niremetal

Uh...why do people see this as a critique of his teammates rather than an indictment of the coach and the system in which the team plays? Isn't making sure that players have roles and know what they are the job of the coach? For years people have criticized the Hawks for lacking a team identity and cohesion, and for leaving players’ roles ambiguous (which is why our PF ends up 20 feet from the basket so much). This is the second time that JJ has drawn attention to that in the past two weeks. It doesn’t take much codebreaking to view it as a critique of Woody – after all, isn’t it the coach’s job to give the team an identity and define players’ roles?

Good post, good replies. Crawford should force JJ to elevate his game, and should also take some pressure off of JJ to handle the scoring load. On the defensive end, Crawford will always be subpar, but that's never been the gripe about JJ. Crawford has so far turned out to be the best offseason pickup in the NBA.

This is his 6th year in the league, so I think you'll be waiting a long time if you're waiting for Josh's awareness and decisionmaking to catch up with his physical tools (which is hardly a huge insult considering that his physical tools are elite-level). His strengths and weaknesses today are the same as they were 2 years ago - great help D, mediocre on-ball D (how many times did he let Thompson shoot without even putting a hand up last night? I counted at least 4); flashes of great court vision, but also makes some terrible decisions with the ball; streaky free throw shooter (to be kind); still takes too many long jumpers (not realizing that the only reason he's wide open out there is that opposing teams WANT him to take those shots); makes some great dunks in transition, but also tries to run the point in transition with bad results too much; lots of explosiveness, little fluidity; etc, etc, etc. Just like waiting for Marvin to be more aggressive, waiting for Josh to be consistent is probably going to be an infinitely long wait. Unless, of course, a new coach could cure or mask their shortcomings.

That's weird. Because last time I checked, it was Josh and Horford who combined to turn over the ball nine times in the last game. Horford is my favorite player on the team, so unlike you, I'm not hating. I'm just pointing out, you know, what actually happened. Try it sometime instead of just taking every opportunity to bash Marvin. You're not as bad as one guy on Sekou's blog who posts ONLY to bash Marvin, but your love for bashing him is in the same ballpark.

My friend the Photoshop wiz has come up with a new and improved version of the JT-0 pic. Here 'tis - and notice the modified lettering on the front of the GTO:

This really is not that complicated. I'll just quote Sekou: Why is it so hard to understand that the general point is that Woody doesn't know how and when to use his bench, and not simply that he needs to play the bench more minutes? You can't seriously think that the main complaints about Woody's use of the bench were JUST the sheer number of minutes each player played, do you?

Funny. I seem to remember him playing close to shut-down defense each of the past two games. Why doesn't anyone ever compare his "horrible" offensive numbers up against those of Caron Butler (who Marvin outscored by 2-1) and Ron Artest (who scored 7 of his 12 points while Marvin was sitting). It's amazing. I swear that people around here just fall asleep whenever the Hawks are on defense, and only wake up if someone gets a block or a steal.

Something tells me we're going to see about 20 of these "this is the big test for JJ" posts during the rest of this season.

Promising sign: 12 of JJ's 16 shots tonight were in the paint (check out the Courtside Live chart on NBA.com's Game Info page). He got 7 free throws and should have gotten at least 4-5 more. He also got on the officials for not calling those fouls - which he hasn't done in the past. If he keeps that up, refs will eventually start giving him those whistles.

Sorry, but that's absurd. "Hater" is hardly like calling someone an idiot, jackass, fool, etc. It's just a shortened form of "player hater," which is one of the most common slang terms in existence among bball fans. Come on, now. Oh, and if you read further up the thread, he happily assumed the moniker with respect to JJ. Many more personal posts get made on a daily basis that you don't call out. This isn't even in the top 10 for today of things worth playing civility cop over.

NO DAMMIT. I'm a Hawks fan living in Philly. I have League Pass Broadband. League Pass Broadband is blacked out when a game is on NBA TV. So for the relocated fans that don't get to see the Hawks that often, tell them to pony up the $89 and buy League Pass Broadband like I (and all of my expatriate Hawks fan friends) do - that way they can see all 82 games, not just the 1. That's what a hardcore Hawks fan would do. Don't punish the hardcore fans just to make it easier for the lazy ones :angry22:

It's more than a little worrying. For someone who is just 6'0 without shoes, having a jumper that is released low, slow, and in front of the body is a recipe for disaster. Opposing defenses will learn before too long to just lay off him and make him shoot jumpers. Put someone who is 6'3 or taller on him, and he'll be toast. It's a fatal flaw to his game. No PG in the NBA can become more than an average player with a jump shot that is so easily blockable/alterable. He either needs to develop a higher release point (like CP3), a MUCH quicker release (like Bibby), or both.

I love Teague aka JT-0, but... 1) He's not anywhere remotely close to the floor general that CP3 and Deron were when they came into the league. Their court vision was and is world class and they have always looked to pass first. Teague was more of a shooting guard in college and had an atrocious Ast/TO ratio for any guard, much less a PG 2) He doesn't have the ginormous hands that Rondo has and his wingspan, while very good, is not Rondo-esque. Combine that with his questionable commitment to defense in college, and I don't see Rondo defensive potential there. 3) I've neither seen nor heard anything to indicate that Teague is ready to fill any leadership void. If anything, his maturity was questioned in college. Also, the Spurs didn't have a proven starting PG at the time Parker entered the league (Avery had moved on the summer before and the starter was Antonio Daniels). Parker was also an unknown commodity since he was drafted from abroad, where he played for a relatively little-noticed French team, while Teague was much more heavily scouted. He's got great potential, but come on now - CP3 or Tony? HE was the 6th-8th PG selected in the draft, depending on how you want to categorize players. If he looked anything like those two, you can bet your butt he'd have gone higher.

Are you kidding me? Doc Rivers won his coach of the year award after taking a D-League level squad (the '99-'00 Magic) that was shredded by injuries to 41 wins and almost to the playoffs. I don't wanna think about how that team would have done with "ISO Mercer."

Totally agreed. My fear is that Woody's firing will come too late and we'll end up losing JJ and getting back nothing next summer.

I hope you're being sarcastic...

The Yao argument is kinda like the "Nadal is better than Federer because Nadal usually beats Federer" argument in tennis. It's faulty because their one-on-one matchups are just a tiny fraction of the games each has played over the course of their respective careers (the logic is wrong in the case of Nadal and Federer for a variety of other reasons, but I digress...). The Bobcats have dominated the Lakers during the last couple years, but I don't think anyone would say the Bobcats have been a better team. For the same reason, you can't judge Yao/Dwight and Nadal/Federer just based on their head-to-head performances. Now who has been the better center in the NBA during the past couple years between those two? Well Dwight almost wins by default because of Yao's injury difficulties. A fully healthy Yao versus a fully healthy Dwight? I don't think there's a right answer to that one.

I agree with the sentiments around here that the fact JJ dominates the ball is primarily Woody's responsibility, since JJ isn't the one who designs our offensive "system." I'll also say that unlike certain other All-Star shooting guards who shall remain nameless, JJ consistently used "we" in his comments - he included himself in the criticism. That's a big step up from said nameless SGs and also a big step up from his "young guys just running wild" comments after the Boston series.

Yeah, because we all know how many times Wade, LeBron, and Kobe have thrown hard fouls during a game...

He's done this a couple times in the past, as I recall, and both times the Hawks came out of the gate strong after his comments. But as always, we weren't able to sustain it. C'est la Hawks...

It's almost like an extreme case of Marvin Williams Draft Critic Syndrome - he's focusing on where Horford was drafted and comparing him to what he'd hoped out of someone picked in that draft position rather than focusing on his game compared to the game of the actual players he's comparing him to. But in this case, Horford is not exactly underperforming what you'd expect from a #3 pick in his second year, particularly one stuck in an offense that never gives its big men touches, so you can't blame this absurd post JUST on that... And this post is absurd. Ask all 30 NBA coaches and all 30 NBA GMs which player they'd rather have between Horford, Anderson, and Collins, and all 60 would say "Horford." Well, at least that's what they'd all say now that Isiah Thomas and Kevin McHale are gone...

Not a fan - I don’t like the big “ATL.” Looks jarring to have lettering that much bigger than the uniform number.

Uh...I've heard that plenty of times. True, not from a teammate or coach (although see below) - but I've also never heard a teammate or coach praise his effort on D. And to be blunt, you're the first person I've ever heard say that Crawford gives 100% effort on D. I guess we can agree to disagree on that point, but to me, Jamal shows excellent quickness, speed, and ability to change direction on offense, but not on defense. That indicates a lack of effort. And I'm far, far, far from the only one who thinks so: Draftexpress: Sports Illustrated (from an NBA scout): Hoopshype also says he "doesn't play much D." And this is from when he arrived in Golden State. Gee, whaddya know - a coach noticed that he doesn't play much defense too: You can also go chat with all the Knicks fans who watched him on a nightly basis for 5 years and ask if they think he gives his best effort on D; heck, you can just go check their message boards. And you can go ask Golden State fans or check their message boards to see if they thought Smart's off-the-court work with Crawford led to him giving more defensive effort on the floor last season. But I guess you're right and all of us are full of "BS."

I'm sorry, but did you even read my post before you posted that response? I explicitly said I expected it. I just don't think that expecting a player to not give his all makes it ok to not give his all or means that we should overlook that aspect of his game when assessing that player's performance. Jamal Crawford doesn't give his all on defense. Everyone who watches him knows this, but that doesn't make it ok. How is that "acting like I did not expect it?" It's starting to look like you have little-to-no interest in actually reading and responding to my posts, so if you're not going to do that, let me know so I won't bother responding to you anymore.

He's been slowly inflating for a few years now. As for who can guard Howard 1 on 1...I seriously haven't seen anyone who can do it consistently. I woulda liked to see Divac in his prime try to get under his skin, though...