niremetal

I agree. While Josh got away with two travels and a carry and JJ got away with an over-and-back late in the game, none of that is unusual. I wish they called traveling and carrying every time that it happened just so it would be consistent (and players would adjust quickly if they did), but right now, there's traveling and/or carrying on many-if-not-most possessions, and the refs make a judgment call on when to blow the whistle. We whine when it goes against us, Blazers fans whine when it goes against them. And PS - the Blazers announcers are no worse than Holman and are way better than the Celts, Heat, and Cavs TV crews. Just sayin.

Diesel, I see you still have the "oh wait someone suggested that Marvin might not be a complete waste of air TIME TO SMACK THEM DOWN" machine running at full overdrive, as always. Keep it coming. It's good for a laugh.

Kirilenko had an extended period of adjustment not unlike this when the Jazz took it to the next level in 06-07; Kirilenko sleepwalked through most of that season because he all of a sudden found himself without a defined role on the team. Marvin's role will probably eventually be exactly what you just described for Battier and Posey - a big-time wing defender who drains corner 3s. But it's the coach's job to tell him what his role is, not Marvin's job to figure it out for himself, and Woody's talk before the season was "we need to get Marvin MORE involved in the offense," which is tough when he's ALWAYS getting placed on the weakside and consequently is getting as few touches as he is (which in turn makes it harder for him to find an offensive rhythm). Give Marvin some time. He'll develop into a slightly taller and longer version of Posey or Battier. But everyone (Woody, Marvin, and us fans) needs to stop expecting him to be an offensive force, and Woody needs to start talking about him that way.

First off, there have been plenty of Sixth Men who have led their teams in scoring. Second: http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/NYK/2006.html Jamal Crawford had 149 more points than anyone else on the team and 151 more than Marbury. You can't just ignore the fact that Marbury didn't even suit up for more than a quarter of the team's games. Nice try, though. And NOW - done with you, fool.

Exactly. It was a masterstroke by Sund to get a guy who is so perfectly suited for our offense - and who could be a solid contributor in any offense if properly utilized. I was ambivalent about the Crawford addition, but it was one of those "the more I thought about it" deals.

Over on AJC, I still see the occasional Marvin-hater suggesting trading Marvin for a mediocre big man and shifting Josh to SF. Only one "regular" suggests that, though, and he's an even more visceral (not to mention single-minded) Marvin basher than Diesel. (Although with the way Marvin looks right now, I'm starting to at least understand the harsh criticism - just not enough that I think shifting Josh to SF is a reasonable alternative)

Yup. I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me why on earth we would want one of the league's best interior help defenders (if not THE best interior help defender) - and one whose offensive skills are overwhelmingly better when he gets the ball inside rather than outside - to spend most of his time at a wing position. :question:

Well, would you look at that: OH MY GOD, JOSH SMITH SET PERSONAL GOALS FOR HIMSELF AND DIDN'T SAY A WORD ABOUT WINNING A TITLE. WHAT A DOUCHE. </snark>

I'm sorry, but it's pretty clear that you either have not watched the Hawks much, don't remember how often Lue and Flip (and now Crawford) went one-on-one and ignored open teammates (and somehow managed to also miss JJ's time in Phoenix under D'Antoni, where he showed no problem playing in a ball movement-heavy system), and/or selectively ignore things that don't fit into your view of JJ and the Hawks offense. Oh, and Crawford led the Knicks in scoring twice - in '05-'06 and '07-'08. To quote a friend of mine over on Sekou's blog - done with you, fool.

Jamal led Chicago in scoring his last year there. He led the Knicks in scoring twice, and beat out Marbury 3 of 4 times. He scored more - both per game and total - than Monta did last year. Jackson did outscore Crawford, and I admit that I was wrong about him there. But Marbury and Ellis? Doesn't help your argument to cite guys who spent most of their time injured. Like it or not, the Knicks' offense ran through Crawford for 3 years. Ask Knicks fans. And why should we care what they think? BECAUSE THEY WATCHED THE MAN PLAY. Something I'm wondering whether you've done, considering that you seem to be under the impression that Marbury was the Knicks' frontman in anything but the payroll for the last 4 years. And you're living in a dreamworld if you think that the one-on-one ISO plays started or end with Joe. They are what Woody's "system" entails. Lue, JJ, Flip, Crawford...they all go/went one on one to create offense. You're also living in a dreamworld if you think Jamal is either less selfish or a better passer than JJ. Again, ask people who actually watched him play before this year. Or hell, watch games this year. Or just check the box score and see that JJ is averaging both more assists per game and more per 36 minutes. And lastly, you say this: So I guess "that's what the coach wants him to do" is a good alibi for Crawford but not for JJ. Ok, thanks. That tells us all we need to know about you.

And that's exactly why no one called JJ selfish in Phoenix even though he was lead guard on a LOT of possessions and was, in D'Antoni's words, essentially the backup PG.

You're right. He said his sole focus is on what the team is trying to accomplish, but you jump up and down and point at scream at the part of his statement where he says he also has individual goals and say that's the only part that he has "balls" for. And PS - I have no problem with a guy turning 29 and deciding he wants to go from All-Star to elite. Seemed to work ok for Nash and Nowitzki. Worked ok for their teams too. As I said, get real.

Hope we can steal their coach.

Yyyyyyyuuuuuuuup.

So I guess that the first part of the statement you quoted is being dismissed as window dressing? Is he not supposed to have any individual goals at all? Get real.

1) Who's going to score in that lineup? Crawford? Yeah, because the Bulls, Knicks, and Warriors all did real well when he was counted on to be the offensive frontman. I guess Crawford scoring fewer points than JJ on a lower shooting percentage while commiting more turnovers was all an optical illusion that lasted for several years. 2) You want to move the best interior help defender in the NBA out to the perimeter by making him SF? NineOh, you've got it pegged. JJ dominates the ball, I agree. But why don't y'all go talk to the folks in New York and Frisco about Crawford. Like Flip last year, people are ok with Crawford being a ballhog because he's new. But "new" is not "better."

If you watched the game on that feed, you also heard them comment on Jamal Crawford going one-on-one and taking bad shots, and commenting that the Hawks do that a lot. And if you watched games last year, you saw Flip Murray do the same damned thing. AHF and NineOh have it exactly right. I'm definitely not saying that JJ isn't the guy that has done it the most, but that's to be expected since he gets the ball the most. But Crawford going one-on-one and taking contested or off-balance shots (I counted five times that he did that in the second half) is a novelty, so somehow it seems less egregious. Same with Flip last year. Same with Tyronn freaking Lue 2 years before that. How many guards dominating the ball and going one-on-one will it take before people start realizing that it's the system (or lack thereof) that breeds that style of play?

Didn't this parade pass through like a week ago? http://www.hawksquawk.net/community/index.php/topic/340959-emo-joe-is-at-again/

Well, you said "none of the players you cited" after I had made a post where I had cited more than those 4 players. I cited Nazr, Rebraca, Ekezie, and several others. So it's not like I was bringing them up for the first time. C-ya.

I frankly don't care about PER and think it's just about the most bullsh!t thing ever dreamed up (the weighting of each stat is incredibly arbitrary, and is based on assumptions that are, in my view bogus). Their traditional stats per36 were/are very close (11.9pp36 and 7.2ap36 for Vaughn, 12.0 and 7.6 for Teague). I'm actually not a fan of traditional box score stats either, but I think they are less-bad than PER. Unless you really want to tell me that Paul Pierce was better than Steve Nash in 2005-2006 - something that anyone who looked at their stat lines would have chuckled at and anyone who actually watched their games would have died laughing at...but I won't write that essay here. Did you skip Nazr Mohammed? He never put up per36 stats remotely resembling the 17.5/12.1 he put up in his third year, when he averaged 15.7mpg. He certainly never put up per-game stats resembling that. Oh, and btw - his PER never got up to that level again either. Rebraca's rookie year was his best by every measure I know of. Ekezie's solid per36 stats in his first two years didn't mean jack when he took on a "larger role" with us in the 13-69 campaign - his per36 stats that year (and, incidentally, his PER) were the worst of his career. Oh, and about my point: I still want to hear you address that. Because that's the crux of my point - solid per36 minute numbers don't mean that these guys will ever be NBA starters (or even good role players). Because again - if Jeff Teague never becomes more than a bit player, then I couldn't care less what his per36 stats (and PER) are. Actually, I've spent enough time on this. Feel free to talk amongst yourself, though.

I'm sorry, but do you really not know the answer to your first question? 1) The more minutes someone plays, the more fatigued they become (both during each game and cumulatively over the course of a season). Most players have the stamina to put up the same numbers despite the increased fatigue. Some don't. 2) The more minutes someone plays, the higher the proportion of those minutes will be played against the other team's best players instead of against the other team's reserves (not to mention garbage time minutes). Some players rise to the occasion and produce the same numbers against starters as they would against reserves. But many don't. And I really don't see how you can argue against that with a straight face. Most coaches realize that 1) and 2) are important considerations and recognize which players don't have the stamina/ability to play starters' minutes. And if a player doesn't show them that he has the stamina and/or skill level to log more minutes against better players, he won't give that player the shot. If you think that means nothing, then I guess you must have thought that Nazr Mohammed could have been a superstar if only a coach had played him 36 minutes per game. Because 17.5 and 12.1 are D-12-esque numbers. I never said it wasn't useful. I said it's a poor indicator. I'll modify that again to say "misleading in many cases" instead of "poor" for the sake of precision. In most cases, per36 minutes is a good predictor of what a player can become. But in many cases, it is not. That is not true even on a per36 basis. And even if it were, why should I get excited if Jeff Teague is going to be the next Jacque Vaughn? After all, Vaughn was a late 1st round pick who put up per36 minute stats reminiscent of Teague's as a rookie, and his per36 minute stats didn't drop much until his 7th year in the league. That's my point when I say "why should I care?"

To turn that question right back around, why in the world would anyone care about their per36 minute stats if they never get good enough to earn 36 minutes per game? If they never end up being good enough to earn a larger role, what exactly did their earlier extrapolated stats show?

You're comparing the wrong things. I said they never put together seasons as starters (ie their ACTUAL PER GAME stats, not their extrapolated and therefore occasionally misleading per-36 minute stats) resembling their pre-promotion per-36 minute stats. Howard Eisley, 1996-1997 (13.2mpg): 12.2pp36, 6.6ap36 Howard Eisley's best ACTUAL stats, 2002-2003 (27.4mpg): 9.1ppg, 5.4apg Jacque Vaughn, 1999-2000 (11.3 mpg) - 11.8 pp36, 4.9 ap36 Jacque Vaughn's best ACTUAL stats, 2001-2002 (22.6mpg): 6.6ppg, 4.3apg I admit that I misremembered Dan Dickau's and Beno Udrih's stats, although I will say that Udrih has been more than a disappointment to Kings fans as a starter, his stats notwithstanding. But as for Eisley and Vaughn, what does it matter if they continued to average the same 36 minute stats if they never actually ended up putting up those stats on a per game basis? You want some more examples of that? Ok. Check out Nazr Mohammed Nazr Mohammed, 2000-2001 (15.7 mpg): 17.4pp36, 12.1rp36 Nazr Mohammed's best ACTUAL stats, 2001-2002 (26.4mpg): 9.7ppg, 7.9rpg Others: Samaki Walker, Felipe Lopez, Obinna Ekezie, Zeljko Rebraca, Rodney White, Brian Cook, Stanislav Medvedenko. All of them put up good-to-great-to-outstanding per 36 minute numbers early in their careers. None of them ever became more than bit players. Some of them got shots at being starters and failed, others never earned a starting job at all. But the point is simple: For a significant number of players, extrapolated stats that make them look promising do not necessarily indicate that they will ever put up the extrapolated stats on a per-game basis. And if they never put them up on a per-game basis, then they aren't an indicator of things to come, are they?

"Very reliable" is a huge overstatement. It has been an indicator for some (ZBo and Kirilenko come to mind), but it has not been for many others - as even a brief glance at the per-36 minute stats for past season on Basketball Reference will tell you. And obviously, the fewer the MPG averaged, the less reliable the indicator. I am particularly wary of extrapolating for PGs, considering how many (Howard Eisley, Beno Udrih, Jacques Vaughn, and Dan Dickau immediately come to mind) never actually put together seasons as starters resembling the per-36 minute stats they produced right before their "promotion." Now granted, I do NOT think Teague is like any of those guys. But per-36 minute production is not "very reliable." My guesstimate is that it misses at least a third of the time when the MPG is below 16mpg (ie 1/3 of the game). To me, that makes it a poor indicator (although "very poor" was an overstatement on my part).

Yes, it was a joke. I have no clue how that was worthy of downrating. Seriously.