Brokentree

If any of the big three don't play then there isn't much of a statement the Hawks can make by beating the Heat. We can beat you when you're hurt isn't exactly motivational material.

He hasn't played alot yet. He's a young guy from France playing basketball in alot of strange places. He doesn't speak very good english. He's playing on a team where he doesn't know his teammates, doesn't know the coaches, and doesn't know the system. Lets give him a bit more of a chance before we cry havoc about "wasting" a deep second round pick. Like 95% of those become NBA players anyways. The guy is a project. He's low risk high reward potential. Other than his horrible shooting right now I'm actually somewhat happy with what I see in the stat sheets. Seems like he rebounds fairly well and he makes it to the free throw line. The fouls seem to be an issue but that might just be learning what is accepted and what isn't. The turnovers don't concern me at all this early. Lets see how he does in the next 10 games or so and see if he starts to catch on and hold off on too many judgements until at least the next summer league.

I was kind of baffled that Collins didn't get any minutes against Hibbert. Really poor team shooting night but the Pacers helped by shooting even worse and not getting the threes to fall like the Hawks did. Smith, Horford, Joe all get A's. Joe was hot early and late. Smith took his outside shots but he was around the basket fairly often as well. Horford played around the basket well also. Nice to see the assists from these three. Jamal and Bibby get B's. Poor shooting night overall for Jamal but he made them work hard trying to stop his drives and his 3 pt shot fell at a good %. Seemed like he was fouled more than was actually called. The guy is fun to watch. Bibby shot the 3 well again though he didn't really bring anything else to this game. Mo, Zaza, and Wilkins get C's. Mo did not lose the game for the Hawks. He played solid minutes without really helping or hurting the team very much. Zaza was good on the boards but was typical Zaza when it comes to offense. Wilkins played some good D but the man needs to do something to help out offensively before I think he deserves more than 10 minutes a game. Powell gets a D. The man tries but he disrupts the offense so much sometimes its painful to watch. Teague and Crawford get incomplete grades due to lack of quality playing time. Neither did anything impressive in the few minutes they were in. Larry Drew gets a B. The team won the game but I'm not convinced he used his bench as well as he could have.

2010 minutes vs 2011 minutes with defensive rebounds per game for our top 4 defensive rebounders Al Horford 35.1 - 7.0drb to 34.2 - 7.1drb Josh Smith 35.4 - 6.0drb to 34.1 - 6.9drb Marvin Williams 30.5 - 3.8drb to 30.0 - 3.8drb J Johnson 38.0 - 3.7drb to 36.0 - 3.4drb Total difference in minutes per game 2010 vs 2011 is 4.7 less minutes per game for 2011 Total difference in defensive rebounds per game 2010 vs 2011 is .7 rebounds more per game for 2011. So our best defensive rebounders are playing less but rebounding more. That is called being more effective. Of these 4 players two have missed a significant number of games so you'd actually expect the minutes per game of the other two to have gone up but that is not the case.

Season to date. Hawks 2-0 Should be an interesting game with some of the young players on the Pacers. Hibbert, Hansbrough, and Collison have loads of potential and all play positions where the Hawks are either weak or lack depth. Collison proved last year that he can put up Chris Paul numbers when he is on. Hibbert had a monster October and November before cooling off in December. He is very capable of a double double and 3+ blocks. Hansbrough just had a monster game against San Antonio. If you can play well against them you can play well against anyone. In the previous two games vs the Hawks Hansbrough only played 3 minutes. He could be an x factor for the Pacers. I assume we go with the big line up and play Horford on Hansbrough and Smith on Granger. Dunleavy and Granger both like to take the 3 so lets hope we contest those shots and not let them get hot. I would love to see Teague get some extended playing time in this game and see what kind of motivation he shows. He was born in Indiana and he would be playing against a pg in Collison who is having more success in the NBA after being drafted lower than Teague in the draft. Last game against the Pacers I felt he played well but it was nothing eye opening like I'm hoping to see tonight.

Even 9 minutes a game is 9 minutes of rest for someone else. It might not be a case of Collins physically doing anything other then "holding down the fort" while our better players stay more rested and therefore more effective. The less players we have at a certain position the more valueable the minutes they can provide are.

If he can average 30 ppg is his sleep he better start nodding off soon. So far he's only averaging 15.8.

Sure the ranking is much better this year but the actual number of extra defensive rebounds per game is 1.1. That is not such a huge number that we need to try and analyze every player and schemes and line up changes to figure out where it is coming from. It's a nice bonus and it contributes to the 2 or so less points per game the Hawks are giving up this year but I'll take last years rebounding effort over this years because... Defensive rebounding is up, but overall rebounding is down. That means our offensive boards are down.. alot (2.4 per game). This is what warrants discussion here. 2.4 offensive rebounds is like 2.4 shot attempts per game. We're taking about 2 shots less per game this year compared to last year and we're scoring about 4 pts less per game.

If Crawford was signed to a longer contract and we were further away from the luxury tax I would probably agree with you. But the fact of the matter is Jamal most likely isn't going to be resigned unless we shed salary somewhere else. I personally would love to see what this team looks like offensively with Steve Nash. I have little to no interest in Calderon at his current salary.

Etan Thomas is the biggest disappointment I think I've felt since we drafted Shelden Williams. I fully expected him to come in and average 10-15 minutes a game and get somewhere close to 5pts 5rbs a game. Instead we've gotten a total of 17 minutes. I feel like a total *ss for thinking the Hawks were right to sign Etan over waiting for Dampier or spending more than the minimum to sign Shaq. Right now I'd rather have Randolph Morris. I think he is the next Yao Ming.

You're talking like the team wouldn't benefit at all from trading Joe. The Hawks certainly would be a playoff team without Joe because we'd be getting something in return. Sure we might dip further into mediocrity for a season or two but the idea is that our GM won't completely suck at his job and we'd get some sort of value in return. Draft picks, young players with upside, expiring contracts to help in free agency? The situation the team is in now we can't even trade for someone like a Marc Gasol or a Roy Hibbert or a Brook Lopez because we can't afford to pay them their next contracts. Joe's contract is ok for a couple of years but after that it is just brutal. In 2015-2016 he'd be making twice what Al Horford is due to make. If Sund can find a reasonable deal that gets us out of his contract then by all means he should go for it. Its all speculation anyways. Nothing is going to happen this year with Joe's elbow not allowing him to play his best.

I don't know Utah's financial philosophies but I wonder what people would think of a Johnson for AK trade. It doesn't really gain the Hawks anything talentwise but it would get us out of Joe's contract. Maybe a multi team trade and try to get a draft pick out of it. I like Joe but his contract really scares me considering who owns the team. I wonder what its like to be a Lakers or Knicks fan and not care about how much someone makes. I'll just try and convince myself that it would be boring.

The stat that we tend to ignore the most are the +/- stats. It is a stat that reflects how well the team is playing while a player is on the court. Hawks Individual +/- stats NBA.com We can complain about player deficiencies as much as we want but how the team plays is most important. Bibby might not be the best defensive player but the Hawks do better as a team when he is on the court. Collins might not score or pull down as many rebounds as we'd expect but for some reason the Hawks do well in his limited playing time. It's almost like the Hawks do better offensively when they have 4 scoring options on the floor rather than 5. There are different situations in every game. Different matchups to try and take advantage of. Just because someone has a good +/- doesn't mean they should be playing every minute of every game and just because someone has a bad +/- doesn't mean they need to sit on the bench. Sidenote- Compare this years +/- stats with last years. I'm fully in support of Larry Drew's offense but the man has his work cut out for him. This team needs alot of coaching and they need to play with discipline.

Those numbers averaged out are 18.2 ppg and 9.4 rpg. His season averages are 16.7 ppg and 9.6 rpg. 1.5 pts per game increase isn't a big deal. He should continue to play whatever position the coach believes gives us the best match ups on a night to night basis.

A rookie head coach, a new system, one of our best players playing hurt and missing games, a sf that doesn't play to his ability, a pf that makes stupid decisions and has attitude problems, an old pg that can't defend, a young pg that doesn't develop, a horrible bench other than Jamal, an undersized center that should be playing pf, a front office that is clueless and unwilling to spend money. I've heard all of these complaints at one time this season on this board but here is a fact. There are 30 teams in the NBA and only 13 of them have winning records right now. The Hawks happen to be one of them.

No way do we let Sy go before he actually plays. Last thing I want is the great French hope to be traded away before he even plays a game. He makes peanuts as it is. No point in trading him.

What a lazy one pointed article. We could have extended Jamal this year and he'd be writing this article about Al Horford. Is the author really telling us this as fact when the only evidence he submits is a quote from Jamal? Does he have any visual or statistical evidence? Did he maybe talk to other Hawks players and they told him Jamal was being a good team player? Nice quotes from Jamal but lets role play and pretend for a second we're Jamal and we want a new contract. What would we say? I really find these types of articles annoying. It is void of relevent information merely to make it interesting for ignorant basketball fans. He could have written an article with all the facts and guess what? It would have completly sucked because people would ask "Whats the point of this article?" Looks to me like he's just trying to make the Hawks management look incompetent, and do they really need help with that? That being said. I like Jamal on this team and I do hope we find away to resign him, but at the same time I'll understand if we can't.

Here you go. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXe1qKOIfmU

Hibbert and Collison combined make around 3 million dollars this year. There are rules to these trades you know.

We're one or two passes short of an offense right now as well.

I was thinking this was going to be about Jordan Crawford. I hope he makes it into the game tonight.

Present 10. Jordan Crawford 9. Jeff Teague 8. Zaza Pachulia 7. Mo Evans 6. Mike Bibby 5. Marvin Williams 4. Jamal Crawford 3. Josh Smith 2. Joe Johnson 1. Al Horford All Time 10. Mookie Blaylock 9. Pete Maravich 8. Tree Rollins 7. Eddie Johnson 6. John Drew 5. Kevin Willis 4. Cliff Hagan 3. Lou Hudson 2. Bob Pettit 1. Dominique Wilkins

These are my 10 most disappointing players that have ever worn a Hawks uniform. Not all of these players are at fault. Take Bibby for example. I like him.. but man I liked him alot more 6 years ago. It's just disappointing to get him now by comparison. So alot of these are on management. 10. Mike Bibby- Very good player but the timing was poor. Trade for him just in time for him to help out for a year or two. Resign him thinking we're set for another 2-3 years to find that he's just about done as a starter. He's on this list because the Hawks have needed a point guard for years and we missed his window by maybe 2 years. 9. Speedy Claxton- Played a total of 1069 minutes in 3 years due to injury after signing as a free agent. Only saving grace is that he was involved in the trade to bring Jamal Crawford to the Hawks. 8. Acie Law- Drafted 11th overall and the 2nd point guard drafted overall. High expectations and alot of hype after shooting that winning shot against the Longhorns. Also involved in the Jamal Crawford deal. 7. Josh Childress- He picked Greece over playing for the Hawks. 6th overall pick in a very deep draft that under performed compared to players picked below him. 7th pick Luol Deng, 9th pick Andre Iguodala, 15th pick Al Jefferson, 17th pick Josh Smith, 20th pick Jameer Nelson. 6. LaPhonso Ellis- After playing a few good seasons for Denver he signed with Atlanta as a free agent at the age of 28. Only played in 78 games over two years in which his statistics dropped drastically. 5. Jeff Teague- Two years of hype and one good game that was all garbage minutes. 4. DerMarr Johnson- Car accident canceled his 3rd year but his first two were not very impressive after being picked 6th overall. Showed flashes of potential though. 3. Marvin Williams- Everyone knows this story. 2. Sheldon Williams- 5th overall pick that never produced. His per 36 stats with Denver this year are eerily similar to his per 36 stats from his rookie year. People are saying he's finally found a home and is being productive? I think not. 1. All the rentals players, end of career players, and headaches. The Glenn Robinsons. The Rasheed Wallaces. The Tom Gugliottas. The Kenny Andersons. The Gary Paytons. The Stephen Jacksons. The Isiah Riders. The Danny Mannings. The Kenny Smiths. Players that were good way before there were Hawks. Players that were good that played a very short time as a Hawk. Players that were good but a-holes.

Horford is not exactly in foul trouble with 2 fouls at the half, but he got those in less than 4 minutes playing time. He hasn't played since the Zach Randolph tumble as far as I could tell. With as well as Zaza is playing you'd think it would be a good time to get Horford some minutes at PF. Hope he is not hurt.

One of the valuable things in a 6th man is the ability to change the pace. When the Hawks offense isn't going its good to have that guy that can come in and try to get some momentum going even if it is outside the offensive gameplan. One of the things I love about Josh Smith is his ability to change momentum with one dunk. I'm more concerned with how he fits in this offense. Taking alot of jumpers. He took and made a 3 but I still cringed. Need the adrenaline plays from him.