niremetal

DEER..

Oh.

Holy shit. Are you allowed to tell your bigs to put a hit out on a 5th grader who's slashing to the bucket too much?

Lang Greene Lang Whitaker writes for GQ and conducted a predictably softball Q&A with Employee #5.

http://www.gq.com/blogs/the-feed/2013/02/atlantas-all-star-in-absentia-a-gqa-with-josh-smith.html

(snippet...)

~lw3

I read the title of this thread and knew who started it without having to look

But it's not what happens so in Essense this is the type of game to drive him to shoot more perimeter shots and say remember in Dallas I was making those. Over the long haul his shooting and shot selection is not goodAlso props on the free throws BUT in all reality he should have thrown the ball to korver to get fouled. Low bball iq play some may have missed

Yup. Josh shooting 3s is like putting all your money on a hard 8 in craps. Sure it'll pay off big every once in awhile. But most of the time, it's just giving the money away.

I mean, so I've heard...

So...what will seem like a random question. How much "gossip" is there at the places you all work? How often do people talk about (and especially criticize) co-workers when the person is not present?

Does anybody remember the Deke ad for Charles Schwab in the late 90s? I remember it mainly because they dubbed over Dikembe's voice. Using an actor from Nigeria (whose capital is 2000 miles from Congo's). Without checking with Deke first. Oops.

"Josh Smith is the closest thing to Lebron in the league."

- Michael Gearon

That line of commercials from GEICO is generally stupid, but the Deke commercial is AMAZING. The only sad part is that his mock uniform was clearly supposed to be reminiscent of his Rockets' uniform rather than his Hawks'.

#55!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gortat is a great player don't let his goofy lookingness fool you.

Gortat is a goofy player. Don't let the fact that he once backed up a great center fool you.

If I were to relocate to any city in the US, I would remain a Hawks fan. I can tell you that my kids would remain loyal too. So, there's no denying that people carry their sports loyalty with them. There's also bandwagon fans everywhere. I'm sure the term didn't originate in Atlanta Georgia after all.

What's wrong with the Hawks (and really, pro sports in Georgia) goes a little further. It's funny that I was talking about a Spurs fan that I've known since 1987. Because as the Falcons lost yesterday, another of my good friends from ELEMENTARY SCHOOL who has never left the state of Georgia was on Facebook cheering San Francisco and taunting the people who were pulling for the Falcons.

You guys want to cling to the transplant theory and blaming it on "bad sports fans", but you need to spend some time outside of Atlanta. You need to listen to what people are saying and you need to look at the bigger picture. The collective history of Atlanta sports is that of impotence, irrelevance, and flat out CHOKING.

That's it. What are people supposed to get excited about? Another pennant for the Braves and a post season choke out...? Another choketacular job by the Falcons...? A basketball team with no star, no personality, that has never been further than the 2nd round? Ever? And what's in between the "decent" years...? Terrible, terrible, terrible teams...

You want to tell me that's NOT the biggest factor in determining the amount of bandwagon fans and lack of native fan support? I don't think so. Just...no. My head spins thinking about all the great sports matchups and legendary players over the past 30 years.

Now think about the Hawks...

Please. GTFO... You can go to other sports towns...and you can go to sports bars around their towns and talk about the old days or title shots. If you're a Hawks fan, you ain't got shit to talk about. You can get laughed at and stoned.

I'm sorry...but this team has been f***ed over (and f***ed HARD) by shitty ownership and shitty management. And the Braves and Falcons choking don't do jack-shit to help. Don't blame it on the people here.

...and again, this is why I want to avoid the "win without losing." This franchise cannot afford to roll through another 5-6 years of getting bounced in the 2nd round. It needs a personality. It needs a WINNER.

The Braves failing to sell out playoff games in 1997 and 1998 blows that theory out of the water. I can't imagine any other city failing to sell out baseball playoff games just 2-3 years after winning a World Series title (and 1-2 years after winning the NL pennant, and with a still-active streak of division titles). The Braves actually finished in the bottom half of the NL in attendance in 2004 and 2005. We always seemed to finish behind the Cubs in attendance. I mean, come on.

Plenty of other cities endure bad and/or choking teams year after year. Philly went 25 years without a major sports team title, but you never saw 6ers games packed with Knicks fans. Atlanta's the only one I know of that has the problem of having Knicks fans outnumber the home team fans every damn time (even in years where the Knicks suck) or persistently ranking lower in attendance than their position in the standings in every single sport.

If it were only the Hawks who had this problem, but it's not. Not even close. The Dome had a buttload of 9ers fans today AT THE NFREAKINGC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME. And the Braves couldn't sell out early round playoff games starting in 1997 despite being only 2 years removed from a World Series title. And the Thrashers...and Flames...

Atlanta does not have a loyal sports fan base, in large measure because more than half of the city's population was born outside the state of Georgia. I think it'll get slowly better over time now that the city's population has stabilized a bit.

I'm around, but I find I don't have much to say. This season is one of transition. We don't have the roster to make noise (or, frankly, win more than 1-2 games) come playoff time, and we also aren't going to be bad enough to get a top 10 draft pick. And honestly, last season was filled with ugly basketball and little suspense, so I wasn't all that pumped even before we traded away JJ. It looks like that Game 1 win over Chicago will be the Hawks' high water mark for the first 15 years of this century. I just find it hard to stay interested given that.

Pete Van Wieren experienced a Thanksgiving full of fear in 2009 after a diagnosis of lymphoma, but he enters the '12 holiday season confident he is cancer-free. View the full article

One of the all-time class acts in sports broadcasting. Good to hear he's doing better.

I totally agree. Duane is way better than Dominique Wilkens. And also Lenny Wilkins.

Undersized? Slow of foot? And finally, Good-but-not-great shooter? Really? The best shooter in the draft. The best coming out of college last season, that's all. If he's THAT good, as everyone agrees that he is, what would he have to do to qualify as a great shooter? He's the greatest / best available. His reputation? Quick release and one of the very best pure shooters, Works for me.

Remember Salim Stoudamire? His reputation for perimeter shooting coming out of college was probably even better than Jenkins', in both consistency and (most important for the pros) range. The main difference is that Jenkins is 3 inches taller - which makes him merely "undersized" rather than "absurdly undersized" for a 2. And no one was praising Jenkins' athleticism before the draft. On the contrary, they were saying the combination of his short size and mediocre footspeed would make him a defensive liability. If that's changed, I've missed it. Sorry, but I don't see Jenkins' 3-point shooting as being so devastatingly good that I project much of a career for him.

I think our expectations for the first 10 games are a little high. Yeah its tough to watch us lose winnable games but since we have so many new guys to incorporate we all knew the first 20 games would be up and down. I don't think LD, Ferry, or the ownership view this as a throw away development season. I think the first half of the season is to find the keepers, make some trades and push to the playoffs. Hopefully surprise some people and build on that for next year.

Bingo. Honestly, though, I just don't see this team as being good enough to surprise people for more than a few games at a time. Our team is just too easy to figure out. Leave Smoove open on the perimeter. Set screens to get Korver or Smoove on the ball. Crash the boards hard, because we never have more than one passable rebounder on the floor at any given time. I think we might hit a stretch where we play Nellieball on offense and throw a bunch of different looks at opposing teams to keep them off balance. But even if that happens, it won't take opposing coaches too long to figure out that any team can shred us from the perimeter (if Curry's shot had been on yesterday, we would have been blown out) and that we don't rebound well enough to be an effective transition team as long as the Hawks' opponents get back quickly after made baskets. I don't blame LD for not being able to make lemonade out of urine. And frankly, I don't see John Jenkins as having the tools to be even a rotation player for a decent team. Undersized good-but-not-great shooters with no foot speed and poor defensive skills rarely turn into memorable players. I frankly think this season is almost irrelevant because we don't have enough "players" to be competitive and don't have any prospects worth developing. I hope I'm wrong, though. Seriously.

It amazes me that people think Smoove for Pau is a realistic possibility. The Lakers have no need to cut down on payroll because they could go 0-82 and still rake in a quintillion dollars, so Smoove's expiring contract means nothing to them. And aside from help defense within 18 feet of the basket, there is literally no aspect of the game at which Smoove is better than Pau. Pau is a better shooter, rebounder, on-ball defender, and passer. And oh yeah, he has the best low post repertoire in the NBA.He also has the rare Scottie Pippen mentality - knowing you're good enough to be "the man" on 20+ teams, but preferring to be the #2 on a contender. And willing to subordinate his own game for the good of the team.If Danny Ferry called Mitch Kupchak with that deal, Kupchak would laugh so hard that his mocha frappe would come out his nose.

I hate this new keyboard..so ignore my last post. I can't even edit it...

So I take it you're another early adopter of the McRosot Scarface...erm Microsoft Surface?

why aren't they running more plays for Al? The guys had the best shooting percentage every year and he should be getting 15 shots per game minimum.

The reason he shoots so high a percentage is that he doesn't take 15+ shots per game and thus is not an object of major defensive attention. Ask him to carry the offensive load, and his FG% will go down. Anyway, offensive efficiency won't matter much when your team is getting outrebounded 58-36 by a team with a starting frontcourt of Omer Asik and Patrick Patterson.

All I know that in a situation in which I need a basket to stay in a game, and Josh Smith is taking that shot, I want him shooting in these areas first

- at the rim

- in the paint

- from long midrange

- from short midrange

- 3 point

When a guy only makes 25% of his shots from a certain area, you don't want him taking a shot from that area, if you really need a basket, regardless of what his eFG% is. I'd much rather have the 70% shot at the rim. But if I have to take the 37% shot from midrange at that time, I'll take that over the 25% shot from 3.

It's deja vu all over again:

If the game is coming down to the wire, and we're down 1 . . . and we're planning to run JJ off of a screen to free him for a jumper, I don't want him taking a 3, because the eFG says that he's a 51% eFG shooter from 3.

And as dlpin said in response at the time:

Too bad that the game isn't made only of last second shots to score 1 point, but of several shots to score several points.

There's nothing new under the sun on the Squawk...

"Dominate the paint shawty" or GTFOH.

I've always believed it to be an exercise in futility to compare players across eras. Our understanding of everything from childhood nutrition to training regimens to shoe technology has improved enormously since the 1930s (or the 1980s, for that matter). If Bill Russell had grown up in the same era as Shaq, he might have ended up being 7'0 instead of 6'9. If Michael Jordan had to play in an era where shoes provided virtually no ankle support, the resultant dulling of his explosiveness and ability to change direction might have forced him to rely more on his jump shot, and he probably would not have dominated the game as he does today. Conversely, Shaq might have ended up being a 6'8 lump of fat if he'd grown up in 1950s Newark instead of the 1980s version, and John Havlicek might have entered the conversation for GOAT if the 3-point line had been around back in his day. And I don't think anyone wants to imagine what Oscar could have done if modern shoes and training techniques were available to him. Transplanting players to different eras might have had a drastically negative, remarkably positive, or totally neutral effect on their career trajectories. The point is...no one can say. I don't see how anyone can even begin to discuss it intelligently.

And that's to say nothing of rule changes (hand-checking, three point line, illegal defense, etc) that have had a major impact on the way the game is played. In other words, both the game and the player have changed drastically over the years.

I think you can make "all-decade" teams. But all-time teams...I just don't feel like it's possible to do objectively. I'd rather save my mental masturbation for things that are a bit more apples-to-apples.