Hawks Offense?

[PaceRam]

Is it just me or does anyone else think that the Hawks Offense will be scoring a lot more and be a lot more exciting next season? With the additions of Devin Harris, Kyle Korver, Anthony Morrow, John Jenkins, Louis Williams, etc I honestly think the Hawks Offense will score more points than they did last year even without Joe Johnson and Marvin Williams.

[JohnnyCASH]

Were the new Warriors haven't you heard?

[thecampster]

Is it just me or does anyone else think that the Hawks Offense will be scoring a lot more and be a lot more exciting next season? With the additions of Devin Harris, Kyle Korver, Anthony Morrow, John Jenkins, Louis Williams, etc I honestly think the Hawks Offense will score more points than they did last year even without Joe Johnson and Marvin Williams.

I posted a numbers analysis in a thread about 10 days ago. It basically went like this. The Hawks lost 26 games last year. In games they scored 91 or more points they were 38-4. In games they scored 90 or less points they were 2 and 22. 91 points is not a lot of points when you think about it. In almost all of those games, the bench struggled. Bench struggled, we lost. fairly simple metric. So we give up Joe and Marvin as starters and Zaza moves back to the bench. We replace them in the starting lineup with Morrow, Horford, Harris. We lose Hinrich, Green, Pargo, Collins off the bench and replace them with Zaza, Korver, Jenkins, Petro, Williams, Scott. Scoring off the bench should be much improved. Starters should be about the same (Al for Joe etc). Of course, who starts isn't really an issue per my example. Edited July 14, 2012 by thecampster

[Peoriabird]

I posted a numbers analysis in a thread about 10 days ago. It basically went like this. The Hawks lost 26 games last year. In games they scored 91 or more points they were 38-4. In games they scored 90 or less points they were 2 and 22. 91 points is not a lot of points when you think about it. In almost all of those games, the bench struggled. Bench struggled, we lost. fairly simple metric. So we give up Joe and Marvin as starters and Zaza moves back to the bench. We replace them in the starting lineup with Morrow, Horford, Harris. We lose Hinrich, Green, Pargo, Collins off the bench and replace them with Zaza, Korver, Jenkins, Petro, Williams, Scott. Scoring off the bench should be much improved. Starters should be about the same (Al for Joe etc). Of course, who starts isn't really an issue per my example.

That cut off may have to raised to about 98 points because we are definitely not the same defensively

[High5]

I'm confident we'll score more, but will that be a net positive with our defensive losses? If we could add a SF with some defensive talent I'd feel good about it.

[BusBoyIsBack]

That cut off may have to raised to about 98 points because we are definitely not the same defensively

That's a great point. Joe Johnson was one of the best defenders in the league at his position. His replacements we will be lucky if they are average at best. We definitely will have to score more PPG to be as effective of a team. But this team could indeed be built to score more points with the newfound depth we have. I mean our backcourt depth is amazing right now. Not even including Morrow and Korver lighting it up from downtown, you have Jenkins/Lou Williams/Teague/Harris. All 4 of those guys can be bonafide scorers who can easily average double digits in scoring. That's before you get to our front court depth behind Josh and Al with Zaza, Ivan the Terrible, and maybe Mike Scott or Keith Benson may surprise. Unfortunately we don't have a superstar, but we may have the deepest team in the league

[Peoriabird]

Who do we keep...Keith Benson or Jaco for the up coming season?

[KB21]

I want to see the metric that shows Joe was one of the best defenders at his position in the league. We have people on here railing against Kyle Korver who had a defensive rating of 101 this past year, yet Joe Johnson had a defensive rating of 105. Still, people are convinced that Joe is a quality defender. Joe's career defensive rating is 110. He's never been anything more than average as a defender. He only has about 2 defensive win shares from last year. Over the past three years, the Hawks have been a better defensive team when he's off the floor than when he's on the floor.

[Peoriabird]

I want to see the metric that shows Joe was one of the best defenders at his position in the league. We have people on here railing against Kyle Korver who had a defensive rating of 101 this past year, yet Joe Johnson had a defensive rating of 105. Still, people are convinced that Joe is a quality defender. Joe's career defensive rating is 110. He's never been anything more than average as a defender. He only has about 2 defensive win shares from last year. Over the past three years, the Hawks have been a better defensive team when he's off the floor than when he's on the floor.

I was thinking of Marvin more than Joe.

[KB21]

In 2011-2012, the Hawks took 1,446 shot attempts at the 16-23 foot range. This was 9th in the NBA. The average in the NBA was 1,316 shot attempts at this range. The Hawks hit 38% of these shots. The league average was 38%. This put the Hawks 13th in the league, which is not surprising. The Hawks also took 1,330 three point shots and were rated 10th in the league relative to three point attempts. Their effective field goal percentage on these shots was 55.5%, which rated them 5th in the NBA. It is much the same pattern from 2010-2011 as well. The Hawks were second in the league in 16-23 foot field goal attempts, but they were middle of the pack relative to three point attempts.What this data tells me is that Larry Drew runs a very perimeter oriented offense. Some may say that it is because Atlanta doesn't have an inside guy, but when you look at the data, this is not the case. In Mike Woodson's final season, the Hawks shot over 2,000 attempts at the rim and almost 3,000 attempts inside 9 feet total compared to about 3,100 perimeter shot attempts. The offense was much more balanced under Mike Woodson. The second thing this data tells me is that, either by design or ignorance of the metrics, the Hawks pass up three point shots for shots just inside the three point line. What I'm hoping happens is that with the addition of Anthony Morrow, Kyle Korver, and John Jenkins, the Hawks will increase their three point attempts and decrease their 16-23 foot attempts. I doubt Atlanta is going to become less perimeter oriented, but maybe without Joe around and with Jeff Teague and Lou Williams handling the ball, we will attack the basket more with those two.

[hawkman]

Who do we keep...Keith Benson or Jaco for the up coming season?

If Benson keeps playing the way he's been playing during Summer League, Benson by far.

[T21]

I'm just encouraged by a fact that the make-up of our team, our roster, is constituted to play more up-tempo basketball...Smoove and Al will benefit from that for sure!We also have several guys that can break opponents' defenses off the dribble and create easy baskets... plus we have arsenal of capable shooters to complement that.Overall, if all pieces fall into place, I think our offense will do just fine.P.S. My only concern is our D, because we lost two above-average defenders in JJ and Marv, plus we'll obviously lack some size.

Edited July 14, 2012 by T21

[Sothron]

I want to see the metric that shows Joe was one of the best defenders at his position in the league. We have people on here railing against Kyle Korver who had a defensive rating of 101 this past year, yet Joe Johnson had a defensive rating of 105. Still, people are convinced that Joe is a quality defender. Joe's career defensive rating is 110. He's never been anything more than average as a defender. He only has about 2 defensive win shares from last year. Over the past three years, the Hawks have been a better defensive team when he's off the floor than when he's on the floor.

The "metric" is called the eye test. Joe Johnson at 6'8" made guys not even attempt shots because of his length and positioning. There's no "metric" for "guy decides to not even shoot because the guy guarding him is giving him no good shot to take". That's why these "metrics" you are so in love with mean nothing. Korver gets destroyed on defense and the only thing that bails him out is the team defense around him. Joe is such a long and smart defender he keeps people from taking shots and he can match up against both 2's and 3's on the court. I can't wait to see the defense we're putting on the court if we don't get Howard. We have went from a long backcourt to one of the shortest in the NBA. We don't even have a real small forward on the roster and Korver is the closest we have to one. If we keep Josh and Al they will need to have eyes on the back of their head for all the weak side support they will have to give to make up for guys blowing past our guards and Korver.

[Peoriabird]

If we sign Korver, I don't think that he would start.

[Guest]

Numbers don't always tell the impact of a players defense. Like Soth says sometimes the eye test is a better judge of that. Do the numbers or metrics account for playing ball denial (which Joe was good at) or forcing a pass in lieu of a shot attempt? Team defense also plays a part in acquiring those metrics.

[warcore]

Who do we keep...Keith Benson or Jaco for the up coming season?

I really wanna keep Benson. He put on some weight and has a good skill set and we need a big man that can run with the rest of our guys.

[Guest]

Count me as one who is concerned about our perimeter defense (as is). The players currently on the roster are not good individual defenders compounded by the lack of size. Our bigs would be in constant foul trouble.What I am hoping is that the sum of the parts is greater that the one and although not great individually, collectively as a team would be OK.However, the start of the season has a way to go so there is still time for roster upgrades and improvements.

[Admin]

Joe held opposing SGs to a PER 48 of 10 and SFs to 13.2 while splitting time evenly between the 2 positions. 10 is 33% lower than league average and 13.5 is still below league average. Its pretty ridiculous to belittle Joe's defensive impact when looking at 'simple' metrics like PER. Joe was also roughly 6.5 points higher with his own PER at each position.

[Admin]

I really wanna keep Benson. He put on some weight and has a good skill set and we need a big man that can run with the rest of our guys.

Benson seems like he might be foul prone against legit NBA players but I hope that's not the case as I'd love to see him on our DL team developing for another year.

[Sothron]

Here's what I think we all want to know as fans: is Ferry trying to put together a team that is expected to make the playoffs and do something THIS year or is he positioning us to tank and go into the lottery but still have attractive pieces to lure free agents next offseason?I honestly hope it is the latter.