SalvorMallow

Did you know that according to WS/48, Lowry has had 5 seasons as good or better than Teague's best season of 3 years ago? Only his 2nd year in the league was he as bad as Teague has been this year and his career average is .135, which is higher than Teague's career high of .131 and much higher than Teague's career average of .100. Look I'd be all for believing that Teague is getting better and can still improve if this weren't his 3rd straight year of trending down. I'm just not sure how you guys are ignoring that with your Marvin colored glasses.

I'm sure win shares are a great way to get a summary of how a player performs on the court, but I feel there's no way that that should be the ONLY thing that is considered when evaluating a player. If that was the case, it would be super easy to evaluate talent and there would be no room for questions about the value of players.

Yeah that's pretty bad. Although at least Detroit has the excuse that the city is bankrupt. I look at the bucks and raptors crowds and they seem pretty good. Oh Well Atlanta will show up when we become a contender.

^fixed

We were 16-13 with Horford.

Don't discount the fact that we were basically a brand new team with a brand new system and brand new coach.

Since I'm bored I'll interject that we did have a superstar player for years, although technically we didn't draft him. A hall of famer in fact. He got us to the second round.

That's a great point, and it shows that having a superstar no where near guarantees a championship. You have to have the winning organizational culture established FIRST.

Houston had Yao Ming AND Tracy McGrady and STILL couldn't win a championship.

It's time to check our dignity at the door, dump everything we have, and dive head first into the lottery GM. That's what I did and look at me now!

New Orleans with Chris Paul: 4-3 Second Round Loss Last Equaled by Hawks in 1988

Cleveland with Lebron James: NBA Finals appearance never equaled by Atlanta Hawks

Orlando with Dwight Howard: NBA Finals appearance never equaled by Atlanta Hawks

Chicago Bulls: Eastern Conference Finals appearance never equaled by Atlanta HAwks

So thanks for making our point even when you are trying to use prominent failures. Still better than what the Hawks have done without a star.

So I'm confused now. Is the goal to win one more game in the second round, or is the goal to win a championship?

If making the finals is all we're looking to do, we just lowered the bar a whole lot.

Outside of the Boston series in 2008... The Hawks haven't played a meaningful playoff game in over 20 years.

That's a bit hypocritical. I thought no playoff game mattered unless it was the NBA finals? FINALS OR TANK!!!!!!!!!!

Although it happened prior to 2004, it cannot be ignored that the Spurs who won the title in 2005 and 2007 drafted Duncan top 5. And the Heat drafted Wade top 5 in 2004 which is an essential key to there 3 (soon to be 4) titles since. It's extremely remote that those teams win those titles without those picks.

Duncan was drafted in 97 by an already extremely good Spurs team that had David Robinson, and of course the hall of fame coach didn't hurt. What about now, though? Duncan has about the same stats as Horford but 2 of their big three are late draft picks. Tony parker was drafted 28th in 2001 and Manu Ginobili was drafted 57th in 1997. A string of good decisions and fantastic coaching has kept them in championship contention.

The Heat drafted Wade in 2003. The Heat are probably the best example of going from a mediocre team to a really good team by drafting a player, but if they hadn't made the free agency moves that they did (i.e. adding Shaq, Gary Payton, Antoine Walker, and Jason Williams), they would never have had a championship. Add to that the fact that they had a hall of fame coach and you have a recipe for success that extends far beyond the draft. Just drafting a good player does not a good team make.

What about the Utah Jazz in 98? Malone was drafted at number 13 and Stockton at 16. They also had a hall of fame coach.

Or how about the Los Angeles Lakers? They traded the 1989 26th pick to get Kobe Bryant, added a bunch of talent through trade a FAcy and of course, the hall of fame coach to get it done. They have won more championships than any other team in in the past 20 years and they sure as hell haven't done it through the draft.

I hope you're beginning to see the trend. The draft is an important piece of the puzzle, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the top 5, and drafting in the top 5 doesn't guarantee you a championship any more than making the playoffs every year. The lost revenues from tanking hamstrings a teams ability to get free agents and make big trades to get the pieces needed to put a good team together, not to mention purposely tanking fosters a losing culture and makes your good players want to get off of your team, and drives away free agents.

What Ferry is trying to do is build a hard-working, winning culture that attracts free agents while still maintaining the flexibility to make moves to improve the team. If you ask me, or most of the analysts who do any research on tanking, that is the best way to go.

No, I have some heavy sarcasm going to troll the anti-tankers a bit. That said, I'm sure Ferry wanted the challenge of building a contender without the best player in the game so him getting fired from Cleveland was an elaborate jedi mind trick none of us understands yet. It'll hit us around 2016 or so.

We agree on the Lakers/Celts aka the best-run organizations in the history of the NBA. They clearly haven't figured out how to stay on top so why mimic what they've done?

The Lakers and Celtics haven't figured out how to stay on top? smh...

Here is a great article about tanking and how it doesn't actually work.

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/40055/does-tanking-even-work

TL:DR, building a winning organizational culture and making lots of good decisions in a row is how to win a championship, not tanking.

Yes, how dare a real fan of the team want to see them win a title in the long term instead of a decade of completely pointless one and done playoff exists.

You're right, because drafting great players means you're guaranteed a title. Just ask New Orleans when they drafted Chris Paul, or Cleveland when they drafted Lebron James, or Orlando when they drafted Dwight Howard, or Portland when they drafted Greg Oden, or Chicago when they drafted Derrick Rose, ...oh...wait a second...

In fact, looking back 10 years all the way to 2004, the only teams that drafted top 5 and have won championships since are Miami (Drafted MIchael Beasley at #2 in 2008), Boston (Drafted Jeff Green at 5 in the 2007 draft) and Dallas (Drafted Devin Harris at 5 in the 2004 draft).

There is something in common with all of these teams, they were all formed via trades and free agency, with none of the players actually on the team when they won the championship. Of course, one could argue that the draftees were used in trades to help get the pieces needed to form the championship team (not the case with Miami, who salary dumped beasley for 2 second round picks), but I think that shows that having a top 5 pick, even in a super deep draft (i.e. 2008) doesn't necessarily give this huge advantage that you and many others are claiming. No player over the 34th pick (Chalmers) in the 2008 draft has won a championship.

I don't want to wallow in the lottery, draft top 5, then wait 10 years hoping he actually materializes into something good (skill or trade) in order to get a championship, meanwhile loathing how crappy my team is and watching ticket sales fall down the tubes, which means less money to make moves.

Guess what.. They're going to have NOTHING to show for their WORTHLESS playoff appearance just like like last year. This clearly is one of the least talented teams in the entire league. More mediocrity is all you're going to get.Why do people go on and on about this streak? It was held by a bum like Dana Barros and makes it not such a big deal. Plus, he went with a 3 in a playoff game against Indy last year.

Here is an interesting article about how Carmelo increases the offensive efficiency of players around him.

Because he is able to score from anywhere in the court, Anthony draws attention and defenders away from his teammates, sometimes leaving them with wide-open shots. He also allows them to be more selective about the shots that they choose to take, since they know that Anthony can usually get a respectable shot off before the 24-second clock expires if needed.

These effects produce a profound increase in the efficiency of Anthony’s supporting cast when he is on the floor. In the 135 games that he played with the Nuggets, for instance, Allen Iverson’s True Shooting Percentage was 55.9 percent – much better than the 51.2 TS% that Iverson, a notoriously inefficient shooter, posted outside of Denver over the course of his career.

In fact, this is true of almost every Nugget who has played a sufficient number of minutes with Anthony. I identified 16 players who have accumulated least 2,000 minutes with the Nuggets in years when Anthony was on the team, and have also played at least 2,000 minutes in the N.B.A. without Anthony (either because they were playing for a different team or because they were on the Nuggets before Anthony’s rookie season). All but 2 of the players – Marcus Camby and Voshon Lenard – posted a higher TS% playing with Anthony than without him, and on average, he improved his teammates’ TS% by 3.8 points (to 55.0 percent from 51.2 percent).

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/why-carmelo-anthony-is-the-ultimate-team-player-and-what-advanced-stats-miss-about-him/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1

The fact that someone would have to compare Carmelo to Lebron and Durant to show how "Bad" he is must mean he is tremendously good.

We were out-rebounded by 17. Sounds like our lack of depth in the front court was to blame for this one.

They had 13 more FTA. Pretty hard to win against that.

Also found this interesting:

http://playoffstatus.com/nba/westernsosag.html

Look at the "League" rank columns.

http://playoffstatus.com/nba/easternsosag.html

Not only are they suggesting the Hawks' strength-of-schedule is the toughest in the East... are they suggesting the entire East's SoS is worse than that of the West? I have no idea about the calculus behind those rankings.

~lw3

Yes because west teams play west teams more often, increasing the SoS.

Tweet Added - Refresh Page to see it live!

https://twitter.com/NBAAllStar/status/431912486179057664

">If you don't see the Tweet here AFTER REFRESHING PAGE, then it wasn't entered correctly. Please edit and try again.

Important: If the Tweet doesn't load, please refresh the page before editing the Tweet as it may need to refresh to parse properly

Also:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-bK2VkpLfk

'nuff said.

One thing I find hilarious about sports forums is how knee-jerk every single post-game thread is.

"Millsap is garbage we only have him to trade him" after one bad game.

Next time he has a good game "YEAAAH THAT'S MILLSAP THE ALLSTAR let's keep him around!"

Woah give lou some props, he is dominating right now.

http://www.nba.com/2013/news/11/07/hawks-Schröder-suspended/index.html?ls=iref:nbahpts

NEW YORK -- Atlanta Hawks guard Dennis Schröder has been suspended for one game without pay for striking DeMarcus Cousins of the Sacramento Kings in the groin, it was announced today by Rod Thorn, President, Basketball Operations.

The incident occurred with 9:54 remaining in the fourth quarter of Atlanta's 105-100 win over Sacramento on Tuesday, Nov. 5, at Sleep Train Arena.

Schröder will serve his suspension tonight when the Hawks visit the Denver Nuggets.

I think anyone in their right mind would want D12 over Harden. The proven number 1 center in the league or a 6th man who choked in the finals. hmm...

I believe the slow down by JJ this year will surprise everyone. He will have the ball in his hands far less this year.

And then tack on the assertion that our 7th or 8th man Zaza Pachulia is "Even" to Brook Lopez and you easily have one of the wonkiest posts I have ever seen on this forum.

Saying that jj and Harris are even is ludicrous