TheNorthCydeRises

Quote: Quote: The perfect example of this, is Trenton Hassell of the T-Wolves. Because he is 6-5, the Wolves ask him to guard the other team's best scorer if it's a SG or SF. Sometimes, he even guards PG's. Statistic wise, Trenton doesn't stand out on defense. He doesn't get a lot of steals, defensive rebounds, deflections, or blocks. He doesn't even shut the superstar players down, from a point production standpoint. What he does do, is make every shot his man takes, a difficult one. EVERY shot is contested. And because of that, his man may give up the ball 5 - 6 more times a game, instead of shooting that many more times. Even if his man is shooting 50%, it may be 6 - 12 FG instead of 9 - 18 FG. This is a horrible example that just proves my point. Hassel is surrounded by a defensive team. At one point, when he was most effective, he had Spreewell, KG, and Cassell playing beside him. None of those guys are Artest and Ben Wallace, but all of those guys play above average defense. When you have a good framework for defense, it's easy to play up close, personal, and bother everyone. That's what Bruce Bowen does in San Antonio... He has Tim Duncan and Co. backing him up... It's easy for him to play a tight defensive game against the other teams better offensive player. However, what happened when Hassell played for Chicago... Go get Mudderfudder and ask him. Hassell was definitely not a defensive stopper. In fact, they cut him... Hassell got cut because his offensive game fell off tremendously that 2nd year. He shot like 36% that year. Plus, he had Jalen Rose and Jamal Crawford playing in front of him. And at the time, both of those guys were in the Bulls future. So it was easy to let a 2nd year player like Hassell go. They let Fred Hoiberg go that year too, for basically the same reason. And LOL @ Hassell being surrounded by a defensive team. Cassell is DEFINITELY not a defensive player. And Spree's defense was nowhere near what it was back in the 90s, but he could at least guard his man. Don't get it twisted. Minny was a good defensive team that year because KG could eliminate things in the paint and control the boards, and Trenton could slow things down on the perimeter and shut lesser 2's and 3's down. Sam and Spree's job, was to help KG with the scoring. In the playoffs that year, it wasn't Spree guarding Melo, Peja, and Kobe . . it was Hassell. Minny got their scoring from Spree, Sam, and KG, and asked everybody else on the team to fill specific roles. All Hassell was asked to do, was concentrate on defense. And remember, this is a team without Wally Szczerbiak and Troy Hudson, two of their better offensive players, who were hurt most of that year. They had guys like Mark Madsen, Fred Hoiberg, Anthony Carter and Eddie Griffin that would come off the bench, and play solid defense. Hoiberg was the hired gun of the team off the bench Basically, that team had role players that understood that they probably wouldn't even get over 3 - 4 shots a game. LOL . . and once again tonight, it was the same old song. Al getting beat by his man not only to the basket, but also on the boards. Lue letting people blow right past him, and the team watching the man blow right past him straight to the basket. But the whole team is bad on team defense. It's just that Lue and Al stick out the most because it's their man who does the scoring. IF Al was protected by a defensive C, then he may not look so bad. I mean, what good is the guy's offense, if he's going to give it all back and then some on the defensive end? He's quickly turning into our version of Wally Szczerbiak.

Quote: I totally accept the fact that Nash is great and has made that team a contender. But we can't get Nash or anyone close I don't think. Plus, Nash has always been great and played on some really good Dallas teams. But, they didn't go anywhere because of a lack of defense. I guess I believe that teams can be successful without a Nash (see Detroit, Heat, Lakers, Bulls), but you go nowhere without bigs. Still I not saying we don't need a better point esp. on the defensive end. I just thing a big would pay more immediate dividends. A "big" will definitely pay more immeadiate dividends than getting a pass first PG. And contrary to what Diesel is talking about, that "big" doesn't necessarily have to elevate the Hawks from a bad defensive team to a good one. What he does have to do, is play solid defense on HIS man, especially near the end of games. The perfect example of this, is Trenton Hassell of the T-Wolves. Because he is 6-5, the Wolves ask him to guard the other team's best scorer if it's a SG or SF. Sometimes, he even guards PG's. Statistic wise, Trenton doesn't stand out on defense. He doesn't get a lot of steals, defensive rebounds, deflections, or blocks. He doesn't even shut the superstar players down, from a point production standpoint. What he does do, is make every shot his man takes, a difficult one. EVERY shot is contested. And because of that, his man may give up the ball 5 - 6 more times a game, instead of shooting that many more times. Even if his man is shooting 50%, it may be 6 - 12 FG instead of 9 - 18 FG. The problem with guys like Al and Lue, is that they just don't make guys work for their points. When a player knows that he can take a 15 foot jumper with you just giving a "hand flash" to him, or if he can blow past you anytime he wants, without you making him go the other way, they'll attack you every time. And they will keep attacking you until you or somebody else stops them from doing what they want. The crazy thing about Trenton is that he was much more known as an offensive player, than a defensive one in college. Even in his first year in the NBA up in Chicago, he was more offensive minded than defensive. He took over 150 3's that year and made around 35% of them. Now, he doesn't even shoot the 3-ball, because he's so locked in on being a "defensive stopper". But he didn't get to that point until a certain misunderstood player on the Bulls told him that "If you want to have a long career in this league, you can do it by playing DEFENSE. If you play good D, you'll always have a spot in this league." That player . . . was Ron Artest.

Quote: Yeah i have seen it. I think 82games.com is good as a general reference but it shouldn't be treated as the Bible, since there are too many variables. For example after the first month Marion and Nash were both worse than -20 even though they were putting up monster numbers. Exactly. And MrH, what you have to remember about Childress, is that for the first month of the season, he played HORRIBLY. Ever since then, he's aruguably been the 5th best player on the team, behind Al, JJ, Lue, and Smoove. Make no mistake about it. When the Hawks won 5 of 7 games last month, Childress played very well in those games. Like with all stats, you just can't look at one, and make a sweeping judgement about a player's overall game or a player's impact on a game. You have to look at everything and weigh it like that. Take Al for instance. If you looked at him STRICTLY by his scoring and shooting percentages, you could make a legit case for him being on the All-Star team as a reserve. When you follow him every game, like we do, you know better to even think like that.

I'll say this about Lue. When he's on offensively, the ONLY thing you can complain about, is the defense. I truly believe if Lue was in the game in the middle part of the 4th, he could've knocked down a few shots and extended that lead to double digits. The question becomes, would he had given up just as many points as he contributed? Last night, you can make a case for Smoove and Lue to be in the game in the final 5 minutes. Let's see if they're in the game in the final 5 tonight.

LOL . . I look at this thread and say to myself . . "Did any of these guys EVER play a day of ORGANIZED basketball in their lives?" News flash for you guys: Almost every coach on EVERY LEVEL has some sort of set rotation that they use. And they use it more to keep players fresh, rather than the game situation. That means that there will be certain times in a game in which a player will exit. With as many DNP's as Ivey has logged throughout his career, I'm sure that he's not complaining too much about his 10 minutes a game. It's better than not playing at all. And I think some of you overvalue Ivey's importance to this squad. If Ivey was good enough to finish games, and if he were head and shoulders the best defensive guard on the team, don't you think that Woodson would have him out there? The reason Ivey doesn't play down the stretch of games are: 1) that would mean that JJ would have to run the point at the end of games, a situation that hurts the team more than it helps. You want JJ shooting or finding open men at the end of games . . no worrying about initiating the offense. 2) Salim and Lue are better offensive threats than Ivey. 3) Ivey may very well be showing in practice that his handles are very shaky, when pressured. Remember the Chicago Bulls with their "3 headed monster?" Cartwright would ALWAYS start the game at center, and the Bulls would ALWAYS go to him to begin games. You never saw Jordan jack up 5 - 6 shots to start a game off. It would always be Cartwright. After the 7 minute mark, he'd always come out, and either Wennington or Perdue would replace him for the rest of the half. Most of the time, it would be Perdue that finished the game at center. Coaches have these rotations all the time. And even if a player is red hot, you still can afford to take him out, if you have a player that is just as capable to make shots or defend as well as the player he replaced. In a game that stays relatively close ( 7 points or less ), you'll see coaches stick with their set rotations until about the 5 minute mark in the game. That's when you'll see a coach go with either his starters, or his star players + the guys who have been playing the best all night. If you want to gripe that Woodson doesn't go with his best 5 at the end of games, then you can do that. But look what happened tonight. ZaZa ( if you took away the turnovers ) played very well tonight. Marvin gave us quality minutes ( and many fouls ). And Chill had an excellent all around game. These were the guys that were in the game with JJ in that 5 minute stretch in the 4th in which the Celtics got back into the game. They didn't play bad. In fact, their defense was pretty good for the first 7 minutes of that quarter. But then the very players that played well, started to break down on both sides of the ball, while our "star" players couldn't do anything better. Meanwhile, Smoove and Lue are sitting on the bench. So why the breakdown? - ZaZa played 40 minutes in this game, and played ALL of the 4th quarter. Even JJ nor Al played the entire 4th quarter. Matter of fact, ZaZa played 20 of 24 minutes in the 2nd half. - Marvin played 25 minutes, and was in game from the 4 minute mark of the 3rd quarter, until he missed a 3 and had an offensive foul with a little under 4 minutes to go in the 4th quarter - Smoove played 7 minutes in the 2nd half, and was never seen from again. - Lue came in at the 8 minute mark of the 3rd quarter and stayed in the game until the 10 minute mark of the 4th quarter. He didn't re-enter the game until Marvin made his miscues with 3 1/2 minutes to go in the game. - JJ and Al in the 4th quarter? 0 - 6, 4 turnovers It was a total breakdown in a game that we definitely should've won. And all the C's had to do, was hit a few shots in the closing minutes of the game to pull it out. So while a lot of you question the "set" rotations, maybe we could've pulled this game out IF we'd stuck to those set rotation and had Smoove or Lue in the game. One thing is for sure, I think Woodson's late game coaching needs to improve by leaps and bounds, if this team is to consistently pull out games like these. This is about the 5th game in the past 10 games in which we've had a 7 + point lead deep into the 4th quarter, that we've seen totally slip away. That ish is unacceptable . . I don't care how bad of a team we're "supposed" to be.

Quote: Salims ball handling is keeping him from getting minutes. He came in to start the 4th quarter last night and promptly turned it over 3 times to change the momentum of the game. A lot of times when he is in there they will use Childress or Harrington to bring the ball up the floor. And what that Ace idiot won't mention is that Lue is shooting better from 3 than Salim and has had some big scoring games in the Hawks victories. In fact they started winning when Lue started playing more minutes and taking more shots. Lue has to score to counterbalance what he gives up on defense. When the Hawks were winning, Lue was OUTSTANDING on the offensive end. No complaints from me when Lue is on his offensive game. It's just when he's not on his offensive game, his presence on the court can literally KILL you. Mike James became ultra aggressive on offense, every time Lue was matched up against him. Yes, Lue can run the offense better than any guard we have. And yes, most of the time you can count on him to not turn the ball over. But the kid has a bullseye on him, when it comes to defense. He can't guard his man straight up . . he can't fight through screens . . and he doesn't have the defensive awareness to even get a steal here and there. In fairness to Lue, both he and Salim got lit up by the Raptor PGs last night. If Ivey is the best defender out of the 3, maybe we're better off with him in the game, strictly from a defensive standpoint. Just let JJ and Al take all of the shots down the stretch, with the other guys on the court playing hard-nosed defense ( if they can ).

Quote: Quote: This is an assinine post. You have no way of knowing what would or would not have happened if Paul was drafted. Besides, like someone else mentioned, that is a better team than Paul has now and his less talented team has won more games then the Hawks. Agreed. Talk about a huge amount of assumptions. The premise behind that post is that Knight won't take the player he values highest because he already took someone at that same position. Does this guy realize Knight drafted Chills and Smoove in the same year and then drafted Marvin Williams the next year? Knight has definitely stuck by his guns and taken the guys he wanted to take regardless of perceived depth at a position so the assumption that everything would have changed isn't supported by anything other than rank speculation. LOL @ rank speculation. All I'm using is logic here. What's illogical and asanine, is saying that the team would look exactly the same, if we'd taken Paul. Some of you forget that the Joe Johnson in ATL talk didn't really heat up until a few weeks after the draft. JJ wasn't on BK's radar back in May. He wasn't even on his radar in June. It was only after Hughes, Redd, Allen and Dalembert were signed/re-upped to teams, and Curry was found to have a heart ailment, and the Bulls acted as if they'd do anything to keep Curry AND Chandler a Bull, that we even considered going after JJ. And did the Hawks even work Salim out before the draft? Knight had more of an eye on Julius Hodge, than he did Salim. But Hodge ended up going in round 1. The Chill/Smoove draft picks can at least be justified, because we were just re-stocking the team with talent, not necessarily with "need" players. And I'm convinced that the Marvin pick was in direct correlation to the possibility of us losing Al this summer ( if he's not traded or if we try to re-sign him, but he goes elsewhere ), and because of the lofty expectations that the "scouts" said about his game and the potential he possesses. How quickly people forget that JJ was brought in here to play the point, and Chill play the 2. Not for JJ to play the 2, and bring Chill off the bench. If we already had our PG, BK definitely doesn't sell the farm just to get JJ. That deal was in part, made because we'd come up completely dry in the FAcy market, and JJ was the last "talented" FA that could possibly be enticed to move here. This is why all of this Chris Paul whining and crying should stop. We didn't take the guy. We took Marvin. Eventually, Marvin will get a chance to show what he can do in a significant role. It may not be this year, but it will definitely come next year.

It worked because Harper was a tremendous defensive guard, even in his old age. Say what you want about the "need" for a PG here. The Hawks problem this year has been their inability to stop ANYBODY down the stretch. Even in the games that we've won, the Hawks were either executing perfectly offensively, or guys on the other team just didn't hit open shots. The guy the Hawks should've went after, is Antonio Daniels. No, he's not a great PG or a floor general. He's also not a great scorer or a good shooter. But he is 6-4, a veteran player, can at least handle the ball, play both guard spots, and most importantly . . DEFEND!! Ask Seattle fans if they miss AD, and the little things he did for the Sonics last year at the guard spots. And as for you "if we'd taken Chris Paul, we could do this" people, I'll say this once again: If we had taken Paul in the draft: - there would be no Salim in ATL ( because the Salim pick was one of those "best player available" picks. It was also a pick we could use, to try at PG. Ronny Turiaf, a PF, would've probably have been the pick. ) - there would be no JJ in ATL ( because we were in the FA market for either a top notch SG [ Ray Allen, Michael Redd ] or a decent center [ Sam Dalembert, Eddy Curry ]. I doubt very serously if this team would've went to the extremes it did to get JJ, if we already had Paul as the future PG of the team . . AND . . we had a MAJOR hole at the C position. The Hawks would've probably thrown max money at Tyson Chandler, and hope the Bulls didn't match. If the Bulls matched, we probably get NOTHING in FAcy. If they didn't match, we would've ended up with a Chandler that is rapidly seeing his skills decline . . seeing how much he is struggling in the Chi right now. ) - there would be no ZaZa in ATL ( because if we draft Turiaf, and land a guy like Curry or Chandler, do the Hawks still throw 4.4 million at a guy like ZaZa? ) - the "need" for Lue would've been less, but he still may have been re-signed. ( but definitely not for 3.5 million a year. And if he doesn't get that kind of deal from ATL, does he go elsewhere? ) - the "need" for a backup SG, since BK was, at the time, convinced that Chill could play SG, would've been somewhat of a high priority ( but most of the big name guys would've been off the board by this time. So that SG would've either been taken at #59 [ and it wouldn't have been Cenk ], or, we would've acquired some outcast from another team. It's not out of the question that the Hawks would've re-acquired a guy like Wesley Person or Luscious Harris . . guys who STILL don't currently have a team. And there is a slight chance that maybe by late September, the Hawks may have given a guy like Spreewell a chance to be here. But I doubt it ) So these are your CHRIS PAUL led Hawks: C - Chandler F - Harrington F - Smoove G - Chill G - Paul G - Ivey G - Delk G - Person F - Diaw F - Turiaf C - Collier ( R.I.P.) # 59 pick Like this team now? How many games could they win? Because there's no way that Salim, ZaZa, and even JJ would be here now.

Quote: It's easy to be productive in garbage time. Have a good game when it actually is a game. No it's not. It's different when you have 3 minutes left in a game, and guys are just going down and jacking up shots just to be doing it. This game tonight was essentially over by the 9 minute mark in the 3rd quarter. We were down 40 at one point. So the "garbage time" extended like 15 - 20 minutes tonight. Because of all that time left, the "garbage time" players are coached during that time. Good coaches like Riley will continue to coach up the 2nd teamers. And I'm sure Woodson still had his head in the game, coaching up the youngsters. To put it in perspective, Marvin NEVER looked this good during the summer league, against talent that saw 70% of them not even make an NBA squad. He had 17 points and 6 rebounds in the 4th quarter alone. This is the NBA man. Unless you're Shaq playing against a weak center, you just can't step out on the court, and say that you can score 15 points in a quarter, while shooting a very high percentage. Even bench players don't liked to be showed up . . by a rookie no less.

I totally agree with Artest on this one. For one, Magic is/was a part owner of the Lakers. What he says has some pull. He's essentially messing with Ron's livelihood with a comment like that. All Ron did was run his mouth and ask to be traded. I've seen players in the past do that, so what makes his situation different that he doesn't deserve another shot with another team? He didn't pull a "T.O." and bad-mouth the star player on the team, along with the coach and the entire organization. It may have been a low blow, but I bet Magic's azz won't say anything about him anymore about not deserving to be back in the league. Knowing Barkley though, he'll probably make a joke about Artest to Magic, forcing Magic to say something he shouldn't say. Then Ron will fire right back at him.

I'm glad Shaq is playing tomorrow night. Because if he wasn't, and we happened to win, that wouldn't be a "legit" win either.

LOL @ people mad at Al now. Why? Because we've had our best week of basketball in 2 years, and everybody expects him to stay now? LOL. Al pretty much knows that he's not coming back. So why not talk yourself up? He's looking to get P - A - I - D !! This isn't about team loyalty. This is about business. Some of you are sounding like how Suns fans did when JJ asked the ownership to trade him.

Here you go chillzatl. I got the perfect "mistake statement" for you. "My bad guys . . I was thinking of RANDY LIVINGSTON, the overrated and oft-injured PG that went to LSU about 10 years ago, who was supposed to be the next superstar guard. You guys need to chill out. I just made an honest mistake and got my LIVINGSTONS mixed up. There you go man. Use this.

True. These days, it's almost like the roles are reversed. As far as toughness goes, neither the PFs or the Cs for the most part, are tough. They couldn't be enforcers at a small Division II school.

Quote: I would never (and BK would never, for that matter) trade 3 young building blocks for Artest (or for any player). But, how about this trade. Indiana and Jermaine O'Neal seem to really want Al Harrington. Sacramento seems to really want Artest (they've had discussions about him for the past 2 years). If Atlanta can make both of these things happen, and make both teams happy, then how about they compensate Atlanta accordingly. Here's the trade: Artest to Sacramento, Harrington to Indiana, and Peja to Atlanta. But here's the kicker: for Atlanta to grant both of these eager playoff contenders their greatest desires, each of them forwards a 1st round pick to Atlanta. So, each playoff team gets a vital, and still young, piece, while Atlanta gets 2 #1 picks, and a player that they can still trade at the deadline or in a sign-and-trade. I think it makes an unreasonable amount of sense. Don't hold me to this, but if we did a deal like that, one of those 1st round picks next year would immeadiately go to Phoenix. Why? Because I think that if we acquire any 1st round picks via a trade, the pick of ours that will go to Phoenix ( if we made the playoffs this year ), would become unprotected because we picked up some more 1st round picks. That would still leave us with 2 picks in the 1st round, but they will probably be mid to low 1st round picks, depending on where Sac and Indy finished. Meanwhile, Phoenix would get our own 1st round pick, which will probably be real high this year.

If you go back in the day, a lot of the centers back then were under 7 feet. Most were around the 6-9 to 6-10 mark. And they weren't soft either. People make a big deal in pointing out that Duncan isn't a center, he's a PF. LOL . . the hell he is. Duncan is a center. Amare is a center. Rahseed Wallace is a center, even if he wants to be a 2-guardKG should be a center and is at times. Point is, most of your PF's in this league could very well play center for a team. It's just that a lot of these guys are just soft and can't play defense like a center, from an intimidation/shot blocking standpoint. And on offense, they'd rather shoot 15 foot jumpers all day, instead of banging bodies down low and getting their points from 7 feet and in.

Lue is ATL's version of Troy Hudson . . a PG that can score in bunches when his shot is on. And when he does score, it elevates the rest of his game. They're nice luxuries to have off the bench, but you really can't trust either of them to run your team as the starter, and expect to win on a consistent basis. Personally, I LOVE the fact that Lue is finally being ultra-aggressive on offense. When he attacks, he at least keeps his man honest on defense. And that offensive aggressiveness counterbalances whatever he'll give up on defense. The same goes for Childress. It's nice to see both of these players playing toward their strengths, instead of being a spectator out on the court.

Right. His effort on blocking shots is consistent. I wonder if exodus would call the guys who are in the top 20 in steals, good defenders? http://www.nba.com/statistics/player/Steal...Exp=-1&splitDD= My boy Trenton Hassell isn't on this list, nor is Bruce Bowen. Matter of fact, they're not even in the top 50 in steals. But those 2 guys are two of the best defenders in the league. But look at some of those steal leaders. Some of them are great defenders. Others are horrible, if they're not getting a steal. While Smoove isn't a "horrible" overall defender, he is a one-dimensional defender, in that he can only block shots. He's not going to be the type that can hold his man to 13 points or less on most nights, if playing a decent offensive player.

(1) Bird has called him "the best player in the league": His game is virtually flawless. He's a very good offensive player. He's arguably the best defender in the league. And he's willing to do the "little things" to help his team win. Because of this, the Hawks, or any other team for that matter, isn't going to get Artest for the cheap. A potential deal for Artest will probably involve Al and Marvin Williams or Josh Smith. The Pacers would have to protect themselves if Al doesn't re-sign with the Pacers in the offseason. So they'll also be looking to get one of our young talents. And no, it won't be Chill because most people don't think that he'll become a star. At least Smoove and Marvin possess the potential to become one. So if we do trade for Artest, say bye bye to Al and Marvin . . or Al and Smoove. (2) Toughness: Artest is also one of the toughest guys in the league. People can call that "thuggish" or whatever they want. But almost all great teams have had some sort of "tough guy" on the team to keep the team from being viewed as "soft". Back in the day, they called these types of players "enforcers". Kurt Rambis . . Bill Laimbeer . . Maurice Lucas . . Charles Oakley . . Alonzo Mourning can be described as "enforcers", among other things. (3) Box Office: At least initially, bringing in Artest would spark great interest in Atlanta . . if for anything, to see if he blows up. Just from an immeadiate financial standpoint, it may be worthwhile for the organization to bring him in. (4) Tradeability: This is probably the biggest reason to bring him in. As some have said, acquiring Artest, then dealing him later, could bring the Hawks more, than doing the same thing wtih Al. Artest would have more value. And although we'll have to give up one of our young forwards to get him, we could acquire the type of "need" players we need to make this a successful franchise again. Possible deals: - to Golden St, along with Tyronn Lue, for Derek Fisher, Adonyl Foyle, and a 2006 1st rounder - to Denver for Miller and Nene ( if Denver wanted to play him at the 2 ) - to the Lakers straight up, for Lamar Odom ( giving the Hawks a versatile PF that can shoot and pass, and the Lakers 2 of the best defenders in the NBA in Kobe and Ron ) - to the Knicks, along with the Hawks 2006 2nd round pick, for Stephon Marbury and Jerome James - to Toronto straight up, for Chris Bosh LOL . . of course, Indiana could do these trades too, before considering an Al/Smoove or an Al/Marvin deal. Yes, I would like it to be an Al/Childress deal, but like I said earlier, I don't think people think that Chill has a lot of upside, compared to Smoove and Marvin. (5) Atlanta is the new center for hip-hop: We all know that Ron loves his music, and already has his own label. What better city to come to than ATL, if you're an aspiring music mogul. ATL also has a lot of talented people that could actually run Ron's music label, while he's playing during the season. With all of the studios, clubs, DJs, and producers in and around the city, Ron would have the best of both worlds. Basketball and hip-hop.

Quote: if he had passed on marvin williams to pick chris "everyone was saying he would get worked by bigger guards" paul although every analyst thought marvin williams would be the next superstar out of this draft, people would have been calling for his head... marvin was never thought to do more than he is now..i'm not sure where you guys got your information but he was going to take some time to develop. I don't think this was meant for me, seeing that I was talking about Smoove. But to your point, I'll say this. One of the things I've always liked about younger guys coming into the NBA, is that they learn how to play an NBA style game, instead of being schooled in a "college system", then having to change their game to fit the NBA style. That's why you can have a great college player, that turns out to be a scrub in the NBA. That was the book on Battier . . great college player, will only be a good NBA player at best. And that's exactly what Battier is. Meanwhile, Elton Brand and Corey Maggettee, who only stayed 2 and 1 year respectively, have improved steadily since entering the NBA. With Brand, he's on the verge of becoming the next big star in the league. With Maggettee, he was on that borderline star level last year, but has tailed off this year. That's why people need to keep their heads up about Marvin. More times than not, these high school and 1st and 2nd year college players will struggle when they initially enter the league. But by year 3 or 4, they have the look of being a good to borderline star player. Some even become stars after that 1st year. 4 year college players are usually more basketball polished and fundamentally sound. But the early entry guys are the ones that usually turn out to be the superstars in the league.

The lack of role for JJ is just another coaching blunder by this team. You have to maximize his skills. If you're going to have him run the point, you need shooters around him. If you're going to put him at the 2, you need to run plays strictly for him. The same goes for Salim when he's in the game. I don't think JJ has a problem being the main scoring option, the distributor, or the decoy at times. Personally, I think he defers to Al waaaaay too much on this team. And it may take for Harrington to leave, before we can really see what JJ can give us on a nightly basis. But then again, it goes back to coaching. Damn . . I wasn't this critical of this staff when I thought we were just unlucky in those close games. But now I'm seeing that we may be creating our own bad luck, with some of the lineups and personnel we're putting out on the floor in key situations. Coach is going to have to be willing to sit some guys down in certain situations, regardless of how good of a player they "think" they are. I'm getting to the point to where I DON'T want to see either Al, Lue, or ZaZa in the lineup at the end of games. You give me Ivey, Salim, and JJ on the perimeter, with Smoove and either ZaZa or Harrington ( but not both at the same time ) in the game, and I'll like our chances a whole lot better. At least that group gives us a fighting shot from an offensive and defensive standpoint. But that type of thinking is too progressive for our coaching staff.

Nic and I are in total agreement about this team and this lineup. The problem with us, outside of the obvious needs at PG and C, is that we're not maximizing the skills of our players. That goes straight to coaching. Smoove is a guy with a schizophrenic jumper, and has no 3-point range with his shot. Yet, we constantly play him at the 3. If his strengths are his athleticism, why not put him at a position in which he may can exploit some less athletic 4's . . like Shawn Marion does in Phoenix? Smoove right now is probably closer to Eddie Griffin than anybody else in the league. Eddie is a 6-10 forward that wants to be Dirk Nowitski. Unlike Smoove, he does have 3-ball range . . just not accurate range from there. But his new coach in Minny is forcing him to play the 4 and 5 spots, seeing that Minny is a lot like us in their deficiency of bigs. In about 20 minutes of play, Griffin is averaging an amazing 2.5 blocks and 6.5 rebounds a game. I'm just amazed that this coaching staff can't see how they waste Smoove's ability to block shots and rebound, when he's out on the perimeter guarding some 3 who is jumpshot happy, thus, taking Smoove away from the basket to get rebounds and blocks. Neither Harrington nor Smoove are good on the ball defenders, whether in the post or out on the wing. But at least Smoove gives you a guy who can swat a layup from a PG away or be that weak side helper for ZaZa. But this coaching staff is too set in their ways to change their thinking about anything. And before any of you start to nit pick about Smoove's post game, let me say this. Who says that Smoove has to have a post game at all, to be effective? I would love to see Smoove become a "garbage man" type player, getting his points via put backs, tips, and lob passes for dunks. And he can always take that 12 - 15 footer. Harrington already plays like a 3 most of the time anyway. So it would only be natural to move Smoove to the 4, and see if he can have more of an impact on the game from that spot. I think before things get any better around here, these coaches are really going to have to play to these player's strengths, not some "play the right way BS" vision that they have. I want Smoove to turn into this guy: http://databasebasketball.com/players/play...ilkid=NANCELA01 He possesses the same types of skills as he did. All we need now, is a coach who can mold him into this type of player.

Let Woodson finish out the season? Woodson is 5 - 42 since the Antoine Walker trade . . and 15 - 85 overall. When do we get rid of him? When he reaches 130 losses?

I think most criticize Lue for his basketball IQ, rather than him taking a bunch of shots. There is a difference in when to shoot, and when not to shoot. Like I've said before, Lue is a Troy Hudson-like PG, in the fact that he's much more effective when he's looking for his own offense. If he's on, then he'll also look for others. If he's off, his entire game suffers. I just don't want Lue just out there dribbling the ball up the court, and not being a part of the offense. I'd much rather him take an open 21 footer, than to dribble 10 seconds off the clock and not do anything productive with the ball. You know he's not going to give you anything defensively, so he must be some sort of offensive threat, and not just a caretaker of the ball.

I'm almost convinced that exodus is related to Lue, because there should not be this much discussion over a guy that even he admits would be a backup PG, if we had a decent one to run the team. I definitely want to see more Ivey on the court for one simple reason . . Ivey is much more aggressive on offense, that Lue. People forget that Ivey was actually one of the guards playing alongside T.J. Ford while at Texas. So Ivey is more of a natural scorer, than a PG. On a team that struggles to score points because they settle for way too many jumpers, it's nice to see a guy like Ivey, who can take his man off the dribble and go to the hole and score. While Lue can do that on occasion, he goes to the hole way too weak at times, which is why his shot gets blocked on occasion. Lue isn't a finisher when he goes to the hole, unlike Ivey. From a PG standpoint, Lue is better than Ivey. But on the Hawks, we need a guy alongside JJ who can get his offense as well, not just when his jumper is on. Lue definitely gets his props from last game though. Anybody knocking the kid from last night, is just a Lue-hater. If the coaching staff still refuses to give Salim 30 minutes a game, the least they can do is split the minutes evenly between Ivey, Lue, and Stoudamire . . and play the guy who is playing the best in the 4th quarter.