lethalweapon3

A Quarter Century of Excellence. http://www.zazapachulia.com/ http://globalatlanta.com/article/17137/ Way 2 go, Zee Pee! ~lw3

Hawks-Bulls won a couple weeks back. No Lakers, Rockets or Cavs were around that week. ~lw3

Robinson: "I wondered why she kept on calling me 'Pumpkin.' NOW I know..." j/k ~lw3

He'll win by making all his buckets with three hands in his face. Part of the deal is if he wins, GEICO has to change their ads to, "So Easy, Even Zaza Can Do It." ~lw3

http://www.nba.com/FanNight/ A small but discernible electric shock befalls anyone clicking on "Minnesota at Washington". ~lw3

What's the Over/Under on the number of "NBA Coach of the Year" votes he'll trick people into giving him? ~lw3

The Falcons' two most notable stars of the past decade are momentarily behind bars. Peachtree Tavern, Jamal? Seriously? Bathroom Stall with another dude, Jamal? Really? What, are you running for Congress or something? Former Atlanta Falcons running back Jamal Sharif Anderson was jailed in Atlanta early Sunday morning after being charged with possession of cocaine and marijuana. Anderson, 36, and another man were arrested at the Peachtree Tavern in Buckhead early Sunday morning, Atlanta police spokesman Officer Otis Redmond said. Redmond said both men had powder cocaine in their possession and Anderson had a suspected marijuana cigarette in his pocket. http://www.wsbtv.com/news/18667067/detail.html ~lw3

AJC's despisal of the Knightmare was deeper than I could've possibly imagined. What a honeymoon for Woody and the Hawks on these editorial pages! To whomever is holding the real Bradley, and Moore, and their notoriously negative ATL-sports-drivel hostage, though, I'll pay ransom to keep them bound 'n gagged. ~lw3

"I LOVE FLAT BOOTYYYYYYYYY!! SHOW ME THE MONEYYYYYYY!!" ~lw3

I tried avoiding sippin that green-and-red KoolAid, then Solo swatted Session's forehead like it had the Commissioner's signature on it. If Solo is playing "frustrated" and can't get himself composed, then he needs to sit down and the team should put in ((shivers)) Randolph. ~lw3

Did somebody tell him it's Buck Season or something? His fouls tonight are like contract hits. ~lw3

Anybody know of a way to divvy up the (home vs. away) %Assisted stats on 82games.com? (Or just provide a link) It'd be good to reveal the stark differences. Meanwhile, thanks to the last two performances the Hawks remain 1st in the Eastern Conference in assists/game at home (25.0, now a hair behind the Nuggets in 4th) and last in the East (17.8) on the road, closing the gap with the Grizz in the race to the bottom. ~lw3

23 assists Sunday night at Philips against the Suns 7 assists Monday night down in Miami. Look out, Grizzlies, here we come! ~lw3

If the Hawks look a little different when they don't have their own fans influencing their style of play, it shows up in at least one stat. Our Fine Feathered Friends are currently third in the NBA in assists... at Home. 1. Jazz (26.1 dimes/game) 2. Lakers (25.3) 3. THE HIGHLIGHT FACTORY (25.1) 4. Nuggs (25.0) 5. Celts (24.0) On the Road, the Hawks clip their own wings, as they're next-to-LAST in Assists. 26. Clips (19.0) 27. Nets (18.6) 28. Hornets (18.6) -- gee whiz... who's THEIR point guard??? 29. HAWX (18.3) 30. Grizz (16.3) The Jazz are consistently ranked 1st in assists, regardless of home-and-away stats. While virtually all NBA teams have assist numbers that drop off when they hit the road, none display the precipitous Jekyll-and-Hyde passing performance like the Hawks have so far. It can't be explained solely on tighter defenses, as the Hawks are among the best at protecting the ball on the road (11.7 Turnovers/game, ranking 4th fewest, compared to 13.2 goofs/game at Philips). Perhaps too many isolation plays on the road? ~lw3

Referring to Woody's assertions, I don't expect Solo/RandMo to come in and be "world-beaters," by any stretch. I DO expect them to come in and be Scalabrine/MikkiMoore/MarcinGortat-beaters, though... so Hofo and Zaza don't have to.

Scouring through the NBA Team Differential stats. That they show the Hawks are typically getting out-rebounded is unsurprising, particularly with the nature of their player injuries. Besides the Hawks, though, the bottom ten for net rebounding reads like a bunch of lottery hopefuls. Bulls (-1.1) HAWX (-1.9) Wiz (-2.0) Clips (-2.0) Griz (-2.1) Raps (-3.1) Heat (-3.2) Kings (-3.7) Knicks (-4.6) GState (-5.0) Boston (+5.6), Cleveland (+3.2) and the LakeShow (+3.2) are among the top 5. Orlando's middle-of-the-pack, although they're top-ten in net defensive boards. I suppose when you're burying teams from beyond the stripe (+5.2 more Threes per game) like the Magic are, there's not much offensive boarding to do. ~lw3

(predicted cross-examination question) "So when Eddy asked you to 'come and touch it,' Dave, did you take that to be one order... or two?" ~lw3

And, perhaps most importantly anytime it comes down to Internet voting, no ROCKETS. Or Nets, for that matter. ~lw3

Someone, please alert Conan O'Brien. ~lw3

I'd like to see A.L. IV double his minutes by season's end. Was curious, though, how other No. 11's are either faring as a rookie/have fared in their sophomore years. Based strictly on these downward trends, 10 mins per game is just about right: (post-Acie) Jerryd Bayless: 8 mpg, 14/31 games played, 2.2 ppg, 1.1 apg, 1.1 rpg, 1.1 TO/g (buried on the depth chart behind Blake, Serge and Rudy, and maybe McMillan) (pre-Acie) JJ Redick: 8 mpg, 34/82 reg season and 2/10 playoff games, 4.1 ppg, 0.5 apg, 0.7 rpg, 39.5 3PtFG% (we know. not shooting as well but more minutes this year due to limited guard depth) Andris Biedrins: 14 mpg, 68/82 games played, 3.8 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 0.7 bpg (just one season removed from double-double land. soaked up fouls while behind Foyle and the legendary Zarko Cabrkapa. projected by Warrior fans to become a poor man's Jeff Foster) Mickaël Pietrus: 20 mpg, 67/82 games played, 9.5 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 1.2 apg, 1.4 TO/g (on-and-off all season scoring-wise. didn't contribute much else. started 3 times early in the season) Jared Jeffries: 82/82 games played, 38 games started, 5.7 ppg, 5.2 rpg, 37.7 FG%, career-high 61.4 FT% (Wiz' frontcourt choices at the time: Kwame Brown, Brendan Haywood, Jarvis Hayes, Xian Laettner, Etan Thomas. hmmm. yeah, they went to Jared. I would've, too) ~lw3

ALIV was getting even more mpg's before he traded in his Prius for a Hummer. ~lw3

Hawks = Kardiak Kidz Philips = The 3-Point Brick Factory Mark Price = The Tony Little of Shooting ("in just 6 weeks, I can turn you from a player who can't hit threes to a player who THINKS he can hit threes!") Tyrone Hill's presence alone has instantly made Hawks players look much less ugly. Beyond that, I agree that the bigs have made little marked improvement. ~lw3

**applause** ~lw3

Another small but significant fuss about the inability to follow the Hawks on TV. Tonight's game WILL be televised on Fox Sports South, but noone apparently told the cable networks. My Comcast menu shows the oh-so thrilling Vancouver-Thrashers matchup as the game to be shown at 7:30 on SportSouth, and despite the cable channel's website and all other info to the contrary, the 7:30 menu for Fox Sports South has "Amazing Sports Stories" (A repeat of some USC school newspaper reporter who walked on to the football team. Amazing! Must See TV!). This has been a continuous problem all year, and I doubt it's just Comcast. They make you guess what station they're on from one game to the next. (PAX, anyone?) They don't update their cable menus so people can Tivo or even know a game is even coming on. Then they'll wonder aloud why Hawks-game viewership is down. Out of sight + out of hearing = out of mind. ~lw3

Just as much as the road avgs, I found the road PERCENTAGES fascinating. The Hawks are presently fourth behind the Lakers, Boston and Cleveland in filling OTHER team's arenas. I'd theorize that geographics and history are major factors. Southeastern sports fans will come indoors from the sunshine for a sports contest only if there's some significant historic pretext (Duke-UNC) to lean on. Otherwise they WILL stay home. Road %s can be skewed by who teams have played so far, as well as the varied promotional skillz of other teams. But of the five teams with 90+ percent road attendance but less than 90 percent home attendance, FOUR are south of the Mason/Dixon line and east of the Mississippi (Miami, Washington, Atlanta, Memphis, with sad-sack Sacramento as the outlier). During the Hawks coming of age as contenders in the 80s-90s their divisional rivals were based in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Indiana. They don't have those alliances anymore. When the Magic and Heat came online they were grouped with Washington, Philly, NY, and Boston. Save for a short-lived Magic-Heat rivalry in the 90s, the current Dirty South Division teams have had scarce opportunities against one another for prime-time play and attention to dominate local/regional/national media discussion, particularly with a playoff atmosphere. Quite simply, there's no bad blood here. No bad blood, no historic context, no national spotlight, and questionable local media attention leads to few booties in the seats. I haven't paid a lot of attention to the Hawks marketing plans of late, but the ticket packages marketed to me have basically been my weekend package (Fridays/Saturdays/Sundays) and "Big-Star-Games" (LeBron, Kobe, KG & Co.) It seemed like in the past you could get some good discounted mid-week deals for tickets and packages that would entice some extra attendance for, say, Oklahoma City on a Tuesday night, or Milwaukee on a Thursday, often with a good postgame concert or something for added leverage, but I dunno if that's still the case these days. Don't know if it was like this for others growing up in other NBA markets, but in Philly it used to be that to see a 76ers home game you either HAD to go to the game or pay through the nose for the local sports cable channel (PRISM) to get some, but not all, games. Road games were the only games that got local airplay in the age of antennae and rabbit ears, so theoretically fans couldn't just sit at home and watch home games from TV. I recall Hawks games being available on locally-free TBS back in the day, so fans who grew up here had little need to consider physically going to home games as a primary option. I also enjoy listening to radio broadcasts when I couldn't go to games, and here it seems too often that games are locally pre-empted, like the other night, by Georgia Tech hoops or some college football bowl game, on what is supposed to be the Hawks "flagship station" (du jour). Out of sight AND out of hearing, out of mind. Part of good strategic marketing is to sow the seeds for future ticket-holders and fans, and I don't get the impression the Hawks' brass is fully utilizing the region's vast media resources to do this. I don't prescribe fully to the thought that winning or even contending by itself translates into attendance in Atlanta. We often forget that when the Hawks did make the playoffs with regularity (at one point more consecutive appearances than any other team), they still had a skeptical audience. Armed with every conceivable excuse for staying at home... they can't beat the Celtics, they can't beat Jordan, they can't get past the second round, they're boring on offense, they traded our star, the ownership can't be trusted... this was all long BEFORE Spirit Group. While we've questioned whether this year's edition could drum up 45 wins, their playoff predecessors put up 50 with regularity but not only couldn't they sell out the Omni or a third of the Georgia Dome come playoff time, they couldn't even fill out the Thriller Dome at GT for a series-clinching weekend afternoon NBA playoff game. ~lw3