niremetal

I think Crawford has a lot to do with it, though. Some people who were already naturally inclined to hating on JJ then could delude themselves into thinking that if we let Joe walk, start Crawford, and bring in a new sixth man wing to replace him, we won't lose much ground.

Dude, lots of Euro teams (including Ülkerspor, the team Zaza was with) have associated junior teams for players not yet old enough to compete in actual Euroleague games. Rubio and Darko were both 15 when they first joined junior pro teams. I think Sabonis was 13 or 14. It's not at all unusual.

I actually never got that criticism/joke. For a guy who's 6'11, he doesn't exactly look ancient for 25. Also, he was born in the USSR. For all their other faults, the Soviets were very good at recordkeeping. They liked to keep damned close tabs on the population. They had a complicated internal passport system, etc, and you couldn't do much of anything if your various identity documents didn't match.

Matchups, matchups, matchups. Same reason the Bobcats have beat the Lakers in 6 of their last 7 meetings while winning 30 fewer games (in the East, no less). Same reason Federer is a better player than Nadal even though he can't beat Nadal to save his life. *ducks*

Ok. Ben Wallace did ok too. So did Moses Malone (who played in an era with even taller-on-average centers than today). Shorter centers have always been able to make up for their slight disadvantage in height if they are stronger, smarter, and/or more athletic than their counterparts.

And you think he wouldn't be a Hall of Fame defensive center today?

What, you didn't hear about how David Copperfield turned Bill Russell into a 23-year old again and made him available for us to take with the 5th pick in the 2006 draft? Oh wait, Bill Russell is 6'10 too. Nevermind.

The problem is that Blair's career is going to last about 150 games. His knees are going to get serious arthritis at a very young age (ie before he turns 30) due to the fact that he doesn't have ACLs in either knee - and that's the best case scenario. The worst case scenario is he blows one of the knees tomorrow, needs joint replacement because there's no ligament to repair/replace, and his career is over. And there's plenty of intermediate options in between, none of which yield a productive player who stays healthy. If Teague turns out to be a bust, I'll agree with you - better have Blair's contributions now than no contributions anytime. But I don't think Blair's knees will allow him to maintain his current level of production for more than a year or two. Which is why no team spent a first rounder on him.

Team meeting won't make a difference unless Woody gets on board. JJ and Jamal are shooting guards - they are scorers, not playmakers. If you give them the ball without instructions, you shouldn't be shocked if they take a shot instead of passing. As long as we have a coach who "don’t give a sh*t about the offense," you can't expect JJ or Jamal to play like point guards.

Six days. My bad.

Do you actually think you're fooling anyone with that? Most of your posts bash him, and you occasionally drop in an "I love Joe" because apparently you think other people will be stupid enough to believe you and therefore give credence to your player-hating. Sorry. We aren't that dumb.

You're mostly right. Too bad NBA games don't consist entirely of the last 10 seconds of a 1-point game. All the coaches you listed there save for Mike Brown (whose teams have collapsed three straight years in the playoff against good defense) and Miami (do you really want Erik Spoelstra as an example?) generally do not run that play frequently throughout an entire game, as Woody does. Oh, and Phoenix does not run ISO Nash nor does Utah run ISO Deron nor does Dallas run ISO Dirk with consistency. That's just BS. As often as not, Phoenix draw up a play for Amare (and sometimes even for J-Rich) and Utah will almost invariably run a screen roll with Deron and Boozer. In Dallas, the ball often ends up in Kidd or Terry's hands with the hope of getting an open look for Dirk. That's not the same as an ISO. Not at all. All three of these teams use off-ball movement and/or ball movement to create open shots. As for the rest of the teams, they generally do NOT run ISO plays during the first 46 minutes of a game. That way, the defense has gotten fewer looks at the play that will be run in the last 2 minutes.

BS. List the other games this year where that has happened. Because other than blowouts where Jamal played more minutes than JJ, I count no more than 5 times that happened this year. Oh, and Jamal rarely gets double teamed. That kind of makes it easier to get good looks at the basket. Jamal is a great 2nd option. But look at past years where he was on worse teams and drawing more defensive attention. He consistently scored fewer points on a lower FG% with a worse Ast/TO ratio. Anyone who thinks we should trade JJ and build around Jamal Crawford probably just doesn't like JJ and is looking for an alternative. Based on your past posts, that clearly is the case with you.

He has hit plenty of clutch shots. Most of them were a year or two ago, but there's a reason for that - teams now focus so much of their attention on JJ during last plays now that he has a very tough time getting a good look. I remember he rimmed out a contested fadeaway catch-and-shoot 3 with two hands in his face last year against Cleveland. That was the best look he got at a game-winner since the beginning of last year. Every other time, he either hasn't gotten the ball at all (like last night) because teams double him even before the inbounds pass, and certainly doesn't get a good look once he gets the ball. He has hit PLENTY of other clutch shots though. I remember the Wizards-Hawks game clearly last year where he nailed a trey to cut the lead to 1 with about 40 seconds left (Marvin hit a go-ahead shot a couple possessions later), and against the Sixers where he hit a three with a 3 when we were up 2 and about 10 seconds left. And of course, he went nuts on Boston in the fourth a few nights ago. None of those were game-winners (I don't think he's hit a game winning buzzer-beater in a couple years), but really the opportunity to get a true game-winner is pretty rare in the NBA.

But the reliance on ISOs and on the players to create has run us into trouble when we face teams who force us to play half-court ball. And rest assured that that will happen in the playoffs again this year. Simply put, Larry Brown and Stan Van Gundy are better at defensive schemes than the Hawks backcourt is at offensive schemes. That isn't surprising considering that players aren't, you know, coaches.

Bingo.

Yeah, because this type of post wasn't predictable after Jamal hits a game-winner. Robert Horry was the best man on the Spurs at hitting end of game shots. That doesn't mean I'd rather have him than Duncan, Manu, or TP.

I'm fine bringing him in as insurance - ie as long as he is ok with lots of DNP-CDs until the playoffs (kinda like Jason Collins now, and Robert Horry in his last couple years in the league).

My Portland-native girlfriend and I said back in '07 that there would be a Blazers-Hawks matchup in the Finals in 2010 or 2011. Injuries notwithstanding, I honestly think there's a good chance. Both teams have the rare quality of being both young and having been together for several years.

QFT. He's not an idiot, but this was not an example of a great post by him. He's never been a fan of Mario's and I'm sure he went into palpatitions when the Hawks signed him to a 10-day contract. I got very different impressions from watching several of the plays where he characterized Mario's defense as "bad" or "neutral."

I actually would be somewhat surprised if attendance cracks 15000 on Friday against Phoenix.

QFT

I was being snide when I said "end-all be-all." You said "As far as their record goes that shouldn't have anything to do with it, this is the ALL-STAR game, not the MVP voting, and he's clearly put up All-Star numbers and should be in the All-Star game." In other words, you said the team's record is irrelevant, and you said that he should be in the game based on his stats (and I'll note that you have not yet conceded that ANYTHING besides stats should go into it). For the past 2565656 posts, I have been trying to bait you into conceding that the All-Star game selections should not be based on stats alone. You have responded by cherrypicking parts of my posts to respond to instead of responding to my main point: That stats alone should not determine who makes the All-Star team. Are you, at long last, conceding that stats alone should not determine who makes the All-Star team? If so, then I'll shut up - as I said I would awhile ago. If you're not...well, then I guess you are saying that stats are the be-all and end-all. So clear that up and answer this simple question: Should All-Star game selections be based on more than just a player's stats? And NOW I'm done.

Look at their player pages on ESPN. Click on "Splits." Select the season. Look at "Pre All-Star." And then respond to my edited post. And I admit that Pierce was more efficient than Walker. Just like Horford is more efficient than Lopez. Hell, I'll even concede that Pierce had better stats than Walker that year. I have no problem with that. I also would point out that Walker's efficiency stats ALL went up and total stats ALL went down after he was traded from (13-69) Atlanta to (45-37) Boston. I would also point out that it's funny how you used Pierce instead of Jamison, with whom the call with Walker based on stats is much closer. In any case, I was just trying to find an example of a broader point - people's stats are much different when they play for winners then they are when they play for losers. So you can't ignore the record of the team they are on, nor can you ignore the intangibles that a player brings to the floor. But hey nice attempt at continuing to refuse to back down from your clearly overstated comment about numbers determining All-Star status. You're either too proud to admit that stats aren't the end-all be-all, or you're a fool for thinking that they actually are. Either way, I'm done with you.

You're factoring in Walker's stats from after he was traded from Atlanta to Boston, not his stats at the time of the break. And you conveniently ignored Jamison. Nice try. Oh, and while you're at it, do the same breakdown of efficiency stats for Horford and Lopez. I'll wait. You're picking and choosing what you think is important to bolster your argument.