kurupt

Stop jinxing him :D

The Hawks can be happy they didn't overpay Millsap, THJr or keep overpaying Howard. None of these players except Schröder is close to being worth their salary so I don't see what's the point of this? Paying THJr would have not given you even one good starter at SG at the price of 33-37 millions per year for THJr and Baze. Seeing how people shit on Bazemore makes me wonder what THJr does better. He is the same player in terms of efficiency and in terms of cost/production ratio . Paying Millsap 30+ millions would have gotten you an 18/8 player, who isn't good enough to carry a franchise. And that isn't even considering the fact that he is 32 years old. And well, if the best trade in history of Charlotte Honmrets basketball gets you aa center that is playing his worst season since his rookie year and a .500 record, that says a lot more about your teams trade history than that trade deal.

2016 2015 2014 2013 1 Ben Simmons 1 Karl-Anthony Towns 1 Andrew Wiggins 1 Anthony Bennett 2 Brandon Ingram 2 D'Angelo Russell 2 Jabari Parker 2 Victor Oladipo 3 Jaylen Brown 3 Jahlil Okafor 3 Joel Embiid 3 Otto Porter Jr. 4 Dragan Bender 4 Kristaps Porzingis 4 Aaron Gordon 4 Cody Zeller 2012 2011 2010 2009 1 Anthony Davis 1 Kyrie Irving 1 John Wall 1 Blake Griffin 2 Michael Kidd-Gilchrist 2 Derrick Williams 2 Evan Turner 2 Hasheem Thabeet 3 Bradley Beal 3 Enes Kanter 3 Derrick Favors 3 James Harden 4 Dion Waiters 4 Tristan Thompson 4 Wesley Johnson 4 Tyreke Evans 2008 2007 2006 2005 1 Derrick Rose 1 Greg Oden 1 Andrea Bargnani 1 Andrew Bogut 2 Michael Beasley 2 Kevin Durant 2 LaMarcus Aldridge 2 Marvin Williams 3 O.J. Mayo 3 Al Horford 3 Adam Morrison 3 Deron Williams 4 Russell Westbrook 4 Mike Conley 4 Tyrus Thomas 4 Chris Paul 2004 2003 2002 2001 1 Dwight Howard 1 LeBron James 1 Yao Ming 1 Kwame Brown 2 Emeka Okafor 2 Darko Milicic 2 Jay Williams 2 Tyson Chandler 3 Ben Gordon 3 Carmelo Anthony 3 Mike Dunleavy 3 Pau Gasol 4 Shaun Livingston 4 Chris Bosh 4 Drew Gooden 4 Eddy Curry 2000 1 Kenyon Martin 2 Stromile Swift 3 Darius Miles 4 Marcus Fizer

I even linked a Bagley game, btw. The problem with all these "super prospects" is that their hype is mainly based around their physical tools (how many "physical freaks" that offered little else have failed in the last 20 years?), Highschool highlight-tapes and performances against Highschool opponents. Even if they do relatively well in the NCAA, that's nearly exclusively against players that will never go Pro at all. And the examples of Porzingis and Antetokounmpo compared to players like Milicic or Bargnani show how much of a crap shoot the NBA Draft is. The latter were "can't miss athletic/skilled freaks" while the former posed serious risks. There is a reason no one considered Antetokounmpo as a Top5 pick and that Porzingis was seen as a major gamble at the 5th spot. Most people think that their "high upside Top-4 pick", of course, will be the Super-Superstar-Pick, but chances are higher that it doesn't turn out like that. Getting (at least!) a Star with those picks is super valuable. You can gamble with later picks, but you cannot miss on Top5-picks. And here is the thing: even if you get an Anthony Davis or a Boogie Cousins or a Kyrie Irving or a John Wall, that doesn't change your franchise (enough). All of them are really good players but for all their talent and potential not one of them is able to change the fate of a franchise by themselves - maybe it still happens for a few of them, but so far it does not. That's not a knock on them, but it shows that even "successful" top draft picks are not the kind of transformational players that you and others hope for. These transformational players are usually guys were we know pretty well in advance (Lebron, Duncan, Durant) or players that just exceed even the most positive projections by a miles (guys like Kawhi Leonard, Nowitzki, Antetokounmpo etc.). Usually you need 2+ really good players (All-Star+) to contend. The question is, do you risk "wasting" your Top4 pick on players that have a 50:50 chance of not being even a borderline All-Star in the hopes that maybe they become much more - or are you smart and pick someone who's floor is basically an All-Star player (and still with the chance to become Larry Bird 2.0 or Magic Johnson with a good 3-point shot) and mark "1 All-Star player" down in your checklist to become relevant again? And it is amazing that you say that Doncic is not (at least) on Balls level. He does the exact same things since he was 16 years-old against much better competition - and he can shoot and score at an elite level. He literally is the Point Guard of Real Madrid this season, one of the best teams outside of the NBA that could probably beat the bottom third of the NBA, and he is dominating every aspect of the game. He is already there. And here are the Top4 picks of the NBA draft ranging back to 2000. Think about how many of these players are not even "Gordon Hayward" or a comparable player - and see how many of them were "super athlete/big that moves well that might develop into a real basketball-player" kind-of picks:

Doncics "lack" of athleticism is ridiculous. He is not Zach Lavine, but he is comparable to a Gordon Hayward. Especially considering that he is only 18 years old and has never trained with great American/NBA athletic coaches etc. The only thing his athleticism will prevent him from doing is being an elite defender because of his lack of lateral quickness, which is something you cannot really train/fix. But he is far from an athletic liability. Offensively, it is ridiculous to think that he would struggle scoring. He doesn't have to dunk over people to score, because he can already do literally anything else. He scored in 1vs1 situations in the post vs. Kristaps Porzingis and he routinely hits double-crossover step-back 3's over anyone, he scores on post-up hook-shots and fade-aways, he generates space for mid-range jumpers by dribbling and shot-fakes really well. Look at this video and just notice that it essentially has every possible way to score in it and all are executed cleanly at a very high level. At worst, he will be Gordon Hayward 2.0 with a bit less quickness and a lot more skill/playmaking ability. He has also already made more clutch shots in big games than 95% of basketball players will make in their entire carreers, he is seriously clutch. Most of the other top prospects have huge holes in their game.: Marvin Bagley can only go left and is a bad free-throw shooter. He generally seems to have bad-average hands and I don't think he will become a good shooter. He also "impressed" playing as nearly one year older than the other players in his highschool class. Look at this video (the good and the bad) and you can see that this guy is years away from being a good NBA player and may or may not become an All-Star caliber player. What can he do except be "more athletic than the other guys"? Deandre Ayton looks and plays like an 80's or 90's Center which is both good and bad. I really like him and his already good free-throw shooting is a big plus. But even if he becomes Patrick Ewing 2.0 or Dikembe Mutombo 2.0, (thjat's valuable of course!) I don't know if that is the skill set that will get you very far in todays game. Also, his effort seems to kinda up and down which is a big red flag this early in his carreer. Mohamed Bamba will be a wasted pick if he is picked before Doncic/Porter Jr. or Ayton (and probably others). How useful are Bigs with no basketball skills right now? Not very. All three have "great athleticism/measurements" as their main feature. That's not a good sign in my opinion. The only guy I would consider picking before Doncic is Porter Jr. because he can actually play basketball and I could see him become something like a a poor man's Kevin Durant (which would be a great thing). But again: Doncic is already proven, he has great skills that are NBA-ready now and the "worst" part about him is not being more athletic than guys like Gordon Hayward and Danilo Gallinari, which are both All-Star caliber players (or close to it). And I would project him to become much better than both of them within a couple of years. Or put it like this: Doncic is at worst a 2-years younger, taller version of Lonzo Ball with great shooting and already proven as a pro-player.

He won't fix that this season for sure. Too many other areas is has to (and is) focussing on. Cutting down TOs (fine so far), picking his spots to score/facilitate better and being the sole focus of a team. It sucks to watch it, but I don't think it will get much better this year.

You heard it here first: LBJ can't play basketball Thanks Diesel 8) And Kyrie Irving is a stupid Mofo. Watch him wreck the Celtics this season.

I will never understand why someone who scores efficiently shouldn't take a lot of shots. It would make sense if we had a Westbrook/Durant situation, but we don't. He is literally the only player that can reliably create shots for himself. Who should take more shots? Bazemore? Prince? WOuld get real ugly if they had to force some shots opossed to just taking the good ones they get now.

TS% is a good stat. What you should always consider is that you cannot just make a team of "advanced stat darlings" and think it would actually a good basketball team. Players usually have great advanced stats in some categories if they are either super-talented (superstars) OR they know exactly what they are good at and do little else. But if you would create a team of, say, "5 Shane Battiers" with the approopriate heights for their respective postions, that team wouldn't work. No one on that team could initiate offense or break down a defense and you can only score so many points just off of off-ball movement and ball movement if you can't open up the defense.

He is vastly underrated. He can handle the ball, create his own shot and he he has a lot of swagger. I think he is better the bigger his role is on a team. He is an absolute beast for Italy when he plays internationally, because he has the freedom to play like he wants to there. I think he is probably the best SG the Hawks had in years and he could be a decent 2nd ball handler.

Maybe, just maybe the Dallas Defense looked that terrible because they couldn't stop that subpar PG that you cannot build around? Just a bit food for thought. Matthews, Barnes and Noel are good defenders btw and nowitzki is regarded as a good team/help defender. The only obvious weak link in that Defense that you can exploit heavily is their Rookie PG...who was matched up against? Oh, yeah...

First off, I (and I don’t think anyone else) tries to or actually does blame Howard for all the teams shortcomings last season. In fact, I have stated several times that he fulfilled expectations – unfortunately also the “bad” ones, like not being able to see how he can be better/more effective for this team (or others). But I strongly disagree with the notion that giving him more touches/shots/post-ups would have been a positive. That notion is just demonstrably false by all accounts. The only way more shots for Dwight would have been an improvement would have been if he had played more P&R, but he didn’t. That’s on him and no one else. Well, if you only count post-ups as post touches. There is also other passes/plays that get him the ball in the paint/post. You also cannot ignore that among players that received at least 2 post-ups per game, he was 7th to last amongst 40 players. 2 players that got targeted at a similar frequency with as bad (or worse) efficiency were Whiteside and Drummond – also 2 players that lack the skills to be efficient down there. He was literally one of the worst post-up players in the league and considering that, he got an awful lot of post-ups. If you look at how often he got the ball in the post/paint, he is #1 in both: http://stats.nba.com/players/paint-touch/#!?sort=PAINT_TOUCHES&dir=1&CF=PLAYER_NAME*E*&Season=2016-17&SeasonType=Regular%20Season http://stats.nba.com/players/post-touch/#!?sort=POST_TOUCHES&dir=1 Again: if you wanted more pure post-ups, you are campaigning for more 0.84 points per possession offense. That is horrific. And even if you wanted just more post/paint touches, where he was slightly better (but still only league-average and sub-par compared starting Cs and PFs) – he already got a lot of those. 1. Dwight would have to be an actual scoring threat on post-ups to force a collapse. Which he isn't. See above. 2. Ideally you need shooters to compliment that style of play and the Hawks had basically not a single one (Muscala and Ilyasova being their best/most consistent shooters). 3. It is obvious that Howard in the P&R is the most lethal he can be offensivly. By a mile. He is elite at that (1.18 points per possession) but he did it with the frequence of some Guards settign screens and rolling to the basket...

Here is the thing: I don't want to have to post the numbers that show that Howard was wildy inefficient on those plays compared to P&R plays for the 5th or 6th time on this forum. Believe what you want to believe, that doesn't make it right/true/reality.

Yup. Was the whole team tho. The guy setting the pick should've never rolled to teh basket in that situation because it is clear that they have to trap. Should've popped towards the middle of the court to offer a pass option. Also the SG Lo is glued to the 3-point line instead of getting available for the pass after Dennis deflected pass attempt gets rescued. Just bad situaional play by a bunch of 20-year olds :D

Howard had the most post-touches in the whole league, mate. On the interview: I mean, the guy apparently has to lie to himself to keep living in his bubble. He averaged 8.5 shots a game last season in Atlanta (not 6) in 29.7 mpg. He averaged 12.7 shots per game in his last 4 seasons in Orlando in 36.7 mpg. Adjusted for playing time (per36) he had 10 shots per game in ATL and 12.1 in ORL. Plus maybe 1 shot per game more in ORL due to more FTA. So yeah, he a few less shots. He still was the most used post-game Center/PF in the league and was inefficient at doing so (compared to playing more P&R). But he'll never learn. I am excited to see his 3rd (or 4th?) "rebirth"!

I saw the game, full stats here: http://live.fibaeurope.com/www/Game.aspx?acc=1&gameID=116677 Outside of Schröder the team shot 2/17 from 3, else he would have had 8 assists easily (they are also more strict in counting them). There were at least 8 wiiiiide-open 3's after his kick-out passes that they missed. He turned it on and beat Russia on his own in the 4th basically :) Full game here: P.S.: if you watch some of the game, imagine Howard being able (and willing) to set some dynamic picks for Schröder. You can see how good he is in the P&R all game long when the other guy actually wants to play it.

Respect is a two-way street - and it is usually earned. If I put in the work (sometimes 15-20 minutes of research) to make a detailed post about something and someone either ignores and/or misinterprets and/or moves the goalposts regarding these posts every single time on purpose and without putting any research/effort into his own argument, that is disrespectful towards me and I will call that behaviour out. I would post a lot more here, heck, I had a very detailed player-by-player review of the season and the outlook for the next one already written, but I decided against it because every thread gets derailed by Diesel anyway and he doesn't give a flying f*** about. Half of the threads on page 1 are by him, basically all with meaningless one-liner-like premises and without any substantial discussion at all. I have zero problem with different opinions as long as they are reasonable and at least somewhat well argued. Spouting the same thing over and over and over again (Schröder doesn't pass the ball and plays only ISO, Howards doesn't get enough post touches, for example), even when several posters rebutt it with simple facts, is really bad for any argument. I don't even have a problem with Hotlantas negativity - at least it is not repeated 10x in every single thread. But having people like "campster" posting "He is a loser." about any player is completely unnecessary and f***ing stupid. Period.

You are MISGUIDED. I don't post my sources again and again and again, because you just ignore everything anyway. http://stats.nba.com/players/roll-man/ http://stats.nba.com/players/post-up/ http://stats.nba.com/players/post-touch/ http://stats.nba.com/players/paint-touch/ And to your point: Exactly MY POINT, you UNDERINFORMED FELLOW SQUAWKER. Howard was super efficient as the roll-man...but HE DID NOT PLAY P&R often. In fact, he was amongst the players with the lowest frequency of this play, because he still wants to be a Low-Post scorer (which he is bad at) rather than play to his strength. That's what I have pointed out to you about 5 times now. Learn the f***ing difference between number/frequency of plays and efficiency.

Are you GRAVELY MISTAKEN? I am seriously asking. Because it seems like you either cannot read of have a serious mental issue that prevents you from grasping the most simple sentences. This is what I wrote. I EVEN f***ing INCREASED THE FONT SIZE FOR YOUR DUMB ASS! And I am gonna do it again; Dwight Howard refused to play P&R more frequently despite it working well. It got so bad that Budenholzer in the playoffs said that he won't get more touches/playing time unless he starts setting more screens. And please, stop telling me about Schröders experience in Germany. Just stop making up your BOVINE FERTILIZING PRODUCT.

f***ing LIAR. Posted for the 3rd time now, but you will still ignore it.

I am going to try, although it will be futile. 1. Schröder didn't have "years of experience playing with Pros in Germany". He played in a youth team of the local pro-team until he was 17/18 years old. I, a 5-9 tall bum, f***ing played with/against players from those teams. He started playing in the 3rd Division farm team as a 17/18 year old, a league where the 2 allowed American Pros per team weren't even bottom-shelf Div-1A players but worse. The rest of the teams are amateurs. He wasn't considered an elite talent in the youth National Teams. He barely played minutes in the 1st-Division during the 2011/2012 season despite domintating the 3rd division (which, again, is like putting up good numbers in Division-2 college ball). Everything he got, he earned during the 2012/2013 season when he got 20 minutes per game. That led, out of nowhere, to the invitation to the Nike Hoop Summit where he surprised people. He was never considered a great talent or had been "dominating for years" as Diesel said. 2. No one here argues that he was better than average last year as a starter. But this was his first season as a starter and it is simply unreasonable to expect a lot more from a 17th pick. He is still young and, most importantly, he has improved significantly every single year since he was 17 years old. You also have to consider that this is a golden age of Point Guards right now. Being average (putting him somewhere bewtween 12th and 18th) as a PG right now means much more than being an above average Shooting Guard or Center. Westbrook, Harden, Curry, Paul, Thomas, Wall, Lowry, Conley, Lillard, Walker, Irving - that's 11 PGs in their prime that are easily All-Star worthy. The starting PGs that are close (at most 2 years older) to him in terms of age are Kyrie Irving, Tyler Johnson, Elfrid Payton, D'angelo Russel, Yogi Ferrell and TJ McConnel. Except Irving, no GM would trade Schröder straight up for any of these guys (maybe Russel talent-wise, but that guy has serious character issues). Just to clarify this point a bit more: as a 23-year old in his 4th season in the league John f***ing Wall averaged 19.3 points with 8.8 assists on 43% shooting - and he had been the starter and focal point of that team for 3 years already. Adjusted for playing time, Schröder averaged 20.6 points with 7.3 assists on 45% shooting. For their first playoffs as a starter, Schröder performs flat-out crushes Walls (17 ppg, 7.7 apg on 37% shooting). [Of course John Wall is a far better player and most likely will be overall. He was the consensus #1 pick in his draft and is a freak athlete. But this shows how unreasonable the doomsayers are about Schröders first year as a starter. ] 3. Schröder has already outpferformed his draft position at this point. The average career stats for the 17th pick are 397 games played (285, but should easily get well above that) with career averages of 20 mpg, 8 ppg, 4 rpg and 2 apg. Essentially a bench player (7-9th rotation slot). The average PER for the 17th pick is 12.4, apart from his paltry first year (5.8) Schröder was well above 15 in all season. The best picks in the last 10 years for the 13-20th draft slots were (so 80 players total): Thabo Sefolosha, Ronnie Brewer, Kahwi Leonard, Nikola Vucevic, Danny Granger, Ty Lawson, Jeff Teague and Donatas Motiejunas. We can argue about details, but Schröder comfortably projects to be in the Top-5 of that list when his career is over (Leonard and Granger being clearly better (tho Granger only played 6 real season), Vucevic and Teague being close). Sources: http://www.82games.com/nbadraftpicks.htm https://www.thescore.com/news/773112 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2498100-the-best-pick-at-every-nba-draft-position-over-the-last-decade Tl;dr: For the umpteenth time: if you blame the 17th picked, 23-year old, first year starter for the Hawks not winning a Championship or going further in the play-offs or whatever, you're just being unreasonable.

Coach and President of Basketball Operations. Had no influence on what was done. Sure.

You are an idiot who is not interested in anything besides your own fantasies anyway. So why should anyone still make an effort to educate your bum ass?

You have no idea about Dennis career in Germany, Diesel. Just stop pulling stuff out of your ass...