Iman

The main thing I think you miss from the boxscore is that they sub Lebron way after most of the other starter on both teams. Actually I think he played the whole second half. He doesn't seem to trust his second unit and takes over the game during those times and we couldn't stop him. Bibby had one of his best games as a Hawk. He didn't just hit open jumpers, he also made a few nice driving moves, floaters, etc.

To some degree, the economics of baseball helped the Braves dominate the 90's. Now things have changed and NY, then Boston, then LA and Chicago are economically assisted in dominating. Other teams will be up and down and currently the Braves are down. I think they'll be up again by 2010 or 2011 assuming Hudson comes back strong and they resign him. The JD Drew trade and especially the Texeira trade were trades to try to just give us one more shot. I agreed with them at the time but longterm they are coming back to haunt us now.

The Hawks are not a great team but we just beat a team that lately had been great. I'll take it. Their key players Lebron and Mo had great games and we shut down the rest of the team, supposedly that was somewhat our strategy. Josh seems to always start years off slow. His injury will likely cause him to take even longer to figure out what he's doing this year. Since he is such a key to how we play, we'll be inconsistent when he's inconsistent. But it's obvious that Josh plays on emotion as does most of our team so I think that's why we rarely have easy wins or bad losses. We'll probably barely beat 5 or 6 of our upcoming 7 home opponents. That's just the type team we are.

We don't seem to match up very well with the Cavs to me. Even there ancillary players have had career games against us, Gooden, Gibson, etc. Luckily Gooden is gone. I see Marvin and Smoove both taking it on themselves to defend Lebron solidly so the key will be Gibson, etc as well as how Bibby and Joe shoot. I'll take the Hawks in a thriller.

Actually I think the latest arriving part of the crowd are the season ticket holder types. The corporate side of the arena is especially late filling up, lot's of those people are at the game but just hanging out in the nice concession areas until the game gets really going. No doubt though, popularity of the Hawks is improving. Actually fans without tickets should be glad it's taking time because increased popularity will make tickets harder to get and more expensive, especially on craigslist, etc.

Bibby is an asset that we have to figure out how to best manage, especially around trade deadline time. His expiring contract is more valuable than his skill. We might can move him for a talented young player or a good draft pick but we'll probably have to take on an overpaid player with a few years left on the contract to make it happen. If we don't trade him, we still get the benefit of his contract expiring plus we get him for the playoffs, so it'll take a good deal to move him. Resigning him is less of a decision to me. How Acie and our team does, what Bibby gets offered, what happened to Speedy, etc will probably make it a pretty easy decision. He'll probably assume he can get the MLE from some team so it'll take that type contract to resign him. I'd assume we do it if we advance a round in the playoffs whereas probably not if we don't. Some GM might throw out a high contract, if so, let him walk.

Seems like I had heard the nickname before, but during the Bucks game is the first time that I noticed that Ryan Cameron, the Hawks floor announcer, called Horford ..Boss..after scoring, etc. It sounds good, he announces the name, then kinda pauses before he says...Boss. Still though the kids like it best when he announces...Zaza Pachulia..lol.

It's amazing how many layups Josh causes other teams to miss. I can remember one game in particular where Baron Davis seemed to thrive on continually just slipping the ball by Josh. But that's rare. Solo is defending better this year so if we use him to backup Josh then Josh's defensive point influence will decrease. But usually Zaza comes in when Josh is out...and Zaza is just a horrible defender. He frequently backs away when someone comes down the lane, figuring he'll just rebound it if they miss but otherwise there's nothing he can go since he can't jump.

Podiatrists recommend that everyone wear orthotics. Most people including most athletes prefer not to but it's not anything to worry about. JJ doesn't get foul calls but then again, he doesn't really know how to jump into the defender and get the call, maybe because he's just not much of a jumper. Plus he's so strong that he doesn't get knocked around and then he tends to throw an arm and kind of negate the defensive foul. The stats make it look funny but I just think JJ will never draw many fouls. Once Smoove gets back, I think we can play without JJ much better this year than in the past. We have tons of guard depth. We wouldn't make the playoffs but we'd survive.

I'll admit that I overvalue the players on my home teams. Given that tendency you can predict that I'd not trade either of our guys for any of those guys....yet. A few of those guys might be a better fit for our team but I'm just not sure what we have won't work, plus it's fun to watch. One big factor that kicks in also is I feel our bigs seem to be physically durable and mentally tough. I like Bynum and Kaman but they both do have injury concerns. Smoove sometimes acts up but you can always tell he has heart. Same with Horford. If we get knocked out of the playoffs first round this year and start next year somewhat slow, THEN I'd probably make a similar move and try to trade for a more traditional big. Btw, I saw the Chicago domination by Horford, I still think he can be better than Boozer.

When you see Marvin's jumping ability and just watch him in shooting drills, I can see how he was drafted so high. I don't think he shoots before games anymore but when he did he always impressed me, rarely missing anything. He can shoot no doubt, and he seems to square up a little better shooting 3's so far as opposed to drifting at times on his midrangers. Still though I'm not far from believing with Diesel that he's mentally destined to just be Tim Thomas#2. But who knows, he's definitely gifted.

Games really aren't very good signing opportunities. The gate won't open until an hour before gametime so getting there early won't help much.

Flip is a nice pickup. He plays hard. But I think people are overestimating his outside shooting abilities. No way is he as good a shooter as Tyronn Lue, but of course he's a better player overall due to actually playing defense. If he was as good as he's started the season we would not have picked him up so easily.

I said it a few WEEKS ago that Chillz was my favorite Hawk but I thought we'd be better off without him. He just didn't fit. He'd probably be best on a Phoenix type team, worst on a Detroit type team. I bet you called you last GF a cancer after she dumped you also..lol.

I think it all depends on how Joe plays. If he's off like he was last night, then we'll miss Smoove alot. If Joe is on the team clicks and barely needs Josh (hmm, I can quit calling him Smoove since we now just have one Josh). I see Joe and the team recovering from last night's struggle against OKC and going 5-3 the next 8.

I think everyone is underestimating how well Joe is playing. He'll carry us to wins probably 90% of the time over bottom 10 teams, even on the road. Any team can get hot and beat us, just as we used to win unexpected games a few years ago, but generally as long as Joe comes out and hits most of his first few shots them I"ll assume he'll carry us through most of those games against inferior opponents. I see us going around 10 and 3 and not cooling off until December.

I think our team and especially JJ is hot enough that losing anyone other than JJ won't really slow us down much. We'll ride this hot streak a few more weeks then come back to earth, our late Nov-early Dec schedule gets tough. About that time Smoove will come back and help get us through tougher times. Also while Smoove is out we'll get to learn more about our other players. So overall I don't think losing Smoove this time of year will be a big deal and almost might be a slight positive as far as our longterm team progress.

Bibby looked bad last night but he is known to be streaky. Hopefully Woody will continue to do as he did last night and just play the hot player or proper matchup. The key to trading Bibby is getting a good young player out of the deal. If it's just a deal for a similar overpaid vet then why bother. I won't mind at all if we just keep Bibby to give Acie more time then we'll have all Bibby's capspace to help us resign JJ, Marvin, Horford, etc. Also with a little extra money we can replace ZaZa with a better backup center next year.

Nice article. Thanks for finding it. Sounds about right to me, we manhandled and outhustled NO 3 outta 4 quarters and won pulling away.

JJ continued to have that player of the month look that he finished up with last year. I don't know why he was off part of last year (injury?) but as long as he plays like that we'll get a 4th to 7th seed. He got us off to a hot start then carried us when the game became somewhat of a game in the third. He even had a nice dunk. JSmoove played under control and looked great. Zaza had the third best game in my mind. He seemed to have the spark back that he had two years ago. Even his bacne looked better..lol. Most of the rest of the players looked as expected to me. Bibby was better than lot's of last year but he should be, he's not injured. Acie was a little more assertive but still has a way to go. Actually Horford and Solo both not being more aggressive was about the only slight negative that I saw. I would have put Morris in to slow down Howard in the third/fourth. I'm sure they have practiced against each other tons and Morris would have put in extra effort against his friend. I even liked seeing Speedy on the bench in his usual velvet jacket. If he's gonna show up in a suit all this year he needs to at least expand his wardrobe. I assume it'll take an injury to Bibby or Acie to get him back into the rotation.

Childress was a unique player and my favorite Hawk. His ability to rebound, especially to grab the airball, was uncanny. However, I don't think he was a very good fit for the Hawks. The improvement of Marvin and Acie, and the pickup of Mo Evans all help to fill the hole left by Chillz. Bibby being healthier and here to start the season makes a big difference. We lost tons of games early and mid-season last year, I don't see that happening so much this year. JSmoove and Horford of course improve. JJ probably won't go through a bad spell like he did last year largely since he should have an easier time do to our point guard improvements. I see us starting slow due to the schedule but closing on but missing a home court seed as the season closes out, assuming we keep Bibby. With a Bibby trade/dump I see us getting a 6 or 7 seed. Win range 42-49. Btw, I don't think the East will be that much better overall.

Greg Hansen? Probably the waterboy for Arizona while Salim was there.

Looks to me like it's Gardner or Mario for the last spot. Either way, we won't see much of the last few guys anyways, Hunter, Solo, and West or Gardner will probably be wearing a suit most nights.

Bibby's capspace could be very valuable to a team, we should get some pretty good offers. I actually assume Acie and Speedy will look fine to replace Bibby but all the trade offers we'll be given be worth making a move. I'd take on a bad contract that goes into 2010 or even 2011 if we can also get a good young player in the deal. If we can't get a good deal for Bibby I doubt we'll move him. He'll help us in the playoffs and then give us all that capspace, both of which will be very valuable.

We definitely could regress if we lose JJ, less so if we lost Horford, and probably even less if we lost Smoove. Otherwise I think for the next 3-4 yrs our core will solidly get us to a 3rd to 8th seed with 5th and 6th being most common. That will be a nice improvement but IMO we still need a player good enough for us to consider benching one of our current players if we are to really challenge. Preferably that player would be a center. Actually even a guard would work and if needed we could start JJ at SF.