thesheedera

Quote: http://projects.ajc.com/vent/sports/ "The NBA sucks because a mediocre team makes the playoffs??? You mean people believe this is actually a first? Atlanta sports fans are idiots. Look at the west and tell me how “bad” the NBA is. Tools!" You are a fountain of light that in a world full of despair gives me great hope for a better future. {/sarcasm}

Quote: Quote: Quote: Why does everyone berate Josh Smith on his 3 point shooting? He shoots 25%, which is bad, but it isn't 10%. He usually shoots the 3 because he's wide open. You have to take the shot when you are standing there alone and your man is standing in the paint waiting to take a charge if you try to drive the ball. You have to take an outside shot to keep your man honest. 25% is very bad. I don't think you'll find more than maybe one other guy who takes as many 3s as Smith with that poor a percentage. How bout Dwayne Wade. He shoots 25.8% for his career. http://www.nba.com/playerfile/dwyane_wade/index.html And in case you were wondering, Josh Smith shoots 26% As a 2 guard Wade's actually shown a pretty good amount of restraint to shoot threes. In his career he's shot .061 3's every minute, or 2.93 per 48. A 2 guard has more opportunities than any position on the floor to take 3's. Plus, being his team's primary option means that he almost HAS to take some long jumpshots as he's more often the fallback when no one can get a look or when the clock's running down. We have JJ in that role. Smith is a PF that shoots .111 3's every minute, or 5.33 per 48. What the F is he doing shooting that many 3's on his career with such a bad percentage of success? Kobe Bryant shoots .132 per minute, or 6.35 per 48 for comparison sake, and makes 34% of them.

Quote: What is more impressive about Durant's numbers compared to Horford's? The only thing he beats him in is points per game and that's because he is taking more than twice as many shots. He's also the first option on a bad team. Just playing Devil's advocate here, but the argument that he shoots a bad % while being a bad team's first option can actually work against you. He's their ONLY option, and therefore he's the one guy the other team needs to stop. Yet he still scores in volume. And his "low percentage" ain't that terrible for a shooting guard. Compare him to our boy JJ who's shooting .001 lower while taking .448 shots/minute. By way of comparison, Durant shoots .491/minute. JJ has more options available to him, yet he shoots almost as much. If Durant's a low percentage chucker, what's Johnson? I love Horford, but Durant probably deserves the ROY when it's all said and done.

Quote: I was thinking that myself. Perhaps I watch too much Law & Order or something like that where I learned such an awful term. Perhaps the other Squawkers are much more wholesome than we are. Well it's a heck of a tv program, so don't beat yourself up too much. I bet bumpyphish was pickin up what you were puttin down.

Quote: Thank you Sheed! I thought it was a pretty obvious joke. Maybe we should be worried if it was so obvious to us and not everyone else.

Quote: Quote: I read (or heard, I can't remember which) that Marvin said Smoove told him on the way to the game that he was going to come out focused and play hard. Well, he certainly backed up his talk and then some! He almost singlehandedly stemmed the tide when MEM was making their run in the 4th. He was blocking shots, rebounding, scoring and playing great D on Gay. If THAT Smoove shows up every night, we will be tough for ANY team to beat. I read that this morning as well in the AJC. Makes you wonder what the heck Smith is thinking on the the other nights... As always this is extremely unfair to take a second hand quote out of context and use it to form a position on what's going through a guy's head.

Quote: Nevermind, you totally missed the joke. He must have been way too laser focused on the task at hand after all those bumps.

Quote: Quote: Yeah, it seems like it shouldn't. I was just wondering if there was any precedent for euro guys' 3 point shots falling off when they came to the NBA. I agree that he should come off the bench too, I just meant I think he would help the smith-at-the-3 problem because he could play on the perimeter. Yeah I know, i didn't mean to come off like starting him was such a bad idea. What i meant was that we need a shooter. The fact that he is a big isn't a problem to me. I was basically agreeing with this.. Quote: I don't know how a big guy who can shoot the three isn't what we need. Smith could play some 3 while Andersen is in the game. Exactly my thought. We don't want Smith feeling like he needs to shoot jumpshots, but he can be an awesome "small" forward when paired with a 4 or 5 who can shoot and stretch the defense.

Quote: Quote: Dang.. 36 point lead... Empty the doggone bench! no reason whatsoever for JJ and Smith to be in this game and there we go - right on command now we need to throw in mario, salim, solo, etc.

Quote: Dang.. 36 point lead... Empty the doggone bench! no reason whatsoever for JJ and Smith to be in this game

Quote: 1. Ease of Schedule or 2. Chemistry finally coming together. that we're seeing? I won't claim that the chemistry issue is fixed for good, but tonight it looks the way it should look. It's amazing how easy it can look when this group shares and moves the ball.

Quote: You're celebrating a win over the Knicks... On a night when Randolph didn't play because Zeke is trying his best to get Beasley in NY. I'm not really celebrating anything, but if I were, it would be because I'm a Hawks fan and we just won our 3rd game in a row in the midst of our first playoff race in almost a decade.

Quote: As fans ride emotions their minds may tire, but these guys are "highly tuned athletes". Their recover is much much higher than non-professional athletes. Nobody gets tired in the playoffs. And fighting for the playoffs is close to playing as "in the playoffs". There are no minutes off. I have to agree with this. The idea behind this thread has a lot of merit throughout the season, but now we're in crunch time and this is what you should ahve been saving your legs for throughout the year. The Hawks aren't looking at a long postseason. Just getting into the playoffs is our equivalent of a postseason. Unless we have a big lead we need our best players on the floor as much as possible.

Quote: I'm not expecting many replies to this thread. I kind of like it when this place is a ghost town during and after Marvin's best games. Kind of like the silent stadium when the road team puts away the home team.

Quote: That is an empty statement because Law doesn't shoot Totally disagree. Taking bad shots is far worse than taking no shots. I think Salim's capable of being a really good player and early this season he looked like he was willing to change his game to become one, but far too often he reverts back to the chuck first ask questions later mentality,

Quote: We might as well play salim. Law does nothing better than Salim does at this point. Much better shot selection.

Quote: This is the third game in a row that Marvin has made that shot but i am sure there will still be people saying he hasn't added anything new to his game. And it was taken over an athletic and tough defender in David Lee. It needs to get more play in the rotation.

Quote: In Childress, we have a guy who does better than he's supposed to do. You must have awfully low expectations for a #6 pick in the draft if you think Childress is a guy who "does better than he's supposed to do".

Quote: People get mad at Marvin because he is content with acepting his role, instead of trying to do more than he's used to doing. Those same people go crazy when Smoove tries to do more than what he should be doing. It's just ironic to me that with Marvin it's "content with accepting his role" while with Childress he's somehow bringing incredible intangibles that don't show up in the numbers. Childress was an EXTREMELY high draft pick. Not as high as #2, but are #6 draft picks just supposed to be scrappy guys coming off the bench? They've both been disappointments, face it. The question is, do either of them offer the potential to become much better than they are now?

Marvin must have played alright. Barely a mention and it wasn't even legitimate hate. My biggest issue with Marvin has always been not crashing the boards. Was he getting up and going after them to get 11, or were they mostly just bouncing right to him? Pretty big win, as ugly as it may have looked.

Quote: yes, I know he should of never got picked over Deron Williams, Chris Paul and even Bynum but he has alot of potential still. He is having a decent year averaging 15 points and 6 rebounds....you cant really complain with that when you got JJ, JSmooth and now Bibby on your team. I think he can be an all star one day or at least a border line all star in 2-3 yrs..he reminds me of Jamison a little bit and yes i think he can turn into a Jamison type player in a few yrs. no? lol Huge Marvin fan here, with mixed emotions about this season. Had he kept up his play from early in the season I wouldn't have any doubts about him at all. Now I have doubts. I still have faith in him, but not as much as I did in late December. He was blooming then, but seems so wildly inconsistent now that something looks wrong to me. Could be his own attitude/dedication. Could be his relationship with teammates or coach. Could be injuries. Probably some combination of all of that. But something is definitely worth concern. I think bringing him off the bench would be fine. I think trading him would be fine, but I'd still rather trade Childress. I think he still ends up as a borderline all star one day, I just don't have much confidence it will be as a hawk.

Quote: Steve Nash said after the suns game last night that the team is still in "training camp" when it comes to learning how to play with Shaq. I think the same thing applies with the Hawks but the Suns & other teams who made trades at the deadline have more than 1 proven scorer. Even though those teams might not be clicking just yet as far as the offense they still have enough scorers or shooters that can "bail them out" if the offense is getting stagnet or if the team is committing alot of turnovers. The Hawks do not have tha luxury. I also think our team for some reason has a slow learning curve. Guys like Marvin Williams and to some extent Josh Smith are still playing like they are in their 1st or 2nd seson in the league. Smith & Williams shouldn't be turning the ball over as much as they are in their 3rd & 4th season. Marvin should have elevated his offensive game to more than just a spot up midrange shooter. I don't know whether that is a reflection on the players themselves or the coaches. I just think with this team it will be close to the end of the regular season or next season before we see how good they could really be togther. I don't know if the Bibby trade will make us better in the long run, but that was the reason for the trade - long run, not for just this season. It may have been better to have agreed on the deal and wait until the end of the season to execute it, but in reality you have to strike when the iron's hot and make a deal when you can. The Hawks' situation is different from the Suns' because the Suns are playing for a championship. We're still "under construction". Disrupting our average to below average success to make the Bibby trade may have made us worse for this season in an effort to make us better in the future. But we're still about where we were before the trade - losing more than winning while sitting in the middle of the pack in a terrible conference. The Suns may have disrupted a championship run in getting Shaq, and on top of that he's a guy that doesn't have much mileage left. They needed to be great immediately after getting Shaq. That deal's looking like an all time bust so far.

I didn't get to watch the game. I see the boxscore and notice a few things that alarmed me: Horford went to bed well rested with 3 fouls to give after 18 minutes played. He only shot 40% but that's better than the collective ofer from Zaza and Solomon. Marvin also went to bed well rested only playing 28 minutes, and took 2 fouls to give with him. According to the boxscore (I know how flawed that can be) he was having a solid night nearing a double double and shooting 50%. Childress only got 22 minutes. Acie didn't see the floor, wasn't he supposed to be ready last weekend? Meanwhile, JJ logged 46 FREAKING MINUTES!!!! Smith played 41 (well, his body can probably handle it), and Bibby's crippled ass got 35. Other than the obvious "Woody sucks", what gives?

Quote: just to remind everyone of the "big picture", this thread should be bumped whenever we are currently sitting in a playoff spot As of right now 3/10/08...WE ARE IN!!!! W L PCT GB 1 x-Boston 50 12 0.806 - 2 x-Detroit 46 17 0.73 4 ½ 3 Orlando 41 24 0.631 10 ½ 4 Cleveland 37 27 0.578 14 5 Toronto 34 28 0.548 16 6 Washington 30 32 0.484 20 7 Philadelphia 30 34 0.469 21 8 Atlanta 26 37 0.413 24 ½ New Jersey 26 38 0.406 25 Chicago 25 38 0.397 25 ½ Charlotte 24 39 0.381 26 ½ Indiana 24 39 0.381 26 ½ Milwaukee 23 40 0.365 27 ½ New York 18 46 0.281 33 Miami 11 51 0.177 39 If we can win more than 36 and finish with some nice momentum, I think I really will get excited and I'll be completely "on board". I'll probably spring for playoff tickets hoping to see a win or maybe even two. The more likely "best case" scenario: we finish the rest of the season playing just above .500 ball, taking 10 of the next 19. Sadly, we'd only have a 36-46 record, but we'd still likely breeze into the playoffs because our conference is close to an all time low after the top few teams. I'd consider buying playoff tickets but will really hope to find some for free. If we win 34-36 games we'd be playing just a little better than our record thus far and it should be enough to get the 8th spot. I wouldn't be terribly excited about the playoffs, maybe not enough to spend my own money on anything other than the cheap seats. I'd be expecting a complete disaster first round and part of me would be just fine with that if it expunged BK/Woody. If we make the playoffs with 33 wins or less I'll be disgusted.

Quote: All season long, the vast majority of Hawksquawk has wanted this team to emulate Phoenix and Golden St... ...that quick "chuck and duck" style of play. You're reaching, big time. Calling for a faster pace doesn't equate to calling for the fastest pace possible. The Suns and Warriors are extremes.