JJ's effort

[Packfill]

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A quick poll to see how people feel about JJ's effort on the season.

It has seemed to me that since the first open scrimmage and preseason games, JJ has looked disinterested for the most part. He is shooting the lowest percentage of his career, and his lowest 3point % since 03. His effort on D has been about 50% of what it was for the first 2 years, going from very good to very average in my eyes.

Of course he has still had spurts on both ends of the floor where the competitor in him comes out, he wants every shot, he starts crossing everyone over and lighting them up, and can shut down some of the best scorers in the league. But those spurts have been pretty few and far between. For the most part he's content to just hand the ball off to someone else and take shots when they're available, but not force to create. He's gone from a guy who looked like an all-star carrying a team on his back to a guy who just looks content to be one of the guys.

Anyway you slice it, he doesn't look half as motivated, determined and hungry as he has for the past 2 years.

I'm not sure what the cause is. My best guesses would be:

-Pissed off at BK / AS for promising him more support and not delivering

-Drained from the pressure of having to carry the franchise

-Sick of Woody and his crap system

Anyhow, this came up in a Woody discussion in which I was saying that the coach is responsible for motivating his players and Joe is clearly less motivated than he was for the past 2 years. So I guess the question is,

do you agree, what's the cause, and what's the solution

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I don't think a lack of effort is JJs problem. I just think it is possible JJ had a career year last year and that we maybe shouldn't expect that level of play from him in the future. Perhaps his current play is more in line with what we should expect long-term.

[macdaddy]

I think the effort is there. Teams are now triple teaming him in some cases. I think he's frustrated that while the team is improved he is still surrounded by guys who in every game:

-miss rim or barely draw iron

-are poor ball handlers

-drive the lane with no idea how they plan on finishing

-make wild passes

-can't really post up anybody

-can't shoot 3s

I'm not saying our players suck because they all have their strengths but in basic basketball skills like shooting, ball handling, passing they are still not good.

To me Smoove makes up for a lot of his bad plays with blocked shots and some good drives. Build areound JJ, Smoove, Horford. Marvin is still a mid range jump shooter which is great but not that hard to find. His real future to me looks like as a PF where he can try to get to the line or hit a face up jumper