Someone please tell me???

[Diesel]

[KB21]

Yes he is.

From NBADraft.net when he was drafted:

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NBA Comparison: Penny Hardaway

Strengths: Only a given few have the ball skills that Johnson possesses at 6-9. Penny Hardaway (6-7), Lamar Odom, and Magic Johnson come to mind. Has very good vision and passing skills. Great intangibles. Has that certain feel for the game that the great ones have, knows where to be, what to do. Great shot, handle, passing, vision, confidence.

Weaknesses: Must get stronger, learn the game. Entering just his sophomore season, Johnson still has alot of basketball to learn. Must stay aggressive.

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I watched them both in college. I saw Penny at Memphis when he was a small forward, and I saw Joe Johnson at Arkansas when he was listed as a small forward. Their games were identical. Both players set their team's offense. Both players were their team's main scoring threat. Both players were their team's best defender, though David Vaughn was a pretty good defender for Memphis as well.

[swolehawk2]

"Defensively, he will have to be able to stop the little speedsters. I love the Hawks but I don't want to see a layup drill everynight because we can't stop the short small PGs... and I think that teams will attack us that way!"

If we had the 2005 NBA MVP as our PG you could still argue this problem!

"Well your focus has been what offense and how he can look over PGs"

My focus was just because he is tall does not may his defense worse that half the PGs in this league.

[KB21]

Wrong.

Penny played small forward in college. He set his offense, but he played small forward.

[drzachary]

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I'm not a Suns fan, though they were undeniably the most fun team to watch last year. I'm an LMU fan!

[drzachary]

Or, to be more general, I'm a fan of the way basketball used to be played. Very little defense, a lot of scoring. The pinnacle of this was reached by LMU (and US Int'l).

[Diesel]

If we had Nash...

It would still be a problem. Yes... Does that mean that we ignore it?

I hope not. The Suns got no closer to being champions than the Hawks... IN all honesty. When the NBA finals were being played, where were the Suns??

At home watching Just like the Hawks, James Forrest and Xray Hipp!

So why would we want to duplicate their losing effort?

[Diesel]

[drzachary]

I wish that NBA pros weren't so lazy, so Westhead could have succeeded with his LMU style in the NBA.

[Diesel]

Westhead tried his strategy in the NBA first when he had Alex English putting up 32 ppg.

It failed misraebly. Denver would put up 122 ppg, but their opponents would put up 123.

I remember watching Denver play the mighty Celtics.. I think the Celtics finished with 145 points. Everybody was scoring.. Even DJ and Cheif put up Numbers higher than 20...

The point is good coaching knows how to put on the breaks at the right time.

The Suns did that this yr. They scored and played no defense. However, a winning team will be a team that knows how to play defense and how to run.

See them OLD Celtics...

[Diesel]

LMU vs. LSU... I forget the year.

But Roberts, Oneal, Jackson vs. Gathers, Kimble... It was up and down and eventually LSU couldn't match basket for basket...

Another good one from that era was:

LSU vs. GT in the NCAA tourney..

Anderson, Scott, and damn I can't remember his name... but they were called 3D. Vs. Oneal, Roberts, and Jackson. Nobody gave GT a shot at winning it.. But Anderson got Jackson to forget about team and play one on one basketball.... after a while.. all that frontcourt play was forgotten memories.. Jackson stopped passing and Scott started hitting those threes from all over!!

[swolehawk2]

So why did you want Chris Paul again??

[drzachary]

The key to LMU was the track & field conditioning of the players. I have the game on tape where they beat defending champs Michigan in the second round, 149-115. The scariest thing is that at the end, Bo Kimble and Jeff Fryer were hardly sweating! Fryer still holds the NCAA record for threes (11 for 15), which was only recently eclipsed on the NBA level by Kobe... but it took him 3 more shots to get 1 more three, and an 8-minute longer game

Watch that game if you get the chance. That's basketball.

[jezmund]

Brian Oliver maybe?

[Diesel]

Yep.. That's it...

[Traceman]

JJ has a chance to be a terrific player in his own right but the Penny Hardaway comparisons are setting him up for failure. If he doesn't become an All NBA first teamer, he has failed to live up to being as good as Penny and that simply is not fair.

That being said, I think JJ CAN be an All Star PG in this league and I suspect he'll get every chance to prove it here. People question his ability to defend PGs but if that becomes a huge liability, why can we not play him with a smaller SG (like Salim) and let that smaller SG guard the other team's PG. That is exactly what the Lakers did with Magic and Byron Scott.

[Lascar78]

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Yes he is.

From NBADraft.net when he was drafted:

Quote:

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NBA Comparison: Penny Hardaway

Strengths: Only a given few have the ball skills that Johnson possesses at 6-9. Penny Hardaway (6-7), Lamar Odom, and Magic Johnson come to mind. Has very good vision and passing skills. Great intangibles. Has that certain feel for the game that the great ones have, knows where to be, what to do. Great shot, handle, passing, vision, confidence.

Weaknesses: Must get stronger, learn the game. Entering just his sophomore season, Johnson still has alot of basketball to learn. Must stay aggressive.

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I watched them both in college. I saw Penny at Memphis when he was a small forward, and I saw Joe Johnson at Arkansas when he was listed as a small forward. Their games were identical. Both players set their team's offense. Both players were their team's main scoring threat. Both players were their team's best defender, though David Vaughn was a pretty good defender for Memphis as well.

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You've got to be kidding me. The comparison stops at a tall guy with ball handling abilities. I do believe we'll play him at PG, but he is not the natural PG that Penny was. Here's another NBADraft.net comparison:

Quote:

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Jason Collier

Birthdate: 9/8/77

NBA Position: Center

College: Georgia Tech

Class: Senior

Ht: 7-0

Wt: 250

Hometown: Springfield, OH

High School: Catholic Central

Team Site Profile

NBA Comparison: Vlade Divac

Strengths: Competitive big man with good shooting range. Prefers playing on the perimeter.

Crafty rebounder

and scorer.

Has good post moves. Good intensity.

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Sounds like this Jason Collier fellow could help us out with his rebounding and intensity in the post...

[KB21]

Penny was an All-NBA player because he had a lot of hype behind him. He wasn't nearly as good as some of you are trying to make out. He didn't revolutionize the position the way Magic Johnson did. Penny was what he was. He was a long, athletic guy that had the ability to play point guard, shooting guard, and small forward.

I believe that Joe Johnson has the ability to bring back the big point guard.

[Traceman]

I don't care how much hype a guy has behind him, you have to be a heck of a player to even make THIRD team All NBA, let alone first team.

He was on the first team with Jordan ahead of Drexler, Stockton, Payton, Mitch Richmond, Reggie Miller, Tim Hardaway, Kevin Johnson, Latrell Sprewell, etc. The guy was PHENOMENAL before his knees went bad.

As for Magic, he didn't "revolutionize" the position because no one else has been able to come close to duplicating his game. He DID create a lot of wannabe big PGs but name another PG over 6'6" (heck over 6'4" for that matter) who will be heading to the HOF since Magic came on the scene? Magic was simply a once in a generation talent that we may not see again for quite a while.

[KB21]

Phenominal?

If a top average of 21.7 ppg and 7.7 apg is phenominal, then Joe Johnson is going to be phenominal for Atlanta.