crimedog

That would be an interesting mix of a slightly undersized but overly athletic starting frontcourt and a slightly oversized but slow-footed backup group.

Sacto might be the worst team in the league but bad teams occasionally beat good teams, witness the Clippers blowing us out on our home court. Like yall said, the way to win is to dominate the glass (they have the size, but we have the toughness/athleticism). I also think that this is a game where we should definitely base the offense more around post play and the pick and roll. Josh has become a pretty solid post player and I'm pretty confident he'll be able to get the the hoop against whoever the Kings throw at him. Since the Kings front line is young and less physically developed, I'd like to see Al scoring a lot off of offensive boards. From there we should let our shooters get their fill.

Hollinger has been raving about him. Pluses are that he's a solid shotblocker, efficient scorer, and nasty rebounder. Minuses are that he's a completely unknown quantity and fairly mistake prone. Is it possible to get him and retain Zaza? Is Gortat worth letting Zaza go if he's cheaper?

Don't get me wrong, I understand where you are coming from. Plenty of bankers leave the finance to go run charities, plenty of corporate attorneys go to the ACLU... Most don't though. Maybe Nique would have given anything to come back, maybe he wouldn't. I'm sure he would have given it all up to win a title, but that was far from a guarantee. Nique was also a completely different player than Chil and his legacy and impact could have been completely different with a title. I'm sure, to an extent at least, Josh does want to come back and play in the NBA and see his family. I'm also sure he would be willing to lose money to do it... the question is how much is that worth to him? Maybe its noble of him to turn his back on $2m over the next two years... but it could also be $8m, is that worth it?

I think this is exactly the point actually. When all is said and done, what is his net over there ~$8m or something (more I think when everything gets taken into consideration)? It would be a very ballsy move to give that up and take a short term contract to come to the NBA while the economy is depressed and teams are unlikely to overbid on middling players and with the new CBA that will be enacted, its unlikely he'll be able to get big dough in the future. Hell, if he does take a one year contract just to get back here, he takes the risk of losing big money for one year and then hitting a damn lockout. I don't know, maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way but it just seems like he stands to lose a lot of cash if he comes back now. Does he care about that?

My point was just in response to the guy who said the league wanted the Cs to stomp us.

They didn't appreciate us any more but the league only profits by having a longer series in the playoffs. Why on earth would they be upset about the 3 extra national TV games that came with a 7 game series? If the league is all about money, like you're implying, they'd want EVERY series to go to 7 games and get the most amount of money possible. I guess they could get paid by the networks in terms of series instead of games, but that wouldn't make any sense.

I don't see any reason why the NBA would ever want a series to be uncompetitive. I think Stern & Co. would have to have been completely thrilled at the outcome of that series. It was a) 3 extra games which means more room for ads b) compelling ball which meant more room for watching and c) set up more compelling ball for the future as ATL gained exposure and the Celts-Hawks game on nat'l tv this season got HUGE ratings. As far as whether a team can beat a superstar. The same great defensive team beat Lebron and Kobe this past offseason. As annoying as it will inevitivably be to see DWade get star calls all game, he is legitimately a takeover player who we should be more concerned about than the refs.

Regardless of the circumstance, I wouldn't offer Chil the amount of money he wants. Especially with every team in the league trying to cut salary. As far as trading him, don't forget its a SnT. That means that SOMEONE has to want to give Childress enough to entice him to come back. Whether he wants to come back or not, he's not going to take a huge (millions of $$$s a year) paycut just to play in the NBA, he'd be stupid to do that right now.

Well here's how I look at it. On the balance of 08/09, they haven't been particularly special because Smith was in a funk (just like I don't think our backcourt has been particularly special because of Joe's funk). However, when they are playing like they are playing now, they make the team go. Sekou has a definite point. If they are both rebounding like they can, they bring an element that no other team can match in terms of being able to guard so much of the floor at once as well as grab the boards. Offensively, they're just too good in transition for other teams to handle. When Josh is dogging it and Al is being too timid, they're average.

Bibby - not young Joe - consistency, maybe working on conditioning/losing a few pounds so he doesn't hit that sub-40% month next season Marv - passing, keep working on the 3, become a lockdown defender Josh - FTs and rebounding Al - low post defense Acie - jump shot Rio - jump shot Solo - weight room Zaza - continue working on D rebounding (up a lot this year) Flip - hopefully keep up the J Mo - same

One thing to consider though, is that the proportion of jumpers to layups can be impacted by how well he's shooting. Since Joe isn't a Lebron/Wade/Kobe level athlete, he can't just decide to drive. He can get by his man a lot easier if his man is respecting his jumper, otherwise he'll sag off and Joe isn't always explosive enough to get by a dude playing a couple feet back.

I'd like to see him come off the bench. I think that the overall talent of the other 4 starters makes Marv's contributions less important, especially when JJ's shot is dropping and Josh is crashing the boards. Since his marginal contribution is lower when our other players are playing better, he might be better suited for the bench where he becomes a massive bench upgrade and gives us one of the better benches in the league with Flip-Marv-Zaza instead of a fairly mediocre bench with Flip-Mo-Zaza. The issue is one of confidence though. I'm not sure Marv is mentally tough enough to take what he might consider as a demotion (one of the coolest things about Ginobili is that he doesn't consider coming off the bench to be insulting, nor does he thing playing less than 30 min a night to be underuse, he realizes that he's helping his team by doing that).

No, he was just playing poorly. Happened last season too. Something was bugging him, he didn't look happy out there, poor body language, etc. Just like Smith.

I'm not against bringing Marv off the bench, but when I saw the thread title, I was pretty sure I knew what the "theory" was.

I don't know if you can plan to build a team like the Bulls because you can't plan on getting a "Jordan" or Wade or Lebron.

Agree 100%, thats why I keep wondering why people here want to trade our talent for some stiff on a team winning a quarter of its games.

I realize that you are just making up numbers, but I can't help myself. Atlanta is 24th in the league in rebound rate at 48.6% (48.6% of available rebounds grabbed). Washington is 23rd in the league at 49.0% in that same metric. That if offset by the fact that Washington plays with 92.7 possessions per game and Atlanta plays with 92.3. Atlanta has actually grabbed 20 MORE rebounds than Washington over the entirety of this season. Why are they a good rebounding team and where do you see those extra rebounds coming from Blatche?

I think that it just points out that we don't really know any of these guys motivations. Its pretty obvious that Josh hasn't been content with his money this year, when a dude is content he looks like Tim Thomas, Josh has been PISSED OFF. We don't know what the reason is but either his game was slipping and it messed with his head or his head was whacked out and it screwed up his game. It seems like he's got both things working a little bit now. I think Josh has always loved the fans in ATL. Its obvious that he's a comptetive guy. He has some maturity issues sometimes (but so does KG/Kobe/Shaq), but he likes the game.

Bird, you realize that he's doing the same thing Ric Bucher is. Don't get me wrong, I'd imagine Woody doesn't want Josh to take those shots, but Mannix doesn't claim the have any insider info, he doesn't claim to have a source... his evidence is that he looks at Woody's face. Dsinner is pointing out the fact that Woody actually said in an interview that he wasn't going to tell Josh to stop taking those. I think it got a little blown out that he said that but Mannix knows as much about what actually happens in that locker room as you or I do, his editor just told him "bust out a story about the Hawks".

Thanks for posting. Not sure if it gives us any new insight, but it is definitely a fun read. We don't really know what either guy thinks and its pretty obvious that Mannix doesn't either (at least in terms of having sources on the inside that we don't have). It is pretty obvious that they don't love eachother. The questions are though, are they both important to the team and can they co-exist? I tend to think that the "Smith does X and Y because he doesn't like Woodson" is only partially true. Afterall, when Joe shot 37% for the entire month of December, we weren't rushing to find reasons for it like we do with Smith, we just said "Joe is having a poor month" and hoped he got his groove back. The point he does make is that the "we have to trade Smith" stuff, while defensible, has to be beneficial to the team and not just reactionary. The team can't afford to lose his production (I'm not saying anything about potential here) and hope to continue to be competitive. Talent or no, it'll be tough for any team to take on a large, long-term contract with the uncertain economic environment.

Exactly. Saying that the lineup with the "stud 2" would be better is probably true, on the other hand we'd be better with a "stud 3" as well. Marv is probably a better defender than Mo/Flip as well and a better shooter than Mo/Flip as well. Its not like he's a ball dominant player either, the biggest criticisms he gets are for his seeming content-ness with being a role player which means he could very well do what those guys have done the past couple of games, just better. Marv fits in well with Smith and Johnson providing they are both playing well like they are now. They weren't for a long time but Joe has a little bit of history with shooting poorly and then lighting it up for the stretch run and Josh actually has that as well in previous seasons.

After the Palin experience + the Daily show special where they sent the correspondent out to Wasilla, I'm astounded there is in't a reality tv show based out of that place. I don't watch much TV outside of the Hawks, but I can't imagine America not eating that place up.

From Hollinger: 3. With Marvin Williams out indefinitely with a back injury and Maurice Evans contributing little of late, Atlanta turned to little-used Mario West in the first half of Wednesday night's win over Utah. West had three points, four rebounds, three assists, a block and a steal, and his manic physicality was a big asset against the Jazz's brutish playing style. West had been used almost strictly as an end-of-quarter defensive sub when the other team had the ball in last-shot situations -- he's appeared in 37 games, but this was the first time he'd played more than seven in a non-blowout situation. He's never going to score much, but if he can bring defense and energy the way he did against the Jazz, he may be able to carve out a more regular gig. Though he's only 6-5, West has a 15.0 rebound rate this season -- one that would beat out a good chunk of the league's centers. http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/col...mInsider-090312 I know Hollinger gets to a lot of Hawks games, I've never seen him (where does he sit? Press box?), so I'm sure he's aware of Rio.

Bird, YOU don't have to be objective if you don't want to. You need to start letting other people be both objective and fans. If we weren't fans we wouldn't be on this message board all day. Marv is a solid perimeter defender. He is by no means a lockdown perimeter defender. Lebron had a worse game against Orlando, are we going to call Hedo a lockdown guy too? The difference between our defense with Marv and without him isn't huge, because we have other solid guys on the perimeter. Especially when Josh and Al are both playing well and our defensive strength becomes very obviously our ability to protect the rim.