Does he make the team better or just himself?

[tonegully]

Like I have said earlier. Its not that we lack the talent to win. We lacked the discipline to win consistently. Once again I blame LD. As the Head Coach he can control what the team does by making subs and the play calling. Also who ever draws up our offensive sets needs to be shot. It seems like Josh is always at the 3 point line during plays.As for Teague. When Teague plays his game we are a much better team. Meaning when he is attacking and not being passive. He is so busy looking for a pass, thats when he loses the freaking ball. Teague still needs more time to develop that court vision needed to be a 20/10 guy.

[thecampster]

That is +/-.I wouldn't dismiss Diesel's points, you need variation in order to identify impacts. Law of Large Numbers will apply for a set of draws from independent and identical distributions. The events we realize in collecting data on +/- do not follow this assumption in my opinion, there are patterns to substitution (who starts off every game and finishes every game?). Now LLN can still go through without iid assumptions, but it is usually easiest to just transform the data to fit these assumptions (which is what the adjusted +/- is doing). Even correcting for this, LLN is only an asymptotic theory and we are working with small samples here (only 61 games).I suggest looking at the earlier links I posted and looking at the standard errors associated with the 1-year and 2-year adjusted +/-.

No, it breaks down to scoring, not just up or down scoring and it breaks down defense and offense.JJ for example makes us better offensively but worse defensively..Same with Teague. Josh is better on both ends which is why his number is higher. This means that on the defensive end of the floor, Josh makes his teammates better. Something few metrics show.The argument (our guard bench players are better) doesn't pan out. Hinrich/Green have severe negatives in this category.

[KB21]

Good discussion. This is your typical "trust your eyes vs trust the data" argument. I think the data shows that Josh clearly has the biggest impact on the team of all the players. That doesn't necessarily mean he is the best player. I don't think there is one stat that says that. Based on the data we have available, you have to take everything into account.

[Joker]

No one on the Hawks makes others better.

[Diesel]

Yeah, I just think that Smoove brings a lot of inefficiency. Like it or not that takes away. He's still the most impactful player we have but the inefficiency added to the fact that he's not the focus of anybody's defense means that his impact while good doesn't have a broad spread. There should be a new measure in the metric... Selfishness. Seriously. When you metric guys used to look at Al Harrington. Harrington was averaging somewhere over 17 ppg but because of the inefficiency and lack of team dynamic.. you guys said addition by subtraction.I don't think it's the exact same with Smoove, however, I think that in this year, he has increased his selfishness measure in a Harrington like way.

[macdaddy]

I think coaching has a big issue with this, if there is any truth to the story that was on hoopinion the other day. Ivan Johnson was apparently suspended for ripping his team in the huddle of the Boston game for their effort. It was deemed that it was not his place to do that, so he was suspended. To me, that shows that Drew doesn't have control over his team.

I totally disagree with that. If he didn't have control he wouldn't have done anything about it. Notice he suspended him, Ivan came back and apologized, said he was wrong and has been a beast on the court ever since. I'm not sure what more LD can do before he shakes the 'cheapest coach' tag. No one expected much from the Hawks with our full complement of players. We've been without an all-star for most of the season and piles of other injuries along the way. Joe and Josh aren't exactly highly thought of as elite players yet here we sit near the top of the eastern conference. LD deserves some credit.

[Guest]

I totally disagree with that. If he didn't have control he wouldn't have done anything about it. Notice he suspended him, Ivan came back and apologized, said he was wrong and has been a beast on the court ever since. I'm not sure what more LD can do before he shakes the 'cheapest coach' tag. No one expected much from the Hawks with our full complement of players. We've been without an all-star for most of the season and piles of other injuries along the way. Joe and Josh aren't exactly highly thought of as elite players yet here we sit near the top of the eastern conference. LD deserves some credit.

LD does deserve some credit but it's so easy to suspend the low man on the totem pole, when he does it with the stars then that is something. Popovich is succesful and commands the respect of his team because he rips on Duncan, TP and Manu the same way he rips on Gary Neal. I think Ivan was suspended more so because he yelled at LD. LD should be applauding him for calling out the rest of his teammates for not playing with effort.

[Joker]

Duncan isn't Josh Smith. Stop comparing oranges to apples.

[AHF]

For the thread title, Josh's overall game makes the team significantly better. He is almost always a positive impact on defense, particularly with his improved rebounding. On offense, his increased shooting makes the team and himself better when he focuses on interior scoring and hurts the team and himself when he takes an abundance of perimeter shots. The harm from his perimeter shooting and other tics (like bringing the ball up the court on the break) don't outweigh his overall positive impact but represent low hanging fruit as for as opportunities for improvement that can result in his getting himself to the All-Star game and making the team better.

Edited April 20, 2012 by AHF

[Jody23]

I don't think the negative impact of him getting in the way of the point guard by consistently refusing to give up the ball can be minimized. The more he does that, the less repitions the point guard gets to improve and adjust to facilitating in transition. That could become very key in the postseason where every possesion is of greater importance. It also undermines the respect of both the position and the point guard himself and sends a very negative and uneven message to the rest of the team when the coach condones it.

Edited April 20, 2012 by Jody23