niremetal

I'm sorry, but you are kidding yourself if you think Josh is a better on-ball defender than Marion at any position or if you think Marion's rebounding isn't several >s greater than Josh's.

This game was a microcosm of Josh at his best (he crashed the boards like a madman and showed why he's the best help defender in the league) and worst (his on ball defense was poor, which is the biggest weakness in his game, IMHO). The latter certainly doesn't outweigh the former, but it can't just be ignored. We're going to have to deal with versatile inside-out PFs if we want to make it out of the second round this year. When we face those guys, Josh still needs to get better at knowing when to simply put a hand up and contest or move his feet, and not just go for the block or steal whenever his man gets the ball. But again, that doesn't negate what he did tonight. Josh was everywhere tonight.

Yeah. Because lord knows that Diesel never gets personal with anyone.

Most of Matrix's points came when someone else was guarding him off a switch or in transition. But the fine points of, you know, what actually happened are irrelevant in Diesel's crusade to bash Marvin. And you condescend to everyone who dares to disagree with you on that. NO PERSONAL ATTACKS UNLESS A TIMEOUT IS DESIRED. YOU CAN MAKE THE POINTS WITHOUT MAKING IT PERSONAL.

Assuming this is true, I'm surprised that he did it this quickly. Teams aren't even allowed to sign him until Monday because he has to clear waivers, right? And the buyout was finalized yesterday? Announcing his decision before the ink even dried on his buyout rather than even pretending to entertain other teams' offers will raise a lot more eyebrows about there being an honest-to-goodness prearranged deal than he'd get if he just waited a week. His agent is an idiot.

The problem is that Smoove is not really a fitting nickname. There's a guy on the AJC blog ("doc") who advocates using "J-Smash" instead of "J-Smoove." Josh's game is awe-inspiring because of his explosiveness and power, not because of his smoothness. I think "Matrix Reloaded" is appropriately (and funny) too. But as you said, I think the ship has sailed...

Again, I'm not disputing any of that. Let me try this again. Here's another way to put it: Every year, there are multiple vets who turn down the opportunity to make more money in order to play for a contender. Thus, taken out of context, it would not be surprising that Z would turn down a bigger money offer in order to play for a contender (especially since his family already lives there). From Z's perspective, given the current rule, the logical choice for him would be to return to Cleveland - ie that's what he would do regardless of whether there was a pre-arranged deal. For the twentieth time, I'm NOT disputing that the rule needs to be changed. Just that Z isn't the type of player who is likely to care about money over winning a ring, and that it therefore the fact that Z would turn down a higher money offer is not a persuasive reason to change the rule. Of course the rule should be changed. But it's the possibility of collusion and the ability to do strawman cap-compliant trades that create the persuasive reasons to change the rule, NOT the fact that Z is likely to turn down a bigger money offer.

It's all subjective. But I think most people would agree that the Nuggets have a better chance of winning the Finals than do the Hawks. It's all subjective, but oddsmakers have the Hawks at 10:1 and the Nugs at 8:1. The Celtics are at 6:1, btw, and they also could conceivably use a guy like Z (but I haven't heard them mentioned as an interested team). The Cavs are at 8:5, second only to the Lakers (7:5). In any case, none of that gets past my central point: I don't think anyone can seriously dispute that Z is more interested in playing in and winning the Finals than he is in making an amount of money that will be a fraction of what he's already taken home in his career. And the Cavs offer a significantly better chance of giving that than do the Hawks. A better argument would be that Z was turning down an even better chance at a title to go back to Cleveland, but those teams don't really exist (unless the Lakers make an unexpected offer). I agree the rule should be changed, but the fact that the Hawks offered him more money and he turned it down would not be a persuasive reason why in Z's case.

I don't disagree. But my point is that the fact of the Hawks offering more money does not really create more than a negligible amount of additional pressure. A more convincing argument would be that he passed up a chance to go to teams with an equal or greater chance of winning a title compared to the Cavs - like, say, the Nuggets - in order to return to the Cavs.

Fair enough. Now explain to me the other part - why a guy who has made $120M+ in his career in salary alone will give a damn about making a fraction of that when he has the ability to go back to where he's played all his life, where his family lives, and have a better chance of winning his FIRST ring? Frankly, he'd be an idiot to take the money and come here. This is not a good test case.

Oh, what's that? Marion's first All-Star appearance came without either Nash or Kidd? And what? Josh has played alongside an All-Star the last 4 seasons too? Oh wait, I forgot. JJ isn't as good as Josh. What was the basis for that again? I guess JJ drawing constant double teams doesn't help Josh at all. Actually, this is the FIRST year that Marion played with Kidd. The PG early in his career was Marbury, who no one ever accused of making his teammates better. And I suppose Nash is also the reason that Marion's rebounding numbers put Josh's to shame. I guess you're just smarter than the head coaches and voters for the All-NBA teams. Don't you realize that trying to argue that Josh is better than Marion was actually makes it harder to take seriously the much more legit argument that Josh is the team MVP this year?

Yes, but that game was a blow-out and JJ didn't play past the midway point in the 3rd. And it was one of only 2 such appallingly bad scoring games JJ has had in the past 4 seasons (the other was last year against Cleveland, when he went 1-8 for 4 points, also in a blowout). Jamal has 1-2 per month on average during that same time span (ie where he scores a negligble number of points on ~20% or less shooting). The flip side of Jamal's occasional 50-point outbursts is that with even greater frequency, he has games that are mind-bogglingly atrocious.

No they can't. The Hawks can't even offer $3M period for the rest of this year, much less $3M more than anyone else. The prorated MLE is less than $2M right now, and it becomes lower with every game. And since Z can be a free agent this summer if he signs just for the rest of the year, EVERY team can offer him the MLE after the year is over.

I really don't see how it would force the league to do anything. They can say without lying that of the teams courting Z, Cleveland has the best chance of winning a title. And Z can say with a straight face that at his age, winning a title is more important than making a little more money (and considering how much he's made in his career, the extra money we can offer him right now is a pittance). I think the criticism of Riley, Jackson, etc will have more of an impact than us offering a few hundred thou more.

Trying to argue with HawkWeisErr about the merits of Joe Johnson is like trying to argue with Diesel about the benefits of Marvin. Which is like trying to argue with Jason Collins about the benefits of a low fat diet.

Lol...well there you have it. Apparently, a few fans' opinions are entitled to more weight than the NBA head coaches who voted JJ to more All-Star games than any Hawk since Nique. And Josh is better than Marion? Really? Today, that's true, but it's no insult to Josh at his peak is not as good as Marion was at his peak, because Marion was arguably the best forward in the league at his peak. Really, it's not even close. Marion can shoot, drive, rebound, and play on-ball defense better than Josh. Josh can pass and play help defense better than Marion. And Marion did it while playing for 60-win teams. All of his career shooting percentages - FG, 3P, FT, EFG, and TS - are better than Josh's. For 7 straight years, he was Top 10 in rebounding despite being just 6'7. Marion made 4 All-Star games in 5 years back when the West was packed with Hall of Fame level forwards. I'm sorry, but it's not an insult to Josh to say it's not even close. This is truly amazing. No one here is disputing that Josh is a great player. I frankly think that he SHOULD have made the ASG this year. But it's ridiculous that some people are so blinded by loathing of Joe and/or love of Josh that they're ready to rate Josh ahead of players that NBA head coaches have selected muliple times as being All-Stars and/or All-NBA, while Josh has yet to be named all-anything.

He also needed to not crash his Benz into a tree.

Yeah. Also, having a player sign a contract now with an additional promise of signing a future contract would violate the CBA pretty severely. That's what got the Wolves in trouble in the Joe Smith fiasco 10 years ago.

Family Guy character and star of a spin-off.

Why on earth would we want both Kwame and Camby? If we do get Camby and keep Zaza, we don't need to be spending any more than the minimum to sign a 4th-string center. And Z wouldn't need a 2-year offer from Cleveland to go back there, I'd wager. He wants a ring, not guaranteed money.

It's too bad that the Clips decided to hang onto Gooden for the rest of the year, although it makes sense that they might want a vet big man to steady DeAndre Jordan. But he would have been a nice pickup. There are no other buyout guys who I think would get PT under Woody, barring serious injury. Brian Cook and Cardinal are no better than the guys already at the end of our bench. Larry Hughes would be useful if Jamal's shoulder injury ends up forcing him to miss significant time, but otherwise he's just a less efficient version of Flip who has decided playing good D is no longer worth the trouble. And sorry Dolfan, but I disagree that Mikki Moore could help, because I think Woody still would prefer JoeS to him in terms of what he likes from a PF/C (rebounding, defense, and the open 12-footer). Free agents who could help...well, really just Antonio Daniels and Brevin Knight, but I don't think Woody would play them either. I hope some more guys get bought out who aren't on the radar right now, because otherwise there just isn't much of use out there.

Last year, JJ was playing hurt in the playoffs. Josh was not. And we were 1-3 in the games where Josh led us in scoring. The year before, Josh "disappeared" in the playoffs just as much as Joe. More, in fact, if all you care about it stats. And if you care about more than stats, then you have to consider that JJ has to guard opposing PGs, gets a few gazillion more double teams, and still has a higher EFG%, TS%, and AST-TO ratio than Josh in the playoffs. In fact, Josh has more TOs than assists in the playoffs. And his shooting percentages drop way more in the playoffs than Joe's do. That being said, I don't think there's a single team MVP this year. If there was one, I'd nominate Horford along with the J-boys.

Where's that from? As far as I know, teams can offer Z only a prorated portion of whatever salary cap exceptions are available to them. For the Cavs and Mavs, that would mean the minimum salary exception. For the Hawks, it could mean the mid-level, bi-annual, or minimum. I think whoever said that is confused, and thinks that teams can offer either the full minimum salary or a prorated portion of the mid-level. Unless I'm mistaken, everything is prorated at this stage in the season, so the Hawks can offer more - it just probably won't make much of a difference at this point because the total dollar amount of the difference would be just a fraction of what it would have been over the summer. And something tells me Z isn't going to sign because the Hawks can offer him, a guy whose already made $120M in salary during his career, an extra $1.5M.

Wait, a guy who only posts to bash Joe and pump up Josh thinks Josh is the team MVP? Naaawwwwwwww....

Also, the "players of Joe's ilk" analysis ignores the fact that unlike most starting wings, JJ does not rely on his athleticism or explosiveness to score. On the contrary, the vast majority of his points come off long jumpers/3s, using his tricky dribble to create space and hit jumpers, and the occasional post-up. I think that barring a catastrophic injury, he should "devolve" in the same way Ray Allen has - he won't get to the rim as often, but his outside shooting touch and range will make him a threat to score 20-25 on any given night until he's at least 33/34. Honestly, I would expect Wade to devolve a lot more quickly than Joe - a point Bucher made on ESPN Radio a couple nights back. Once Wade's athleticism starts declining, it's tough to see him succeeding as a 6'3 combo guard with a shaky outside shot. Also, people talk about JJ having peaked and J-Smoove being the future, apparently looking only at their ages. But Smoove relies on his athleticism much more than JJ does, and Smoove's athleticism is not going to get any better. Pretty soon, it'll start deteriorating. Don't be shocked if Smoove starts declining at or before age 29, not unlike Marion (whose skill set is actually better-suited for aging gracefully than Smoove's). There's more to who will be good in the future than simply looking at dates of birth.