niremetal

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.

I'm getting them from basketball-reference.com. Josh's shots from 16-23 feet are up compared to past years. His 11-15 feet shots are slightly down. I don't know of a site that breaks it down further than that, but my observations is that in terms of mid-range shots, most of Josh's shots are from 18-22 feet. The rest of your post is fluff. Of course big men who take 3s tend to be worse offensive rebounders than post-area big men. But they are no better than bigs who take a high number of mid-range jumpers and virtually no threes. But since you asked - Kevin Love is #4 is ORebs and he averages 1.7 3s per game. His shot chart is proportionately quite similar to Josh's in past years, but he gets way more ORebs than Josh ever has. In any case, common sense should indicate that standing 22 feet from the basket instead of 19 should not have more than a negligible impact on how hard a player crashes the boards. It's a matter of effort and disclipline, and the slight difference between standing right behind the line and right and front of it does not determine that effort and discipline. You say it's no coincidence. My point is that you have no reason but your own sense of "I'm right" to say that him standing 3 feet closer to the basket is a bigger reason for the reduction in jumpers than the arrival of Jamal, the emergence of Al's mid-range game, JJ's improved efficiency, or just the fact that he is putting in greater overall effort on both ends this year than he ever did before.

Actually, Josh's eFG% and TS% are indistinguishable from last year's. His TS% is oh-so-slightly higher (.538 vs. .533), but his eFG% is actually oh-so-slightly lower (.505 vs. .508). So no, him moving 3 feet closer to the basket has not improved his efficiency as a scorer. And I don't think you can imply any causation between the fact that he's standing 3 feet closer to the basket and the fact that he's crashing the boards more and driving to the rim more. There is absolutely no reason he couldn't do that from 3 feet further away. The difference is that this year he has made the effort to actually do that, and there's no evidence that the fact that he is now standing oh-so-slightly closer to the basket is the reason why. I would argue that the arrival of Crawford and Horford's improvement from mid-range opening up the lane for him are far bigger reasons for the improvement. In any case, correlation does not equal causation.

You do realize that Joe spends the majority of most games either guarding the opposing team's PG or switched off onto a frontcourt player, right?

And when you're a high-scoring guard, 52% from the floor is damned good. The typical shooting percentage for a 20ppg guard is 43-47%. Then again, this was the guy who thinks that a team that has the cap space to sign JJ outright would instead prefer to do a sign-and-trade.

+1. Haters find a negative angle no matter how their disfavored player does in a particular game.

Malone averaged 28 and 12 in his third year. So no. I'm sorry, but the longer you keep this thread going, the more foolish you look. Karl Malone is one of the top 10 players in the history of the game. Al Horford is not. It's not hating on Al to say it's not close. And Al will tell you the same thing, I'm sure.

Oh. My. God. The other argument was about teams WITH cap space (e.g. Chicago, NY) trying to sign another team's free agent. My post was about how a team WITHOUT cap space (e.g. the Hawks) would have to go about doing it. How can you be so clueless about NBA transaction rules that you think that whether or not a team has cap space is irrelevant? That completely changes the dynamic of the situation. If the Hawks had cap space, they wouldn't need to do a S&T to get LeBron and they wouldn't want to. They could just sign him. But since they are WITHOUT cap space, the only way they could possibly get him is to convince both LeBron and Cleveland to do a S&T - an incredibly unlikely thing to happen. That's why LeBron is more likely to go to a team WITH cap space if he bolts Cleveland. How can you be so dense as to not recognize how completely different the situations are?

No. What we argued about then is whether the FUTURE team would agree to a sign-and-trade if the FUTURE team had enough cap space to sign the targeted player outright. The Hawks do not have enough cap space to sign LeBron outright. Not even close. The only way the Hawks could get him is in a sign-and-trade. The issue with LeBron is whether his CURRENT team would agree to the trade (or if they would instead prefer to let him walk for nothing and start from scratch). It's hilarious that you think this is the same situation. It's actually the exact opposite. Just drives home how little common sense you have when it comes to NBA free agency.

They might agree if the alternative is to lose LeBron to another team and get nothing back. But that assumes that the Cavs wouldn't prefer "nothing" to whatever we offer them. And they might prefer to get nothing and start from scratch.

I love Al. A Swingman Horford jersey is my pickup attire of choice. But to suggest that he is just "slightly worse" offensively than the second-leading scorer of all time is ridiculous. There is not a single facet of Horford's offensive game - mid-range, post-up moves, free throw shooting, or even put-backs - that compares to Malone's. By this point in Malone's career, he was averaging 28ppg. Horford is at half that. I'm sorry, but Horford is not even remotely close to being in the same solar system as Malone offensively. Duncan is the only PF in the NBA today who is. And Horford a better passer than Malone? Really? Sorry, but that's insane. Although he's definitely one of the top 5 passing big men in the game today, Horford isn't even at Brad Miller's level yet. Malone might have been the best passing PF in NBA history. Defensively, it's closer, but only someone who doesn't remember Malone clearly can say that Horford is better than Malone defensively. Malone's strength and athleticism enabled him to body up any big man in the NBA. Hell, he was probably the best on-ball defender against Shaq in the whole league early on, despite Shaq having 5 inches on him. His defensive awareness and anticipation was remarkable, and he is probably one of the most underrated defenders of the last 25 years (he anchored the Jazz's defense, which always was one of the league's best, but his offensive achievements and lack of gaudy block numbers led to him being overlooked). Horford might get there, but he's not there yet. Love Al, but there's no comparison. It's crazy to suggest they're even remotely in the same class.

By "sign," I'm guessing you're thinking about a sign-and-trade. And I actually said awhile back that the Hawks working out a S&T for an elite free agent is not out of the realm of possibility. Since the big guns available this offseason are all unrestricted, we would have to convince them to come to Atlanta AND convince their current teams to deal with us. But while that certainly won't be easy, that might not be as impossible as it sounds. Crawford is expiring next summer, Smoove's stock is high, and maybe we could find a team willing to take on Marvin (I really think he'd fit well in Cleveland, Phoenix, and Utah, all of whom have big-time UFAs), whose contract is not so big as to be crippling. True, in all likelihood, we would have to give up at least one guy that it would hurt to see go, but landing Bosh or LeBron would be worth it. That being said, convincing both the player and his current team would be a really steep hill to climb, and the likelihood of this happening thus is very slim. But it's not impossible.

Except that's not how it went down. First, Orlando already had the cap space to sign both Hill and McGrady outright. The pressure for the sign-and-trade came from the players, not the Magic, because the players wanted the more lucrative deals that their original teams could offer. Second, both Atkins and Wallace were already planning on signing with Detroit anyway (outright as FAs - search for a July 24, 2000 Orlando Sentinel article called "PISTONS TURN TABLES ON MAGIC BY LURING WALLACE , ATKINS"). The sign-and-trade was simply a way to structure the deal so that the players could join their respective teams more quickly and so that the trade restrictions that came with signing another team's players under the old CBA wouldn't apply. Finally (and less relevant to my challenge), though highly relevant to how things will play out this summer), McGrady was an RFA, so the Raptors possessed the right to match offers for McGrady. The Magic offered a conditional first round pick to the Raptors in order to make sure the Raptors didn't match. Obviously, that won't be true of the free agents hitting the market this summer, besides Rudy Gay. In any case, clearing cap space for them was NOT an issue and NOT a motivating factor in those deals. The Magic had way more than enough cap space to sign both of them outright

Seriously.

I call BS. I haven't seen you cite a single instance where that has actually happened (much less every year), certainly not since the advent of BYC rules.

Yeah, and that's smart. He's very strong and very quick, but he lacks the smoothness and low post repertoire of a Hakeem/McHale/Duncan (or even a Divac/Kaman/Bosh). So doing something with the ball quickly will work better for him because he usually doesn't get himself a more open look by working his man for several seconds.

He really, really, really needs to stop making new movies. He should have made like JD Salinger and quit while he was ahead.

True, but the exact wording of the sentence in the Times was: So the Times was reporting speculation, even though (to the Times' credit) it didn't attempt to color it otherwise. That means Schultz's story was secondhand speculation. Making a story based on what clearly is speculation is about as credible as making a story that uses the Post or Daily News as a source.

You mean Jeff Schultz is talking out of his *ss? Naaaahhhhhhh.... PS: The personal wealth of team owners doesn't matter.

Wow. That is quite possibly the most absurd post I've seen on this subject. Did you really just say that other teams are better off doing a sign-and-trade to get JJ (and in the process giving us players that are worth a damn) instead of signing him outright? Your logic on that point has so many holes that I don't know where to begin. So I won't.

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