niremetal

6. Two more big-money games from Jamal and Co. gives us at least a little leverage in JJ's negotiations this summer.

But, but...it worked on NBA 2k10!

I think this is the third time that both of those articles have been posted. People need to check the archives before starting a new thread. Otherwise, just make your post in one of the 354235 existing "JJ's contract" threads that are on the front page right now.

Way below the usual quality of your posts. So many strawmen that it's hard to know where to begin... First, even a max contract wouldn't pay Joe anything remotely close to the team cap (much less the tax threshold), and the Hawks have large expiring deals coming up in 2011 (Jamal), 2012 (Bibby), 2013 (Josh + Zaza) and 2014 (Marvin), each of whom is likely to get a paycut considering where the player is likely to be in their respective careers. So your set up it's a red herring/false choice to ask whether paying him the max would pay him so much that there wouldn't be money left for anyone else. Second, please name me a player besides T-Mac who pulls himself when he's hurt but capable of playing (albeit at 70% of his usual quality). It's up to the coaches and trainers to force a player to sit. Virtually every player who has the talent and drive to get to the level of being an NBA All-Star is not the type that pulls himself due to a nagging injury. I would not hold it against the PLAYER if he stayed in when he had a hurt finger. Players have pride, and the best ones pretty much by nature have even more pride. I would never, ever blame the player for not taking himself out. Because from a young age, a player who takes himself out is viewed as a little less of a man for doing so. I think you realize that's true on some level. But don't just take my word for it. Read Breaks of the Game by David Halberstam. One part talks about how when Bill Walton was playing injured, he kept looking over to the bench, hoping that a coach would catch his eye and take him out. But they never did. So he kept fighting through it, because he knew how it would look if he took himself out for what he thought was just a nagging injury (turned out it was much more serious, but that's for a different part of the book). People would say he was unwilling to play through pain, etc. So he kept going much longer than he should have - and aggravated the underlying injury in the process to the point that it became career-threatening. And that's one of many, many examples. Players play hurt all the time, even when it hurts the team. Kobe, Wade, and Shaq have all done it at various times in their respective careers. Duncan wasn't happy about being benched on the second night of back-to-backs last year to rest his knees. Objectively, he had to realize that having him out on the floor that much was not good for the team in either the short-run or the long-run. But TD didn't want to sit. That's how top-level players think. In high school, they were the guys who ran until they threw up, and then they ran some more. You HAVE to have that kind of drive and desire to play every second of every game to reach the levels that those guys play at. That's why it's up to the coaches and trainers to say "you need to sit this one out." Clearly, the coaches knew JJ was hurt. They let him play anyway. If you want to blame JJ, fine. But find me a star who hasn't done the same thing. People act like JJ is unusual in this regard. You want consistent, you can rejuvenate Shareef (never more than 30, never less than 15). But if you are capable of playing at a higher level, the downside is that sometimes you overreach. Even the very best players try to shoot through slumps. I think people around here need to spend some time reading Heat, Blazers, and Nuggets blogs. The gripes we have about JJ are not much different than the gripes those fans have about their star players, even though their best players are (at least in the case of Wade and Carmelo) almost inarguably better than JJ. They dominate the ball, don't pass, take plays off defensively, aren't as good as Kobe/LeBron, etc. But the hate aimed at JJ around here is a unique phenomenon, far as I can see. And we'll all be in for a rude awakening if JJ leaves and we realize that we would have been way, way better off paying him $17.5M than letting him walk for nothing (and don't kid yourself into thinking there's a chance in hell that we'd get anything back for JJ). Lastly, Who has even remotely suggested any of that?

And you act as if games like that are the rule rather than the exception.

That explains why he's made 4 straight All-Star teams. :thumbsdownsmileyanim: Stop showing up every time JJ has a bad game and pretending like the exception is the rule. It makes you look like an idiot.

If wishes were horses....

Alright, whatever. You really think that what Jamal has done from the day he graduated high school through last April became immediately irrelevant when he came to Atlanta and saw a huge increase in the number of open looks he got because he no longer was asked to carry as large an offensive load? Do you really not see how much more of a chucker he becomes when he plays without JJ on the floor? It's pretty clear that your opinions of JJ and Jamal are pretty much based on seeing only what you want to see. Done with you.

What's amazing is the truly sick balance that team would have. Offensively, the starting 5 has a distributing PG, a sweet-shooting SG, an off-the-charts scorer SF, a high-flying PF with a couple nice post moves, and a center who could grab O-Rebs all day. Defensively, Mookie and JJ would have to be one of the best defensive backcourts in recent NBA history, and Josh and Deke are two of the best help defenders of the past 20 years. The only weakness would be on-ball defense in the post, but bring in Willis, Long, and/or Nazr, and that's covered (how did Willis get left out of the polls??). My bench would drop Ferrell in favor of Chris Crawford, assuming we're allowed to ignore injuries. If not, then give me LaPhonso Ellis.

I don't argue with the notion that Crawford pushes the pace more. What I argue is that Crawford pushing the pace usually means Crawford taking a bad shot, which is why Crawford has one of the worst career FG% among all active players in the entire NBA. Dude's career FG% is below .410. What irked me is that the poster I quoted stated that JJ's approach leads to bad shots and turnovers...while casting Crawford's approach in a more positive light. In light of what they have actually done during their careers, Crawford takes worse shots and is at least slightly more turnover-prone than JJ (although I won't argue that JJ doesn't need to improve in those regards too). But he singled out JJ for the bad shots and turnovers. Isn't there something wrong with that picture?

I guess that explains why JJ shoots a higher percentage (.456 to .450 this year, .443 to .409 career) and has a better assist-to-TO ratio (2.40 to 1.72 this year, 2.03 to 1.94 career) than Crawford, right? I love how some people bash JJ dribbling around for 15 seconds to try and get an open look (which he often does) but don't seem to have any problem with Jamal taking a contested jumper with 17 seconds on the clock or getting his pocket picked after doing a Rafer Alston impression. I don't think JJ's approach is good either (which is why I don't like how we run him on the ball so much), but their career and season stats make it pretty tough to argue that Crawford's approach is more efficient.

I seriously can't believe that 4 people voted for Josh or Shareef over Nique. Wow. I think that Atlantans sometimes overrate Nique a bit, but he still is the Hawks' best player since Pettit, and it's really not even all that close.

Fail. LeBron I'll give you. Immature though he and his team can be, his teammates respect him for more than just the way he plays on the court. But everyone who has written about the Jordan-era Bulls has said that Pippen was the Bulls' defensive and offensive floor general. Jordan's ripping into his teammates was pretty much never constructive. There are people who give constructive criticism and/or who both call their teammates out for the bad and give them credit for the good, and then there are just flat-out a**holes. Jordan was an a**hole. He slammed teammates for daring to pass the ball to Cartwright, Kukoc, and Longley. Everyone who actually covered the Bulls who wrote about them has said the same thing - the made-for-TV image of Jordan as a team leader had little basis in reality. Pippen was the one who kept the team together, and his job was often calming down and focusing teammates who Jordan would needlessly cuss out. Seriously, only people who bought into the media-created Jordan cult and people who don't care enough to read about Jordans' Bulls say that Jordan was actually a "leader" in a constructive sense. Shaq and Kobe's constant feuds made it impossible for either to be a true team leader because each player mistrusted teammates that were too friendly with the other. Fox and Jackson were always the locker room leaders, and Fisher and Fox were the most vocal players on the court until '03/'04 (which, not coincidentally, is when the Shaq-Kobe feuds boiled over and the Lakers fell from grace). Kobe today, sure he's a leader. But Kobe c. 2004 sure as hell wasn't. What Wade does? You're kidding, right? He has the respect of his teammates for his on-court play, but he shows little trust in his teammates and the consensus is that he's become a prima donna ever since Shaq left town. Here's the most recent article in that line: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/24/1544144/miami-heats-carlos-arroyo-relishes.html It's rather tame, but I've heard a number of reporters say that Wade has become increasingly ineffective and detached as a "leader" since '06.

It's amazing to me that people think that a team's best player must also be its leader. Your “floor general” and on-court leader doesn’t need to be your best player, and on contenders it usually isn’t. Much as people like to think of Jordan as a leader, everyone who has ever written about the Bulls agrees Pippen was the locker room leader and on-court floor general. One of his main jobs was to calm down everyone that Jordan pissed off, which is one reason I find it funny that people talk about Jordan as if he were basketball's version of Alexander the Great in terms of leadership. On the three-peat Lakers, it was Rick Fox (I think there’s a forthcoming book on his role in keeping the locker room together during the Shaq-Kobe feuds). On the ‘06 Heat, it was Payton and (to a lesser extent) Zo. Of course, those teams were also coached by HOF coaches. And I don't think a team can win a title with a leadership void at head coach. Bibby was supposed to be that guy until Horford was ready, but his floor generalship seems to have slipped with his level of play. JJ’s too quiet to be that guy (I’ve heard people say that he reminds them of George Gervin, who led contending teams despite never being a vocal leader and never having a true offensive co-star). Horford might be able to be that guy in a year or two, but it’s tough for vets to listen to someone they consider a young’un.

I honestly don't think that running him off screens and getting him open looks would be more taxing than having him try to go ISO and break his man down 5345 times a game.

Changing the team's strategy in tactics is not up to the players. And if you are leaving it up to the players, you're screwed.

Joe played an off-ball role damned well alongside Nash in Phoenix. Many people have suggested playing JJ off the ball, and for years.

It's amazing how different the reaction around here is when the criticism comes from Al instead of Joe. Not for nothing, but there have been many occasions I've seen Al put his head down and take a heavily contested shot against 2 defenders with Marvin/Bibby/Mo/someone else wide open on the perimeter. That doesn't make him a selfish player, because you frankly expect your center to do that when he gets the ball down low. But you also expect your shooting guard to shoot when they get the ball and think they can get off a shot. The problem is that we have a coach that has shooting guards initiate the offense instead of PGs - they get more assists than most SGs, but fewer than most PGs. So we shouldn't be shocked when the shooting guards shoot, and it makes little sense to blame them for not being able to magically transform their mentality into that of a PG.

Of course, the Celts went .500 and made the playoffs in the first of those seasons. The Hawks challenged the NBA record for losses in a season. The Celts won a title in year 3. The Hawks won 30 games in year 3. It's apples and oranges because the teams were starting from pretty different places.

Great article. Rosen nails it. Thanks for the link.

Fair point. My fear is that as Josh's quickness and athleticism drop from elite levels, he'll start taking more jumpers regardless of where he's standing. When that's happening, I'd rather his hopeless jumpers be worth 3 points rather than 2. As hawksfanatic said, it's a conditional statement: All things being equal, given the choice between Josh taking 3s and Josh taking long 2s, I'd rather him take 3s. You're saying all things aren't equal, and maybe there's something to that - maybe standing behind the 3 point line puts him into "jump shot mode" more than standing 20 feet away from the bucket does. I still don't think that Josh views the 3-point line as a magical jumper-taking barrier, though. I think that the drop in the number of jumpers he's taking is due to a number of things, his positioning on the floor being just one of them.

Here's the stats for potential game-winners, though it hasn't been updated in about a year: http://www.82games.com/random12.htm According to that, JJ shoots .267 on those shots...which sounds terrible until you consider that Craw shoots .256 and Kobe shoots .250. "Mr. Big Shot" Billups shoots .162. There clearly is not a strong link between players perceived as "clutch" and players shooting a high percentage on gamewinners, unless you buy that Eddy Curry is one of the best clutch players in recent NBA history. The stats are skewed by the fact that potential game-winners are almost always jumpers, and contested jumpers at that. With rare exception, big men typically don't get the ball in those situations unless it's an offensive rebound (and those put-backs would explain why centers and PFs seem to shoot absurdly high percentages in those situations). In any case, this entire thread is ridiculous. The JJ hate around Hawksquawk is fast approaching the level of the AJC blog.

Sorry, I didn't realize that Aristotle had come back from the dead and bestowed upon you the sole ability to determine what constitutes a logical reason. I guess mrhonline and others who have made similar points are all on the crack pipe or otherwise lacking in the ability to reason. Clearly, this argument is no longer worth continuing with you.

Actually, your evidence consists of one thing changing at the same time that another thing changed. That's called correlation. Correlation does not equal causation. I pointed out that a whole bunch of other things changed between last year and this year, and (in my opinion) the most important of those is Josh's effort. There is a correlation between those things and the decrease in Josh's jump shots as well. Anyone can find two stats that change from one year to the next and argue that their changes are linked, but most times the changes are not directly linked. Why are you so insistent that your correlation DOES prove causation? As for Horford, he might only be scoring .5ppg out there. But that doesn't reflect the fact that he draws his defender outside the paint far more this year than in past years, regardless of whether he actually takes and makes shot (or even gets the ball). When Al goes away from the basket, Josh usually goes inside, thus creating more opportunities for rebounds and fewer opportunities for jumpers. As for Crawford vs. Marvin/Bibby, I didn't say anything about production. But I think Crawford's ability to both get into the lane and hit open jumpers has taken a lot of pressure of ALL Hawks offensively, which has allowed them to be more aggressive. The box score stats don't tell half the story in terms of Crawford's impact, as I suspect you know.