Why are so many here obsessed with Luke Ridnour?

[Sothron]

I am not trying to call anyone out but I am honestly curious how Ridnour seems to be as popular as he is here. Luke is a good passing point guard, no doubt, but he's simply atrocious as a defender. Seattle thought so much of him they demoted him from a starting position.

So where is this coming from?

[DavidSomerset]

I like him because of the offense he would bring.

We were last in the league in points per game last year, and 2nd to last in offensive efficiency (points per 100 possessions).

I, personally, feel like he could set this offense on fire with his passing ability...We have a ton of playmakers on this team that just need someone to get them the ball!!

Not to mention he is a VERY good shooter...We were also last in the league in 3 pointer % if I'm not mistaken...That hurt us big time.

He's not any worse defensively than Lue...And with a coach that stresses defense as much as Woody, I feel like Ridnour would get better at that end.

[DJlaysitup]

He sure looked good against us last year...of course that was against us...I didn't see his other games much.

[KB21]

I think it is because people still have an infatuation with the Phoenix Suns style of play.

My response to them is this. Where are Phoenix and Golden State and all the other so called up tempo teams right now? They are at home, watching the #1 defensive team in the NBA and the #5 defensive team in the NBA play for the championship.

[BHayley]

I was intrigued by him for a while, but I agree on him now. He's 6"2 and 175 pounds. He has a few inches on me, and I'm close to that weight.

He doesn't fit BK's "big PG" formula, nor does Speedy lol.

I want to maximize on these picks or get GREAT talent in exchange for the picks

[TheDude]

easy..

we were midpack in defense with a point (Lue) who is slow/sucks defensively.

we were LAST in entire league in offense. dead last. most of that because of lack of outside shooting and lack of ability to setup other players (our athletes).

luke would only make our team that much better because he excels in those two. plus i feel that his defense would improve at least a bit because of woody and because luke may realize this would be his last chance to run a team.

i'm not wanting a phoenix team neccessarily but people said the same thing about Nash when he was a free agent from Dallas. the very same thing. and those guys are deep playoff contenders.

[DavidSomerset]

We were last in the league in offense last year.

That HAS to change if we are going to go anywhere.

Ridnour's defense is no worse than Lue's.

[KB21]

You can score all you want, but if you can't stop them from scoring, what's the point?

[DavidSomerset]

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You can score all you want, but if you can't stop them from scoring, what's the point?

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Because our offense is terrible, mostly because we have awful point guards.

Ridnour is no worse defensively than what we already have (outside of Speedy).

[KB21]

So, the great Luke Ridnour, who was benched in Seattle, is going to come in and suddenly make this offense so good that the Hawks will be able to win games when they are giving up 98-100 PPG.

I see.

[DavidSomerset]

Which is get us set in our offense, get the ball to our playmakers, and make open shots when needed (very good shooter!).

Add that to the fact that we are not losing anything defensively at the PG position since Lue manned it mostly last year, and I don't see how you can twist that situation to say our team is not improved.

[KB21]

We would clearly lose a lot defensively at the point guard position, because both Speedy Claxton and Anthony Johnson are MUCH better defensive players than Luke Ridnour.

[DavidSomerset]

Defensively, considering Lue got most of the minutes there...And he is awful.

AJ and Speedy are good back-ups...that would be a fine rotation in my mind.

Ridnour improved +- on our offense will do more than offset his contribution in the +- to our defense.

Basically compared to last year's PG position, we would be about the same defensively and MUCH better offensively.

[bumpyphish1]

why are we talking about Ridnour again? I think given our current draft picks and squad there is a close to nil chance of us going after him.

[roezag]

The personnel the Hawks have put together are built for an up-tempo game, in my opinion. Ridnour would give us an up-tempo point to run that show.

[Peoriabird]

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The personnel the Hawks have put together are built for an up-tempo game, in my opinion. Ridnour would give us an up-tempo point to run that show.

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I think that the point being made is that it doesn't matter who makes the pass to the open man if the open man cannot hit the shot! That was the Hawks problem in a nut shell last year. Teams would pack it in daring the Hawks to make an open shot and they couldn't. Believe it our not, last year the ball movement was good in most games. So I don't know what Ridnour would add to this team

[TheDude]

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My response to them is this. Where are Phoenix and Golden State and all the other so called up tempo teams right now? They are at home, watching the #1 defensive team in the NBA and the #5 defensive team in the NBA play for the championship.

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Well when there are really only 3 teams like that out of 30, thats only 10% of teams that play like that. So it isn't some phenomenon that they aren't playing now, its just simply law of probability. When there are more teams that play like the Spurs and Cavs then they have a higher chance of playing in the championship.

I like Ridnour because I think his benefit on offense will be much greater than whatever deficiencies he has on defense. He not only adds direct scoring in an improved shooter but his court vision will allow for indirect improvement in scoring. All our wingmen will learn that moving without the ball will get them easy baskets. Like a great man once said, sometimes the best defense is a great offense.

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and the funny thing is is that all 3 of those teams made the playoffs....

[TheDude]

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So, the great Luke Ridnour, who was benched in Seattle, is going to come in and suddenly make this offense so good that the Hawks will be able to win games when they are giving up 98-100 PPG.

I see.

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KB, we are LAST in scoring... DEAD LAST..we are middle of pack in defense...so if you assess those two little sentences and someone asks you what do the Hawks need to IMPROVE their team (not asking if defense or offense wins championships), how can you not say offense?

[TheDude]

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We would clearly lose a lot defensively at the point guard position, because both Speedy Claxton and Anthony Johnson are MUCH better defensive players than Luke Ridnour.

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and both of those players will still be in a Hawks uniform if we got Ridnour.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

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I am not trying to call anyone out but I am honestly curious how Ridnour seems to be as popular as he is here. Luke is a good passing point guard, no doubt, but he's simply atrocious as a defender. Seattle thought so much of him they demoted him from a starting position.

So where is this coming from?

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. . back on April 25th

Here were their answers a month ago.

same question

Let's look at some numbers comparing Luke vs Ty, to dispell this myth about Ridnour. I'll use 82games.com and their extensive stats.

* note: in the eFG ( effective field goal ) analysis, 3 pointers count as 1.5 FG. So a guy who makes a high number of threes, will have a higher eFG than his regular FG%.

* Inside eFG combines close to the basket shots/lay-ups, tips, and dunks

LUKE'S SHOOTING

- FG%: 43.3%

- eFG%: 46.8%

- Jumpshooting eFG%: 47.1%

- Inside eFG%: 46%

TY'S SHOOTING

- FG%: 41.6%

- eFG%: 46.9%

- Jumpshooting eFG%: 45.4%

- Inside eFG%: 54.3%

Is there a big difference in each guy's shooting? I don't think so. Matter of fact, the overall shooting edge, from an efficiency standpoint, might go in the favor of Ty, because he converts at a much higher rate when he gets to the hole, compared to Luke.

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LUKE'S FT SHOOTING

- 159 attempts: 80.5%

- drawing fouls ( FTA/times fouled ): 7.2%

TY'S FT SHOOTING

- 163 attempts: 88.3%

- drawing fouls ( FTA/times fouled ): 7.9%

Not a big difference here either, with a slight edge in favor of Ty, with his ability to hit close to 90% of his FTs and get to the line slightly more often per shot. 82games.com highlights the drawing fouls stat as a key one to look at.

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LUKE'S PASSING

- 3pt assists: 104

- jumpshot assists: 116

- close assists: 92

- dunk assists: 56

- total assists: 368 ( in 71 played games )

- passing T/Os: 90

- assist/bad pass: 4.1

- passing rating: 10.3

TY'S PASSING

- 3pt assists: 38

- jumpshot assists: 74

- close assists: 59

- dunk assists: 30

- total assists: 201 ( in 56 games played )

- passing T/Os: 43

- assist/bad pass: 4.7

- passing rating: 8.5

The passing numbers favor Ridnour, but not even by a wider margin than I would've thought. The stat highlighted by 82games.com is the passing rating number. Luke's 10.3 to Ty's 8.5, gives Luke the edge in this stat.

For comparison sake, these are the passer ratings of some other PGs and playmakers around the league. This is not a complete list. I may have missed some reserve PGs or passing forwards who have high passer ratings.

- Nash: 22.3

- B. Davis: 16.8

- Paul: 16.1

- Kidd: 15.1

- Deron: 14.9

- Ford: 14.8

- S. Blake: 13.8

- Miller: 13.4

- E. Watson: 12.6 ( by the way, this is Luke's teammate )

- Billups: 12.5

- B. Knight: 12.3

- Felton: 10.9

- Jason Williams: 10.7

- Ridnour: 10.5

- Wade: 10.3

- Mo Williams: 10.2

- Speedy: 10.2 ( surprised ? )

- A. Johnson: 10.1 ( surprised again? )

( note: EVERY single Hawks guard had a higher assist to bad pass ratio, than Luke had last year )

- Cassell: 10.1

- Marbury: 10.0

- Iverson: 9.1

- Hinrich: 9.7

- Jack: 9.2

- J. Nelson: 9.2

- Iggy: 9.2

- Terry: 8.9

- Diaw: 8.9

- McGrady: 8.7

- Lue: 8.5

- Francis: 8.5

- Arenas: 8.4 ( not suprised )

- LeBron: 8.3

- Kobe: 7.9

- Bibby: 7.3

- Ellis: 7.0

- Odom: 6.9

- Roy: 6.5

- JJ: 5.3

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TY'S TURNOVERS AND BALL HANDLING

- offensive fouls: 5

- bad passes: 43

- ball handling TOs: 37

- "Hands" rating: 19.5

LUKE'S TURNOVERS AND BALL HANDLING

- offensive fouls: 15

- bad passes: 90

- ball handling TOs: 50

- "Hands" rating: 21.2

Luke has the edge in this department as well. AJ's "Hands" rating was 20.0. Speedy's was 19.6. Nash had a 41.4 ( showing you just how good that guy really is ). Watson, Luke's teammate, posted a 24.3 "hands" rating.

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LUKE IN THE CLUTCH

- FG%: 42.9%

- eFG%: 50% ( 48.3% on jumpers, 60% inside )

- 82.4% FTs ( drawing fouls on 5.4% of his shots )

- passer rating: 5.3 ( with a 2.0 asssist to bad pass ratio )

- "Hands" rating: 14.1

TY IN THE CLUTCH

- FG%: 45.2%

- eFG: 50% ( 42% on jumpers, 83.3% inside )

- 75% FTs ( drawing fouls on 3.1% of this shots )

- Passing rating: 8.4 ( with a 10.0 assist to bad pass ratio. NOTE: Lue didn't have one turnover off of a pass when he was in the game in the final 5 minutes or in OT. LOL . . but we all know that his turnovers usually came off of him either traveling, or losing the ball out of bounds trying to do too much. )

- "Hands" rating: 28.6

In this situation, I don't think there's any doubt as to whom you would rather have on the floor in the clutch.

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Final analysis: These guys are pretty much dead even, overall, as PGs . . with ONE difference.

LUE WAS HURT 1/2 OF THE SEASON.

The injuries definitely affected his shooting, especially in the 2nd half of the year. Luke's excuse? He has none. He just got outplayed by Earl Watson for the majority of the year. Luke is NOT a leader . . period. Too add Luke to the Hawks, would be like replacing an old Dodge with an old Chrysler.

( note: Chrysler makes Dodge, and pretty much just slaps on another brand name to the same exact type of car ).

Luke is destined to be a backup PG in this league. He'll be a very good one, much like Lue is, but he's a backup nonetheless.

It's a reason why NO TEAM traded for this guy when the trade deadline came around.