crimedog

How on earth doesn't it apply to our own players? I still think Smith and Marv have a lot of room for growth. I think Al has less room for growth than some people around he do, but if he decided that he wanted to be more aggressive a face-up scorer, he'd be a lot more of a force on offense. His knees and ankles are for sure a concern. If you think he's soft, I can say with 100% certainty you haven't watched very hard.

he is a solid rebounder but what does the center thing have to do with it? Just means there are more rebounds not being sucked up by an elite rebounder.

I have not hard feelings for Marv. You can look at my post history and see that I pretty much have the same refrain for Marv, he's a solid to slightly above average player who does as much as he can with his abilities and the people who expect him to be a star just thought that he had more natural talent and athleticism. As far as whether or not he's versatile enough to play PF for stretches, yeah, sure he is. What does that have to do with the fact that a power forward should rebound more than a small forward and Marv plays a good chunk of his time at power forward and therefore comparing him to guys who only play SF is misleading? Nothing. I have a lot of love for our team and players, I just happen to think that none of them are flawless. Marv is very solid. He isn't near a "not quite all star" in my opinion, but he's average/above average at his position and he's only 22.

Just as a counterpoint, which great pivots in history came into the league after one year or less in college and immediately produced? Pat, Zo, Hakeem, Shaq, Duncan, Walton, KAJ, Malone, McHale, Parish, and Admiral all played 3 or 4 years in college. Even Webber played 2. Yao and Pau played pro-ball before they came. If we are talking purely about "learning curve" its not really fair to judge Bynum, Oden, Howard, Garnett, etc. to any of those guys except Moses Malone, who was very nasty in the ABA from the get go. So if we want to talk about "learning curve", especially offensively, how far behind Dwight is Oden this season? Answer would be he's ahead of him actually, draws fouls at the same rate but scores at a higher %... just plays fewer minutes. Now it is a very very very legitimate question about whether or not he'll ever be healthy enough to play a full season or whether knee and ankle injuries will destroy his career. Still though, comparing his skill to a rookie Tim Duncan is like wondering why Kobe wasn't as skilled as Ray Ray his first year in the league. They started their pro-careers at different points on the learning curve.

I still think Durant is the best comparison. Last season Durant went 20.3-4.5 in 35 minutes and his defense didn't improve at all over the course of the season because his coach didn't care about winning so he never pulled the kid for being an awful defender. This season Beas is going 13.3-5.3 in 24 minutes while shooting a better % and playing better D because he knows his coach will give him the hook without a second's hesitation if he doesn't play up to snuff. Compare their per36 numbers and Beas is scoring slightly lower than KD did but at a higher % and rebounding more. He also doesn't have the ball in his hands whenever he wants, which means he doesn't have as much an opportunity to be a facilitator or get to the line. Not saying Beasley will be a better player than Durant, just that if you call Beasley a bust you are looking at NOTHING other than per game numbers which are probably the most deceptive stats to consider for a rookie.

Yeah, but a cursory glance at his stats doesn't tell you that he spends about a third of his time playing PF. He's still a solid rebounder for a SF, but cursory glances never tell the whole story.

Agreed Sarver held the team back for so long and then gave power to Kerr who is a pretty horrible GM. On KG for Amare, I probably would have done it because I think it gives them a really good shot at teh title, but I can see why they didn't. If they don't do all that other stuff (sell off picks, balk at signing Joe) than they have a shot at the title with a mid-20s Amare instead of and early 30s KG. ... but Sarver/Kerr blow.

Interesting, how do you mean? The way I see it is that if he were playing with a "true big" who played in the post, Al would get even fewer touches down low than he gets now (which isn't very many) because this "true big" would need the space. Defensively, he'd probably benefit but I think Al has as much trouble with KG as he does Dwight Howard. Al is a quality player, but I don't know why people expect that he would suddenly become a different player if he were next to someone who would reduce his role.

Pretty much. They don't comment on any specific aspect of "coaching" so they aren't really evaluating coaching at all.

The way I see it (and I could be totally wrong), is that the Miami brass decided that they didn't want Boozer even if they could have him this offseason. Maybe they didn't want to deal with his nonsense, maybe they don't think he and Beas would mesh well, whatever. They also knew that they weren't a real threat to the crown this season and really, they were only a marginal threat for HC in the first round. For that reason, they figured that they had very little to lose in trading for a guy who may fit the team better and whose contract expires before 2010 when Miami is going to be one of the few teams that actually have a good shot at being able to lure another star. So does it for sure make them better? No. Its not like the Gasol trade or the KG trade. It does though, give them a chance to be better because Moon and JO are probably a more talented combo than Marion and Joel Anthony. If he gets injured, what the hell, they weren't gonna win it all anyway, at least this way they make season tickets holders think their doing something and get a first out of it.

Beasley this season has been as good as Durant was last season, he just isn't on a team where his coach lets him do play like a jackass.

Don't know if there necessarilly is one. I think its a big reason for Josh to stay consistently up and fiery because he is loud as hell when he's playing well and the team feeds off of the dunks/blocks/chest bumps he provides. So I guess he would be a good "energy" leader, but we could still use a type of leader that holds dudes accountable. The problem with that is, unless its just something you are born with (and have an insane bball IQ, like Billups), you generally have to be an elite player to be a great leader. Tim Duncan is always considered one of the best leaders in the game, he isn't quiet per se, but he doesn't always get in dudes' grills like KG... He's just the type of player that no one lets down.

I love when people blog about the Hawks. You guys have a bit more of a Mark Bradley mindset than I typically like, (in other words, Joe is allowed to shoot 42%, Al doesn't have to improve on offense or rebound as hard because they are a "star" and have "heart" respectively, but Josh gets a near failing grade for shot selection while shooting to best % of his career) but its fairly well written and you obviously put a lot of time into it. Thanks for the read!

The thing I like about it is that other than the upcoming roadie, most of the tough teams are home games and most of the crappy teams are on the road. If the guys come out with some fire like they did last season, we should be able to get more wins than you'd expect with that schedule. We gotta be able to take care of teams who are almost out of it on the road... so that Wiz-Cats-Knicks road trip needs to be a sweep. Also, we need to be able to handle a couple of those home games against LA/SAS/Boston/NOH/Cleveland. If we take care of our home court like we have been and then take the gimmes on the road, we should be able to pull 15 wins out of this stretch.

Provided JO can stay on the court, this lineup Chalmers/Quinn Wade/Cook Moon/Beasley Haslem/Beasley JO/Haslem is better than the one they are currently fielding as Moon gives you the same sort of production as Marion, just worse but JO gives you more production inside than anyone the Heat had before and it gives their second best scorer more time on the floor. Getting Moon was a nice little pull.

Oh yeah, Josh gets snubbed in those things. The 05' dunk contest has been better than any since. Amare and Josh had some amazing stuff and JR Smith wasn't a slouch himself. Some of those dunks Josh did, like the KMart one and the 360 reverse, are just unreal. I'd go far as to say that Smith's 05 competition was the 3rd best performance since the 80s. Rider had some sweet stuff but I don't think it matches up on the whole, I think that since Jordan/Nique, Smith is the 3rd best after Richardson and VC.

Vince was just on a whole different level and he knew it. So fun to watch him in the competition.

Well, like any statistical measure it is a pretty useful tool if you douse it with a lot of analysis. Consider though, that different players are going to be asked to do different things. We don't really ask our Cs or Marv to put up a lot of points, consequently, they don't have particularly high PERs. Bibby, being a scoring PG, has a high PER for his position but he tends to get abused with great frequency to the point that he usually doesn't cover his own man if the guy is a scorer. Having a poor differential at SF and C doesn't really mean those are our weak spots, especially at SF, it just means we don't ask those positions to do the things that really show up big time in the PER formula. On the other hand, I'd say a backup point gaurd that can play a little bit of D (maybe Acie can grow into this role) is a big need but that isn't reflected int he formula.

Dol, what you have to consider is that this is a PER differential. Neither Horford, Marv, nor Zaza, have especially high PERs. This season our highest PERs from top to bottom are Joe, Mike, Josh, Al, Marv which is the order those are in. Josh is having a down year based on PER because his blocks are down.

4 guys? gotta have doc J. That is the least debatable. Nique, Jordan, VC would be the other 3 I guess. Richardson is a fantastic contest dunker though. Some of his stuff was unreal, but I don't like him as much as those 4. Other guys, like Thompson or Dawkins would be a lot of fun to watch but they weren't as epic of contest dunkers like these dudes.

Heat needed to make a move. Marion is their best defender but O'Neal is a solid shotblocker and defender inside and gives them that defensive aspect. The thing with that contract is that the Heat have a pretty good revenue base and JO gets off the books before '10.

Interesting... wonder why it is that way?

I mean, the D thing is why I don't think an Amare trade makes them a contender in the east. I think its different with JO though because JO is a good interior defender when he's motivated which generally makes it easier for guys to D up on the perimeter. Right now that team is going better defensively than it is offensively and a trade that allows their second best offensive player to get on the floor and shifts the defensive strength inside to JO instead of at the 3/4 with Marion lets them get better offensively while staying about the same defensively. I mean, you might be right but I think they gotta make some sort of move if they want to do anything and this is less of a risk than Amare because they don't give up Beasley and JO's contract is up before that big offseason anyway.

I think they have some decent shooters there. Wade has really become a deadly midrange shooter, Beasley has a very nice shot and really fills up in short minutes, Chalmers and Quinn can hit from deep, Haslem is also a very solid shooter. They don't have too many 3pt threats but Beas can hit from there and hits a lot of long 2s as do Wade and Haslem. The way I figure is that even though we have advantages at most positions, their SG advantage is really really really big. At the end of the day though, I'd probably want to play the one with the worst record which looks like it'll be the Pistons, which means we won't get them. The other thing to consider is that Miami might make a trade for JO. If JO is healthy (big "if") it makes their team better because he can make up for the D/Rebounding that they lose with Marion and he frees up more time for better offensive players (Beasley) than Marion at the 3/4 positions.

Yeah, when Simmons decides on something he'll hammer it out until he's proven irrevocably wrong. He holds grudges and stuff too. You read that thing and it's absolutely filled with anti-Beasley stuff, the thing is though, Beasley as a rookie is probably better than Durant as a rookie. Certainly more efficient and better at defense/rebounding, he just plays fewer minutes because his coach can't afford to have too much "on the job learning" like Durant had last season with his -15 defensive point differential.