crimedog

Josh's low post game has really come a long way. I feel more comfortable with him in the low post than I do with him on the perimeter, although I think he's just devastating from the high post. Al seems to be less useful as a pure low post player but he's strong enough that if he gets the ball really deep, he can usually do something or get fouled.

I don't think thats entirely true. Remember once upon a time we ran the pick and roll with Bibby and Josh/Al and found success in that? Joe can definitely play off the ball there, for some reason we never devoted ourselves to that as a staple of the offense and we have more or less completely abondoned it lately.

Actually, I think that this season is pretty consistent with all of his seasons since arriving here. PER isn't necessarilly a great stat at determining the real value of a player's contributions but it is a single number statistic aggregator that we can use to sort of show Joe's overall contributions since arriving. Outside of 07, Joe's numbers have actually been fairly constant. It seems like that year he took less of a passing load and more of a scoring one. Another thing to remember is that he only played 57 games that season. Year FG% FT% PPG RPG APG TS% AST TO USG REB PER 2005-06 .453 .791 19.8 4.0 6.4 53.7 22.9 11.4 23.8 6.0 17.95 2006-07 .471 .748 24.2 4.1 4.2 55.8 14.6 10.3 26.6 6.1 19.56 2007-08 .432 .834 21.3 4.4 5.7 53.5 20.1 9.4 24.8 6.4 17.67 2008-09 .436 .824 21.5 4.4 5.9 53.2 20.7 8.9 25.3 6.4 18.17 This might just be who Joe Johnson is and how he best functions.

I'm not sure JJ should be the one coming off the bench. This team isn't developmental any more. I see more rationale for Marv coming off the bench as a verastile super-sub. The problem with running an offense through Marv, especially our offense, is that Marv is a terrible facilitator and our offense requires the person who is iso-ing every other possession to be able to make good passes. As far as benching Joe when he plays poorly. Yeah, definitely. I think that beyond whatever on-court effects it would have, it would do wonders for the psyche of the rest of the team. I've mentioned before that one of the things I've read about why players like Popp is because he holds all his players equally accountable. He's willing to rip into Duncan and bench Duncan (and on the rare occasions its deserved, Duncan is willing to take it) and the other players on the team appreciate this. That is why Parker never took Popp's riding him too seriously and that is a reason that vets are willing to go to SAS on the cheap, because they know they'll be treated fairly. It seems to me that one of the reasons Woody has clashed with certain players in the past (Zaza, AJ, Josh, and Diaw specifically) is because he doesn't hold all his players to the same standard and some, Josh, feel like they are singled out and others, AJ, don't feel like they're given the same opportunities as comparable players.

Usually when he scores a lot its because Joe is off. When Joe is off, the rest of the team often has trouble because we have a Joe-centric offense except for Smith who doesn't get his points off of Joe.

Would you bet on that?

Thought it was kind of funny the other way.

lean towards never unless we snag a superstar somewhere along the way.

Eh, Josh has very "blatant" athleticism I'd say. He has crazy hops. After that, he's pretty quick for his size and also pretty fast. He's naturally broad and puts enough time in the weightroom that he's stronger than most dudes his size. That being said, Lebron, as mentioned, has the same strengths but is faster, quicker, and stronger in addition to being incredibly agile. There are guys with hops near to Josh's sitting on benches though. Guys like Amir Johnson, Joey Graham, and Joe Alexander may never be anything in the league... Ty Thomas seems to have sort of figured things out this season, but we'll see. Nate Robinson is definitely more althetic, but he's so small. Josh's athleticism jumps out at you because he throws down so many ferocious dunks and skies for blocks, but I really think that there are more than a handful of players that have a more optimal total package when you put together size, strength, balance, quickness/speed, and agility. When I think of the best athletes I've ever seen on the court, I actually always come back to Shaq (wasn't alive for the Wilt era). Shaq was more agile and explosive around the hoop than Al and had 60/70 lbs on him when he was trim in LA.

Don't think we have yet. I think you need more than just a decent record. Reputation really helps. Teams that have been good for a long time and have what you might call a "winning system" seem to be good spots. Teams with a star generally attract those types of guys too. The other thing is that those guys will often go to teams they have played for in the past. I think we need to either be as good as we are for a decent stretch of time or get really good.

I thought that the team that went into the playoffs was better than the record last season, by a fairly significant margin. I also think that in the games we won, we had some HUGE performances from Joe and Josh that it will be tough for them to match this season, let alone eclipse.

West is the ultimate fan favorite. The dude ALWAYS produces too, even on offense where he crashes the boards like a PF.

True. Maybe Josh won't "get it" but that only means so much as he is already very valuable to the team... if you disagree with the statement that his current value to the team is very high, you aren't being objective. Josh had a solid game last night. Made a big mistake that stuck in people's mind, and he gets lambasted for it. Gets posts about his mistake. Horford went 3-12 and didn't take a single free throw... but its Josh's fault we lost. Which isn't to say its Horford's fault either, just that Josh gets held to a standard around here that not even Kobe gets held to, people expect him to be perfect. People expect him to NEVER do anything wrong. Would I trade Josh for Bosh? Yes. That makes our team better. Would I trade him for a bum like Kaman? No. I like to look at the proof. The numbers. The wins he provides. Now if you don't like him and want him gone for that, fair enough. That should be your argument though "I don't like watching him and I don't like him on the team, therefore I want him gone."

Doubt that, I doubt Marv alone would do it, but they'd have to throw in another prospect or two (Conley or Gasol) to pry both of our forwards.

Don't know if anyone will agree with this, or care, but whatever. The problem with this sort of evaluation is that it assumes the same circumstances across the board. You say "find another GM who has built a winning, young, talented team that gets lambasted like BK" and I say "find another GM who had that many seasons of losing, that many high draft picks, and didn't ever lose his job". Chances are we will both find someone since there are hundreds (thousands?) of GMs in NBA history, but thats not the point because it doesn't represent the opportunities of any GM. By that standard, the guy who drafted Bowie was a good GM because he put together most of the peices of a team that went to the finals a couple of times and won 60+ games (after he left). I think to properly evaluate a GM, you have to look at what he did with his opportunities and evaluate that (same with coaching, evaluate what the guy does as a coach, don't just look at the record and say "good" or "bad"). Going down the list of moves BK has made, some were good and some were bad. Unfortunately, the bad ones are bigger than the good ones whereas some GMs make bad moves that more than compensated by really big good moves they made (for example, drafting Smith and Horford were good moves but missing Roy and Paul were bad ones... Roy/Paul are awesomely good and were there for the taking and missing them sets us back more than getting Joe/Al pushes us forward - as a counterpoint, the Magic overpaid for Rashard but they didn't buckle under the pressure of some, like smartass Bill Simmons, and take Okafor over Dwight... that good move outweighs their bad move and its the inverse of the one we made with Paul/Marv). Another thing to consider with good moves and bad moves is how easy of calls were they and how difficult of a call would it have been to go with a better alternative? We don't blame BK for missing Josh Howard, or Bynum... we don't blame Inman for missing on Barkley or Malone... we blame them for missing the guys drafted right after the wrong picks because obviously other people saw the value there.

Haha, yeah. Troy switched it up on us.

Look, I don't think he's a genius or anything, but he's definitely better with the media than BK was. He says the right things.

The article mentions Diaw too. I remember Shelden and Zaza. Again, none of these guys are stars though. Not sure exactly what happened in any of these cases. Remember Shelden complaining to Sekou. Remember Sekou writing an article over the summer saying Smith didn't really have issues with Woody but there were a couple of guys with the team who did. Does any of this really matter? Sekou is right, neither Smith nor Woody are particularly thick skinned. They both have hot tempers and neither is particulalry subtle. The unfortunate thing is that a lot of coaches are a little better about knowing when and how to push their players' buttons. So my question is this: Why the hell was this article written now? Did something else come up or was he just looking for something to write, because correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the Charlotte thing been written about already and discussed ad nauseum?

Can't think of a player who gets to the line a lot who doesn't try and use his pull with the refs. Even dudes like Dwight and Nash will whine when they get the chance. I appreciate Horford trying to get the guys focused, and I think him saying that is the right call because it puts pressure on the refs in the future (whether that is his intention or not) but during the game, I want our guys to try and force that. We can't complain that Joe doesn't get enough calls and then say our guys shouldn't do what they can to get calls.

... I understand that. What I'm saying is that we passed up two players that you can build a team around so we had more chances to draft players that should be used to build around the aforementioned players. Saying that you should give BK credit for the team that is on the floor and ignore everything else is as valid as saying that BK should only be evaluated based on what the team he could have built.

I don't find this to be a realistic way of looking at it. For one, Al was luck. Second, Paul brings what we got from Al (leadership, toughness, and fit) but is actually a better fit for the talent and is a far superior player - no knock on Al, Al will be a borderline All-Star where Paul will be a borderline MVP. If we had drafted Roy, we wouldn't have needed Bibby. Is Bibby the best fit for the team? Is he a sustainable asset? The other thing with this approach is that it assumes that time is ALWAYS on your side. Miss out on one good dude? Thats cool, a couple years from now we'll get someone in the draft because of it. Drafted a bum? Don't sweat it, we'll trade him as salary filler down the road for a team looking to move a contract. This isn't smart thinking on BK's part, its the league's way of making crap teams competetive eventually (at least with the draft, with the Shel as filler for Bibby, anyone we drafted there could have been salary filler but if they weren't god-awful, we would have had more options at the time). Pritchard didn't draft Webster - he told Nash to draft Paul.

What, "arguably" could we be had we drafted Paul or Roy?

I dunno, I'm just not as sharp or philosophically intuned as some of you so I might be looking at this wrong but I look at this one like this. BK's job was to make the best team he could. The fact that he made a decent team with the leverage and opportunities he was given means he isn't Isiah-esque. On the other hand, he blatantly screwed 2 high lotto picks that could have significantly raised the ceiling for this team and made quite a few other personnel moves that could have put on the map sooner. It seems to me that judging someone based on the moves they did make necessitates judging them on the moves they didn't make... Judging the team you DO have necessitates judging the team you COULD have. ... and don't get me wrong, I love this team. I love watching this team. I love the players on this team. I don't know if any of you would argue with me about that; doesn't mean I can't acknowledge what I consider the true ability of the player who are and aren't on the team.

It would be great if he were good enough, but Woody or not, he hasn't shown it.

Yeah, combo of his shot being off and Flip being a menace.