Hatertots

Agreed. After beating the Miami, New York, Jersey, Chicago stories into the ground they just need a new angle on the LeBron talk.

Today's post over at David Berri's Wages of Wins blog is about our surprising 2009 Atlanta Hawks, especially young Mr. Smith. My link My favorite part:

Ex, I enjoy reading your posts because, whether or not I agree with your overall point, your arguments are thoughtful and well-constructed. With regards to Josh Childress, I feel like your point, as I interpret it, is somewhat dishonest. If I'm reading your post as you intended it (and it's possible that I'm not), you're essentially saying: Billy Knight no longer has a job as a GM because he fails to maximize the value of his draft position. In evidence of that, consider that sixth overall pick Josh Childress is no longer in the NBA, and that Shelden Williams and Marvin Williams, 5th and 2nd picks respectively, were drafted ahead of substantially more productive players. While it's factually correct that Josh Childress no longer plays in the NBA, the insinuation that this fact is somehow tied to player performance (since the above quotation focuses on relative player performance) is incorrect. Childress no longer plays in the NBA because Olympiakos- due to lack of salary cap and tax laws more favorable to players- could offer him a much, much better salary than any NBA team. In the summer of his restricted free agency, Childress drew interest, IIRC, from the Hawks, Spurs, Lakers, and a few other teams. This past offseason the Bucks tried to sign Childress. But no one can come close to offering him the type of money he can make in Greece. Childress plays in Europe by choice, not because of lack of interest or poor performance. On the subject of Billy Knight (this part isn't specifically addressed to you, Exodus), I'm a proud BK hater. I only liked one of his FA moves (Bibby for crap) and two of his draft picks (Smoove and Horford). But in this nine page thread of hate and love, I haven't seen one post acknowledge that the Hawks never fired Billy Knight. He was offered a one year contract after our playoff run (just like Mike Woodson) and he declined to accept that offer. Given last year's success, he might very likely still be Atlanta's GM if he'd signed the contract (thank God for small miracles). But as it stands, Billy Knight left us, not the other way around.

I would love to trade JJ for Gasol, but I agree with the posters who think LA wants to keep him. After all, they did just advance to the Finals in consecutive years and he played a big role in making that happen. I thought there were a few good options for upgrading the roster this past offseason both in free agency (Lee or Sessions) and the draft (Lawson or Dejuan Blair). I'm not expecting any big roster changes mid-season, although if they did trade JJ, here's two trades I wouldn't mind seeing go down: JJ and a 2010 unprotected to Miami for Wade (assuming he told the Heat FO he had no intention of staying with them). JJ to the Kings for Kevin Martin and filler (Hawes or Udrih or Nocioni). Obviously the Wade scenario is just a pie in the sky fantasy; the Heat are 5-1 and would never dream of trading a guy on D-Wade's level to a division rival. But Sacramento totally sucks, they play out west, and they have no shot at making the playoffs. They could rent an All-Star, ditch a semi-bad contract (Udrih, I suspect) and set their sights on next year. And while Martin isn't a big name (probably because he plays for the Kings) he makes a lot of threes (39% career), gets to the line (85% career), and doesn't turn over the ball much. Players that score at his rate while preserving possessions (30.1 ppg and 1.4 TO for 2009-10) are hard to come by. I don't believe he's a Wade or Kobe caliber of shooting guard, but he could be the player that bumps the Hawks from an exciting playoff afterthought to a serious threat to Boston, Cleveland and Orlando, like Billups transformed Denver into a playoff threat last year. Oh, and he's locked up to a reasonable deal. Which is also important.

I think any realistic Chris Paul trade scenario includes the doodoo taco that is Peja's contract. They'll make nearly $28 million combined next year.

In absolute terms (ie not relative to the competition), the Hawks' offseason moves look lateral to me. The same faces are coming back and we replace Flip with Crawford, our new bench chucker de jour, and next year's team will probably look a lot like the product we've seen on the floor the past two years. A probable playoff team but definitely not a contender without a youngster becoming a superstar (something I think is unlikely). Relative to the East, Cleveland may have improved with the Shaq trade, Boston's fortunes will rise and fall with the health and play of KG, PP, Allen and Rondo, and Orlando's addition of Vince increases the gap between the Eastern elite and the 4-8 seeds. Getting Miller and a (hope)fully healed Agent Zero means the Wizards are taking someone's playoff ticket (I'm looking at you, Detroit). When I look over this free agent class, however, I think the Hawks missed out on some very nice pieces, namely Ramon Sessions, Trevor Ariza, Marcin Gortat, and David Lee. I'm not saying it was realistic for us to acquire all, if any, of these players (especially in the case of Lee), but all four were (are) available and you can make the case that each one would've been an upgrade over the incumbent Hawk, especially if you're a fan of D. Berri's work in sports economy, which rates Sessions as significantly more productive than Bibby, Ariza and Gortat as about twice as productive as Williams and Zaza, and Lee as roughly three times more productive than Smoove. Personally, I would've loved seeing the Hawks (any team really, but especially the team I root for) trot out a lineup of Wins Produced All-Stars like Sessions/ Johnson/ Ariza/ Lee/ Horford with a producer like Gortat eating up 20-25 minutes backing up the 4 and 5. Of course, if it failed, Sund would be out of a job in a hurry while success doesn't always ensure security, so I don't blame him for playing it safe.

I think Marion would make a great addition to the Hawks, but I remember reading somewhere that his numbers are much more impressive at PF than at SF. Broken down by position: FGA, eFG%, FTA, iFG, Reb, Ast, TO, Blk, PF, Pts, PER SF 16.4 0.472 2.8 56% 9.1 2.8 2.6 0.9 2.2 17.8 15.2 PF 19.3 0.536 3.9 55% 16.5 3.7 2.1 1.4 1.6 23.7 26.5

I think you're dead on about Gortat. He's another "super-sub" type who has the ability to come off the bench and score a handful of efficient points in the flow of the game and excel in a non-scoring aspect, rebounds in Gortat's case. In Zaza's role, I'd guess he could give the Hawks 7 pts 8 reb and around 1.5 blk. He's sneaky good and a solid pickup for any team that gets him. If Sund can pry away Gortat from Orlando and Ramon Sessions from the Bucks, I'll take back every snarky Saer Sene comment I've ever made.

Thanks, Dolfan, glad you enjoyed it. I agree that Lee would be the most realistic of those three, but unfortunately,he doesn't add any size down low. It would also be great if the Hawks could arrange a swap of draft positions in the trade as well, although given the supposed weakness of this draft class, I'm not sure how much difference there is between the ninth and 19th selections (other than their price tags). I'd really like to see the Hawks go BPA in the draft and make a run at Ramon Sessions for a PG solution. He's younger than Bibby and should come cheaper and he almost matches Bibby's production but without the 3pt shooting. Plus next year is his 3rd in the NBA, the proverbial "breakout" year for young players, so maybe the Hawks catch a break and pick up a guy who takes his game to the next level in an Atlanta uni.

In a league where Tyson Chandler gets traded from New Orleans... and then stays with New Orleans, it's hard to believe any trade rumor until I see the guy at a press conference holding up a new jersey with different team colors. But, since it's also fun to speculate, why not? Chad mentioned Portland, NY, Dallas, and Cleveland as teams with owners deep pocketed enough to make this happen. Since we're just speculating, I'm going to speculate that this is a talent-for-talent trade and not a cost cutting maneuver. Since Cleveland only has one intriguing talent (and I don't think he's available) let's cross them off. Dallas: their talent's too old, and their youth doesn't have enough talent. New York has one player I'd consider moving Smith for (I can already hear keyboards clicking away furious responses questioning my intelligence, Hawks fandom, and possibly my sexual preferences): David Lee. Assuming that Josh had to go, a 26 year old guy who posted 16ppg and 11.7 rpg on 55% shooting is pretty good value in return, especially if you're at all worried about being on the receiving end of an expiring contract poop sandwich like we handed the Kings for Bibby. I hear Lee getting knocked for his defense, but his defense would have to be pretty terrible to negate an efficient 16 and 12. The homerun swing would be a trade centered around Smith for Portland big man Greg Oden. It's hard to imagine the Blazers letting go of Oden after one season, but it's not impossible given Oden's injury history and his penchant for picking up fouls like they're made of money. Especially when they're getting back a guy who's only two years older than Oden, got to 500 blocks faster than any player in NBA history, and is more athletic than every player except LeBron and Howard. It's a high risk, high reward trade for both teams. Are Oden's knees structurally flawed? Will Josh learn how to play basketball? Can either player realize his vast potential? Is moving Josh a gamble? Absolutely. But since it's not a given that he becomes an All Star PF (let alone a HoF'er) so is keeping him. The "Ooops, I crapped 'em!" blockbuster dream trade would be Josh and Joe to New Orleans for Chris Paul and Tyson Chandler, giving us one of the bigger front courts and one of the top 3 back court players in the NBA. Spice up the bench with a lil' something (Gortat or Sessions, perhaps the return of J Chill?) and suddenly the East is four contenders deep. Could it happen? If the Hornets were desperate to slash payroll, they could do worse by their fans than renting Joe for a year and picking up Smoove's vast untapped potential, but I'll give New Orleans' front office more credit than that. But, hey, it's the offseason. Let a man dream.

Matt Ryan with the 3rd pick worked out pretty good.

I'd be all for getting David Lee if the Hawks could pull it off without giving up a core player. Not sure if NY is actually thinking about trading him, but his name keeps popping up in rumors. Also, Richard Hendrix, a second round pick by Golden State, put up excellent numbers in college and in the D League before Nellie cut him- not sure why, but I think the reasons were financial rather than performance based. He's 250, 9' 1" standing reach with excellent strength and he's available. Could be a decent defensive PF/C at the NBA level (along the lines of Kurt Thomas), wouldn't hurt to give him a shot.

Fascinating, as always. Thanks for your input, Diesel.

Crimedog- The only thing I'm keen to do is discuss basketball. You claimed in an earlier post that if JJ didn't have ball handling responsibilities or didn't have to face double teams, he would be 'fresh' and be more productive like Manu Ginobili, who has a point guard in Parker and a low post threat who faces double teams in Duncan. Presumably, your point is that acquiring Duncan would make Joe a more efficient player. I pointed out a situation in which Joe played with an MVP point guard and a huge offensive threat in Amare, yet Joe offered nowhere near the scoring efficiency that Manu does. For his career, Joe has produced a shade over one point per shot attempt (about 1.18 in seasons where he's gotten 35+ minutes), regardless of the talent level or skill set of his teammates. Therefore, I'm skeptical of any claim that Joe's efficiency can be raised by adding Duncan. According to that argument, we should have expected a huge decrease in Joe's scoring efficiency when he left Phoenix for Atlanta, but that never happened.

Crimedog- The only thing I can look at is what they did in the games. And in the games they played last season (and every other season) Manu was the more productive shooting guard. The argument that Joe would play better if he had a better point handling the ball and didn't face so many double teams gets thrown around a lot. What you might find surprising is that in Phoenix, where JJ played under those exact ideal conditions, his numbers hardly changed at all. Atlanta Joe takes more shots and, as a result, scores more points than Phoenix Joe and Atl Joe gets slightly fewer rebounds than Phx Joe (I'm guessing that pace accounts for this marginal difference) but any way you slice it, there's no evidence that Joe was a radically better player when he played with Nash, Amare, and Marion. His scoring efficiency was basically the same (with the exception of a one season spike in 3p%, and even that had less impact on his points per shot than I would've thought). Joe Johnson, regardless of the jersey on his back and the teammates at his side, has played like Joe Johnson throughout his career.