Most of you will ignore this, but Flip was huge in this win.

[Diesel]

Flip was definitely not huge in this game IMO. And +/- for one game just doesn't mean much. Just because he was in the game while the team made a run doesn't mean he's the reason we made the run. He had an average game and didn't shoot well.

This is the way I see it. I think Bibby and Joe were bigger down the stretch and Flip added in a good three ball and a good defensive play.

What I wonder is why not trade Mo... He's good for nothing.

[Guest]

I'm not a big fan of the +/- stat unless it's over a huge sample size. Even then you have to watch how it's used because there are so many factors. For one game, I just don't like it. I'm not talking about shooting percentage even though he shot 4-13, I watched the game and he was average. I just don't see how anyone could think he was "huge" for us, because he wasn't IMO.

Then who else would you have rather seen on our team fill the role that Flip played that game? Keep in mind that if you say Acie then you only get 3 minutes of him because of his Speedyesque injury. While Flip's raw stats may not be impressive, look at our team and ask who else? Part of being a contributor on a team is relative, no one else on the team could do it at the time so by default that makes his contribution more important than what we could have gotten given our circumstances.

If you are debating whether Flip's impact was "huge" or just "kinda there" then this is a pointless argument to be getting into. How exactly does one measure the adjective tied to someone's impact on the game? Does it take a double-double for the impact to go from "big" to "huge" or do they need a triple-double to be "huge"? If thats all you're debating then whatever, its just arbitrary what denotation you give it to Flip contributing.

[coachx]

He forced the Raptors to honor his scoring ability, and his +/- lead the team I believe.

Hard to win when you're basically playing 4 on 5, but the Hawks did. I'll take it.

Good games by Flip and Smoove !

Small ball worked vs. that long front line yesterday.

[Duff_Man]

This is the way I see it. I think Bibby and Joe were bigger down the stretch and Flip added in a good three ball and a good defensive play.

What I wonder is why not trade Mo... He's good for nothing.

I disagree with that. Mo is an offensive liability, but he really hustles and plays good 1-on-1 defense. He is always active on the floor and making a lot of rebound tips and small plays that don't make the box score. We need a guy like that.

[frosgrim]

Flip is what he is- a volume shooter that is prone to extremes of hot and cold. When he's on he can really fill it up, but when cold he can't hit the ocean off a peir. That said, Flip is the type of player that the Hawks have needed since the Woodson era began. Would it be better to have a more consistant guy? Sure, but then again, if he was more consistant we wouldn't be able to have him under contract for less than a mil. In other words, Flip is like a poor-man's Vinnie Johnson (for those of you who are old school).

FWIW, I think a combo of Flip and Childress (and Zaza) would have made for an excellent bench. Evans just doesn't seem to do much out there. His defense is good, but the guy has almost no offense.

[Atlantaholic]

Both Flip and Mo Evans both did a terrible job of filling in for Marvin... Had we gotten a solid contribution from at least one of these guys and we would have easily put this game away in the middle of the fourth... Our bench is extremely inconsistent (which is not that unusual as far as benches go)... we got absolutely nothing from it yesterday... Hopefully they rebound for tonight. I have a feeling they will.

Going small helped us a little on defense since Toronto decided not to exploit any of the mismatches... They would stand around and try to get the ball to Bosh for 17 seconds then they would jack up bad shot... As poor as our offensive strategy is, I have to hand it to Toronto... they look ten times more clueless than us. Probably has a lot to do with Calderon being out.

[bronnt]

If you are debating whether Flip's impact was "huge" or just "kinda there" then this is a pointless argument to be getting into. How exactly does one measure the adjective tied to someone's impact on the game? Does it take a double-double for the impact to go from "big" to "huge" or do they need a triple-double to be "huge"? If thats all you're debating then whatever, its just arbitrary what denotation you give it to Flip contributing.

I haven't gotten into this discussion yet, but there's certainly a clear difference between having a good game and having a positive impact and having a bad game. You might be right to call this discussion "pointless," but on a fan message board, pretty much everything we do here is "pointless." As fans, we have seriously 0 impact on anything team-related.

Flip made like maybe three positive plays in the whole game. He had one ball tipped out that became a steal. He blocked a shot attempt by Ukic in the second quarter. He finally hit a three (he'd been chucking all night) in the fourth quarter. These are three highlights in a bad game he played.

Normally, Flip is a slight defensive upgrade over Bibby, but last night, he spent almost all of his minutes on the floor with Bibby, and Flip was getting abused worse than Bibby was. Add to that the fact that he had a Josh Smith-esque chucking and airball display, and it was bad. He missed 9 of his 13 shot attempts, while Joe and Bibby were having good nights shooting and Josh was doing pretty well.

You're right to point that they needed him since Acie got hurt, and Mario also got hurt, but he didn't have a good game. He had a bad game, and had it been any worse he might have cost the team a victory.

[Atlantaholic]

I haven't gotten into this discussion yet, but there's certainly a clear difference between having a good game and having a positive impact and having a bad game. You might be right to call this discussion "pointless," but on a fan message board, pretty much everything we do here is "pointless." As fans, we have seriously 0 impact on anything team-related.

Flip made like maybe three positive plays in the whole game. He had one ball tipped out that became a steal. He blocked a shot attempt by Ukic in the second quarter. He finally hit a three (he'd been chucking all night) in the fourth quarter. These are three highlights in a bad game he played.

Normally, Flip is a slight defensive upgrade over Bibby, but last night, he spent almost all of his minutes on the floor with Bibby, and Flip was getting abused worse than Bibby was. Add to that the fact that he had a Josh Smith-esque chucking and airball display, and it was bad. He missed 9 of his 13 shot attempts, while Joe and Bibby were having good nights shooting and Josh was doing pretty well.

You're right to point that they needed him since Acie got hurt, and Mario also got hurt, but he didn't have a good game. He had a bad game, and had it been any worse he might have cost the team a victory.

If you take Flip's shots out of the equation we shoot around 44% for the game... As it stands we finished at 41%... To say that he had a positive impact on the game as a whole is just flat out wrong.

To clarify, I actually like Flip a lot. I think he is a good bench player, not a good 6th man though... Just too inconsistent... We definitely still need to shore up our bench at some point. Mo Evans was brought in to be the 6th man but he has fizzled dramatically as of late. As much as I hate to say it, we could definitely use Childress right now.

[AtLaS]

Then who else would you have rather seen on our team fill the role that Flip played that game? Keep in mind that if you say Acie then you only get 3 minutes of him because of his Speedyesque injury. While Flip's raw stats may not be impressive, look at our team and ask who else? Part of being a contributor on a team is relative, no one else on the team could do it at the time so by default that makes his contribution more important than what we could have gotten given our circumstances.

I'm not saying I would've used anyone else, because we are obviously an injured team right now. My entire point was that he didn't have a huge impact on the game.

If you are debating whether Flip's impact was "huge" or just "kinda there" then this is a pointless argument to be getting into. How exactly does one measure the adjective tied to someone's impact on the game? Does it take a double-double for the impact to go from "big" to "huge" or do they need a triple-double to be "huge"? If thats all you're debating then whatever, its just arbitrary what denotation you give it to Flip contributing.

I just disagreed with the original post because I don't think his impact was huge. As for what qualifies as huge, if he could've made some of those open threes he was getting than I'd definitely be giving him more credit. I actually didn't have a problem with most of the shots he took because they were in rhythm and he was usually open, but he still didn't hit them so I don't see how his impact was huge.

[Guest]

I'm not saying I would've used anyone else, because we are obviously an injured team right now. My entire point was that he didn't have a huge impact on the game.

If he didn't have an impact on the game, then we could have won without him. Do you believe we could have won without him yesterday? I am not getting into an arbitrary discussion on what adjective to use about the magnitude of his impact, so if you say something to the effect of "I think his impact was so-so, not huge" then that means nothing to me because I do not hold the same definition of "so-so" and "huge" as you do.

What I see this boiling down to is your definition of "huge" is different. The only other alternative is that you believe we could have won without Flip, I think from the answer you just gave this is not the case.

[AtLaS]

If he didn't have an impact on the game, then we could have won without him. Do you believe we could have won without him yesterday?

I am not saying he didn't have an impact on the game. Having an impact is different from having a "huge" impact regardless of who's definition of huge we are using. I think the +11 with him in the game vastly overrates him. Considering how bad Mo played and Gardner/West were really the only other options, we probably wouldn't have won without him. Just because he was the best of a group of bad apples doesn't mean he had a big impact.

[HawkItus]

I am not saying he didn't have an impact on the game. Having an impact is different from having a "huge" impact regardless of who's definition of huge we are using. I think the +11 with him in the game vastly overrates him. Considering how bad Mo played and Gardner/West were really the only other options, we probably wouldn't have won without him. Just because he was the best of a group of bad apples doesn't mean he had a big impact.

Wow, but you bring up the Boston games when Acie had a flash of genius? haha. Funny, all those games in Boston were complete blow outs and Acie law would not have won them for us. You just don't like Flip. Fine. Just say that.

[Guest]

Just because he was the best of a group of bad apples doesn't mean he had a big impact.

Actually that is what it means. You have to look at the next best available option to see the impact of someone on a team. Let's look at the situation where Flip has 0 impact on the team in an absolute measure. If Flip's absolute impact is 0, then for someone to impact our team in a positive way they need to have an absolute impact of >0. That seems simple enough, but what if his absolute impact is <0?

If Flip's absolute impact is X (a number <0), then for someone to impact our team in a positive way they need to have an absolute impact Z (a number >X). So a positive impact on the team is Z and Z only needs to be >X, Z can also be <0. The distance between Z and X is where you get the magnitude of impact (where you insert your arbitrary adjective of "big" or "huge" or "so-so").

If you want to argue the adjectives describing magnitude then go for it, I won't continue. But do you see that the quality surrounding Flip pertains directly to the impact he has on the team? His absolute impact could be negative but because the next best alternative is more negative then his relative impact on the team is positive. You have to look at the next available option in order to determine team impact.

[AtLaS]

Wow, but you bring up the Boston games when Acie had a flash of genius? haha. Funny, all those games in Boston were complete blow outs and Acie law would not have won them for us. You just don't like Flip. Fine. Just say that.

Flip wasn't even on the team last year so I don't see the validity in this argument.

When someone has a good game against a team (Boston) and we were terribly struggling at that position (as Bibby was), you don't bench the player for the rest of the series, regardless of if it was garbage time or not.

[AtLaS]

Actually that is what it means. You have to look at the next best available option to see the impact of someone on a team. Let's look at the situation where Flip has 0 impact on the team in an absolute measure. If Flip's absolute impact is 0, then for someone to impact our team in a positive way they need to have an absolute impact of >0. That seems simple enough, but what if his absolute impact is <0?

If Flip's absolute impact is X (a number <0), then for someone to impact our team in a positive way they need to have an absolute impact Z (a number >X). So a positive impact on the team is Z and Z only needs to be >X, Z can also be <0. The distance between Z and X is where you get the magnitude of impact (where you insert your arbitrary adjective of "big" or "huge" or "so-so").

If you want to argue the adjectives describing magnitude then go for it, I won't continue. But do you see that the quality surrounding Flip pertains directly to the impact he has on the team? His absolute impact could be negative but because the next best alternative is more negative then his relative impact on the team is positive. You have to look at the next available option in order to determine team impact.

I completely understand +/-. This is exactly why I don't like +/- in small sample sizes. He had the best +/- yet had the second least impact on the floor when we made our run. I just can't give him credit because he sucked less than the other options we had.

[Guest]

I completely understand +/-. This is exactly why I don't like +/- in small sample sizes. He had the best +/- yet had the second least impact on the floor when we made our run. I just can't give him credit because he sucked less than the other options we had.

Actually I was not describing the +/- metric. I was correcting your misconception on measuring impact. The +/- is empirical, I was describing theory where you claim "Just because he was the best of a group of bad apples doesn't mean he had a big impact". That is an incorrect statement, I was just proving that it was incorrect.

[AtLaS]

Actually I was not describing the +/- metric. I was correcting your misconception on measuring impact. The +/- is empirical, I was describing theory where you claim "Just because he was the best of a group of bad apples doesn't mean he had a big impact". That is an incorrect statement, I was just proving that it was incorrect.

I see, but that's still almost the definition of +/-. It's the basic layout. Oh well, I guess we disagree on this topic.

[HawkItus]

Flip wasn't even on the team last year so I don't see the validity in this argument.

When someone has a good game against a team (Boston) and we were terribly struggling at that position (as Bibby was), you don't bench the player for the rest of the series, regardless of if it was garbage time or not.

My point is, without Flip we won 37 games total(under .500) and Acie had very little to do with that. Our current record has us 7 games over .500 with Acie having very little to do with that. But, your telling me Woodson is committing a great sin by playing Flip over Acie at the backup PG position? Does that not appear just a little ridiculous?

[exodus]

Flip has had plenty of games where he came up big in wins but this game was not one of them. Just because he was a better option than anyone else on the bench doesn't mean he had a huge impact on the game or that he forced the Raps to honor his scoring ability which is what the original post was saying.

Using that standard we could say JJ had a huge game if he goes 5-20, as long as we win. After all who could we replace him with?

The original post didn't say anything about who was there to replace Flip if he wasn't playing.

[Guest]

Using that standard we could say JJ had a huge game if he goes 5-20, as long as we win. After all who could we replace him with?

The original post didn't say anything about who was there to replace Flip if he wasn't playing.

I don't talk about the original post at all, so why even bring it up? And you use the word huge, that has no meaning to me and doesn't change the argument on whether or not Flip had an impact on the game.

If Joe goes 5-20 you cannot say anything about impact unless you know what everyone else around him is doing. Does Flip or Mo go 10-12 in that game? If so, then Joe probably has 0 or negative impact. For this particular game, look at what the alternatives for Flip did...now that you see Garnder/Acie/Mo or whomever the other options you want to claim are had a more negative impact than Flip you can realize he had a positive impact for our team.