Hell No to Gortat!

[LastDon]

What is being undervalued in the whole Josh Smith saga is the value of Smith to the hawks as a winner.. Even though we haven't won a championship or gotten out the 2nd round of the playoffs we have continued to be a consistently competitve team year in and year out.. Most would have attributed the team to success to Joe but the team has continued to win with the Smith/Horford tandem.

The high low action with both players is excellent and is something to build around. Their scrappniess in the paint is something that doesn't show up on the stat sheet but has been instrumental in a lot of wins.The hawks should let the free agent market set the value for smith. He is an exciting player whose personality has develop over the years.. He is becoming more marketable than what Joe was.. We should just pay the man even if its the max.. Smith has 4/5 good years left in the tank and we could easily dumped him during the duration of the contract.. If we could trade Joe there should be no reason to jump the gun and not resign smith because of the thinking that his contract would be untradeable.

The hawks should consider signing Al Jefferson in the offseason and pair him with Al and Josh and have Josh work on his half court perimeter game during the summer with the knowledge of knowing that he will be playing exclusively at the 3.. In the open court he is as dangerous as Lebron and with his athletism and passing ability.. It would be dumb to let smith go if its not for fair market value..

Give him the money if the market sets the price at the max in a back loaded deal..

Edited January 31, 2013 by LastDon

[Ruckus]

Wow this is different. Not quite sure how to respond...

Smoove, is this you?

[drzachary]

Yeah, sorry Smoove -- I don't think your GM reads this forum.

And if it is you, for f***'s sake, stop shooting long jumpers.

[LastDon]

There are very few True Centers in the league anymore.. The way our Hybrid 4 and 5 men are able to play high/low as well as get rebounds and start the break is one of the main ingredients that makes the hawks so dangerous. Keep the Teague/Smith/Horford Trio they are young and if we can add a closer to mix we might can get over the hump!

[drzachary]

Our big men starting the break is not a good thing.

[Diesel]

There are very few True Centers in the league anymore.. The way our Hybrid 4 and 5 men are able to play high/low as well as get rebounds and start the break is one of the main ingredients that makes the hawks so dangerous. Keep the Teague/Smith/Horford Trio they are young and if we can add a closer to mix we might can get over the hump!

We are not built for the hard climb. And in basketball years, we're really not that young anymore. We are built to win regular season games when Bigs don't play as hard and there's nothing to play hard for. However, look at our bigs in our last few playoffs.

KG - Murdered them.

Boozer, Asik, and Gibson - Murdered them.

A Bogutless Milwaukee team with a Senior Citizen playing big... Nearly Murdered them.. then D-12 Murdered them.

From all that, we said. Joe Johnson is the problem.

Nope. Joe nor his contract was the problem. The problem was our 4-5 is really a 3.5 -4. IN the playoffs when teams slow the game down to a halfcourt pace... our bigs get murdered by other focused REAL bigs.

So what's your hope.. to see us go to the playoffs and catch the Pacers in the first round and watch Hibbert Murder them?

Or better yet, catch Chicago again and watch us get murdered by Noah, Boozer, Gibson, and old man NAZR?

I know. YOu want Joe... so that we can prove that we're better without him. Well, you can't get Joe without Lopez. Hell, all of Brooklyn is waiting for Telotevic to become Sabonis. You want that to happen in the playoffs?

I got it. You want us vs. NY... and watch Chandler become 1st round MVP.

[Nicholasp27]

Does Gortat shoot worst in league from two different areas of the floor while also taking almost as many long 2s as Kobe?No, you say? Then I say YES to trading smith for Gortat

[yungsta]

Lol there is so much wrong with that post I dont even know where to start.

Scrappiness in the paint?? LOL since when was AL and smoove known for playing in the paint? That is 1 of their weaknesses they play more like guards than big men. The only players that consistently play in the paint are ivan and ZAZA. Thats why you see Horford go multiple games without shooting 1 freethrow or games where smoove has more 3 point attempts than freethrow attempts.

[drzachary]

Wait.

The original post was satire... I feel like an idiot for missing it.

[cam1218]

Al and Josh do feed off each other really well most of the time. There is a little bit of truth in your post..But we should never ever ever give Josh the max. It just isn't smart and would cripple our franchise. We got a second chance when we got out of paying Joe, we can't blow it paying another non-deserving player a max contract.

Edited February 1, 2013 by cam1218

[DrReality]

Yeah, sorry Smoove -- I don't think your GM reads this forum. And if it is you, for f***'s sake, stop shooting long jumpers.

Very funny. And agree

[AHF]

Josh and Al are both plus passers and so put together some nice combinations but I keep seeing reference to their "high/low" play...so my question is this:

Is the guy playing "low" the one taking midrange jumpers at a decent percentage or the one taking long jumpers at a bad percentage?

[Admin]

Josh and Al are both plus passers and so put together some nice combinations but I keep seeing reference to their "high/low" play...so my question is this:

Is the guy playing "low" the one taking midrange jumpers at a decent percentage or the one taking long jumpers at a bad percentage?

I'm guessing it's a reference to the easy baskets that Josh does admittedly get for Al when he finds himself wide open in the middle of the paint. Of course I'm pretty sure our PG could get him those baskets too, if he were allowed to have the ball... But Al still deserves the lions share of the credit for constantly getting himself open in the paint like that.

[DrReality]

We've tried to get a center for so long. Apart from Al and Za who else have we had. Long dry spell.

[Atlantaholic]

Gortat makes a lot of sense for us, a very good starting center. We can play Al at PF and finally have some legitimately good size down low. Plus we get rid of Smith, who is horrible with a capital H this season.