niremetal

Hi, I'm Mike Woodson. Joe Johnson: 52 minutes Josh Smith: 46 minutes Al Horford: 38 minutes Marvin Williams: 36 minutes Mike Bibby: 30 minutes Jamal Crawford: 30 minutes Zaza Pachulia: 12 minutes Jeff Teague: 0 minutes Acie Law: -4 minutes (he still owes me some from last year)

Followed by Marco Belinelli, Sam Young, and Dominic McGuire. Just sayin. Per 36/48 minute stats are a very poor indicator of what a player would produce if he actually had to play starters' minutes and against the other team's best players. Also, Chuck Hayes is 3rd in the league, in case you needed proof that you can't tell too much 7 games into the season even for guys who do play major minutes. I know you realize that, but I figure it's worth emphasizing.

Great post, Northcyde.

I agree. Also, if he played SF, he would be a non-factor on help D in the lane and wouldn't be able to utilize his league-best shotblocking skills. Josh is playing the best of any Hawk so far this year. If he can consistently have nights like he did last night, he'll be an All-Star in no time.

Joe does most of his damage in the 3rd (6.2ppg, 1.5apg) and 4th (6.2, 1.4) quarters, and the least in the 1st (4.9, 1.7) and 2nd (4.5, 1.3): http://www.82games.com/0809/QTR4S11.HTM Funny. The bit about elite players commanding double teams and using it to their advantage is right. But it's an absurd statement to make it sound like they do it by acting as facilitators. That's the great contradiction about the criticism of JJ - he's apparently a ballhog who is afraid of taking over the game. Go figure.

Ok, a few things: 1) Auerbach never coached Bird 2) Auerbach did coach Havlicek. He brought him off the bench. 3) Kevin McHale was a Sixth Man for much of his career 4) So is Manu I guess Red Auerbach just didn't know what the hell he was doing. Same with Popovich today.

Raise your hand if you don't even read Diesel's posts anymore if you see the word "Marvin" in it. :bye1:

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?

Yeah, have fun with this thread. I will pay each of you a dollar if Joe gets traded anywhere before the offseason.

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.

You make it sound like they have a fan base to lose.

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...