

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I agree that Woody has benched Shelden for long periods of time this year in games he was playing very well for no apparent reason. However, I will contend that none of the games in which Shelden has played 30+ minutes are among his worst of the year in per minute production such that there is a correlation with giving him the higher minutes when he is playing well.

Per 48 minute production per game:

26+ minutes - total: 15.24 pp48, 16.26 rp48

11/25 20.8 pp48, 10.4 rp48

11/22 24 pp48, 15.6 rp48

11/14 6.4 pp48, 24.2 rp48

11/3 4 pp48, 16.5 rp48

18-26 minutes - total: 12.98 pp48, 11.63 rp48

12/3 12.85 pp48, 12.85 rp48

11/29 11.3 pp48, 7.5rp48

11/24 13.6 pp48, 11.3 rp48

11/18 17.7 pp48, 12.6 rp48

11/11 4.8 pp48, 17.7 rp48

11/7 18 pp48, 9 rp48

10-17 minutes - total: 12.1 pp48, 12.09 rp48

12/1 0 pp48, 9.7 rp48

11/28 26.8 pp48, 11.9 rp48

11/10 26.3 pp48, 23 rp48

11/5 7 pp48, 7 rp48

11/1 0 pp48, 9 rp48

Having now crunched the numbers - there does appear to be selection bias in terms of the Shelden's distribution of minutes.

[Guest Walter]

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BK puts his career in line by jumping without parachute in order to get JJ, the chief reason for our resurgence, and you keep harping about 2nd and 5th pick guarantees championship. Tell that to the old Clippers. Well, tell that to just about every NBA team. Its not easy to get out of lotto hell hole unless you get lucky with LBJ, TD type.

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Jumping without a parachute? Come on.

No team other than the Lakers (Shaq)and Detroit (a host of quality players, but no one particular player over the others) ever won a title without it's best player coming from the draft or draft day trade. MW may turn out well but he doesn't have near JJ's ability and SW isn't going to be our best player by the longest of long shots.

Lotto hell holes can be dug out of quickly with short term moves (SW) but never filled back in such as with GS. Simply wrong decisions can be made (MW over Paul or Deron). We appear headed in the direction of GS for those reasons and others (coaching, young talent redundancy at forward and the inability to resign them all, inability to adequately man the important Pg and C positions).

W

[KB21]

Despite the bias on the 30+ minutes per game, I still feel that his statistical trend shows that he would probably be averaging a double double if he received starter's minutes.

[Diesel]

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"Should"?!? No. But can. "Should" isn't the issue here, but when you can get MUCH more value for your pick, do so.

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The percieved value is the value that you place on guys who has "potential" according to the draft gurus... but have yet to prove anything as a real pro. Real value is what the Landlord bring to the workzone every night that helps make us winners...

Sure we could have gotten Roy and he could have been on the bench duplicating what we have in JJ and JC.

Sure we could have gotten Sene (as you suggested) and been the laughingtstock of the league.

What we did get...

was the best defender, rebounder in the class. Plus, I believe that his shooting will come around on the basis that he leads all rookies playing significant minutes in FT%...