If Pho gets the 4th overall pick was JJ worth it?

[Guest Walter]

This may be the best draft in the last 10 or so years and it was known to be this good given the Stern ruling to necessitate essentially 1 year of college. Had he given up last year's pick and not this years (and they both were near - within 4 - the same number), no problem. Didn't.

That being said JJ is a great player and I don't think we'll be bad enough to select 4th.

W

[phx_suns]

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He's not a good defensive player and his offensive game is limited to jumpshots.

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It's obvious that you don't watch the games. If you believe this about JJ, you haven't been watching the Hawks play. Even Last night, in our worse loss of the season, Joes was being doubled and sometimes tripled but he got to the rim when he wanted to. Even Smitty was amazed saying something to the effect that ... "I've been in the league a long time and it's rare to find a player who is the focus of the defense the way Joe is who can get layups. Not just buckets, but layups."

JJ is 4th or 5th in the league in scoring and if you compiled every stat, he's probably the 2nd ranked SG in the league.

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First of all, anyone that voted yes has a bone in the middle of their heads and shouldn't be allowed to operate a vehicle. Thats the kind of trade that you do for a KG/Kobe/Wade, not Joe 'who the hell is he' Johnson. Secondly, your qouted statements are even more ridiculous.

Top tier(Best of the best, franchise players): Bryant, Wade

Second tier (Extremely good, sometimes great enough to win games single handily. Able to lead teams to a low playoff seed): Vince Carter, Pierce, Ray Allen, McGrady(when healty), Micheal Redd

Johnson is lower 2nd, upper 3rd tier. Definately not someone that is good enough to lead bad teams to enough victories to contend for a playoff birth.

Stop being homers and open your eyes. Johnson is a stat hound only. He used the Hawks to get a ridiculous deal so that he could have a chance to be an all-star. His exact words were that if he stayed in Phoenix he wouldn't get a chance to be an all star so he had to leave. He was sick of being the 3rd option behind Stoudemire and Nash. He no longer wanted to be a 'decoy' in the Suns' offense. Johnson is concerned with stats and stats only. Anyone that leaves a contender to go to the bad news bears of the NBA is NOT concerned with winning. Johnson could care less if the Hawks finished dead last every year as long as he's getting his stats and an all-star birth.

[pathway23]

This wouldn't be the opinion of a Phoenix Suns fan would it? JJ is worth every penny, barring the injury debacle the Hawks have suffered this team would be right in the playoff running and Joe would be the main reason why. Right now with all the injuries it is just too easy for the defense to focus on Joe. It really is testament to Joe's outstanding character that he continues to play so well despite everything these last few games. There really has been no second scorer. Marvin is like 60% because of the hand and Lue and Chill are out. Those 3 are our top scorers besides Joe. I think that this board overreacts negatively and a lot of that is fueled by the media which thrives on negativity.

[Plainview1981]

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Your unoriginal and lame attempt at complaining doesn't change anything, your opinion is still irrelevant.

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I would say the Hawks are irrelevant, but everybody laughs at them. I tell it like it is... IF you can't accept that, it's your problem. Keep going to games and paying to see the team get it's teeth kicked in while the owners and players that don;t give a shyt about you. If they did, they wouldn't field such a crappy team.

I told you this teams 4-1 start was freak luck. You and some others thought it actually mean't the team was going to do something this year. What a fool.

[TheDude]

2nd tier? look, if you look at scoring he's officially like 4th best in the whole association. ok so lets say thats all he was.....sure maybe i could see where you didnt think he was first tier..as if he was just a scorer.

but thing is, that's not all he does. he has a great all around game AND can still do what he wants even when he's double and triple teamed.

look, don't like anything about whats going on with the Hawks, fine....but JJ is definitely 1st tier...definitely.

[Diesel]

I would almost agree with you, but i can't. Here's why.

Nobody drafted in this draft will be better than JJ. Not even Oden. Oden will definitely be a bigtime Center, But I don't think he will be better than JJ for our team. But More importantly than JJ vs. potential Center, I just don't think you can hold JJ responsible for the failing of the BK GMship to bring in the right players.

If BK would have gotten Paul, JJ, Shelden, and then traded Al for Magloire or Al for Camby as was rumored.... We wouldn't care what draft picks came in the top 4. It's only because we traded Al for a midround pick and we picked Marvin that now we start to wonder about JJ's value. I think JJ is just as value as Vince, Kobe, Tmac, Wade, and Lebron. The people that BK surrounds him with makes the difference between him looking TMacish or him looking Kobeish.

[Iman]

I think most of the board liked the JJ deal. We knew BK had to overpay to get a star. However, what we all worried about was the minimal restriction on the 2007 pick. I'm sure Colangelo pushed for this lack of restriction but I bet it was BK's arrogance that allowed him to not push back and get the pick top8 restricted at least. BK was sure we'd be a borderline playoff team by the end of this year, as were most of us. We still may be but with all these injuries and our lack of picking up another good player for AL or a free agent, we just might fall somewhere in the 4th to 8th pick range. If that's the case, I'll blame BK, not JJ.

[Guest Walter]

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Nobody drafted in this draft will be better than JJ.

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Come on now. That's absurd. While scoring Sgs are a dime a dozen this draft has more franchise centers than I can recall and more talent (on paper yes) than any draft in 10 years.

Regardless, what has JJ won for us? He hasn't. That's not his fault but it still applies to his value. At the rate this team is developing, assuming it had the necessary talent spread well over all positions, JJ's contract would be up by the time we could hope to contend. This team doesn't have the necessary talent, much less at positions we need filled. Thus, he AT BEST will be the best player on a very mediocre team. We've paid a whole hell-of-a-lot to for that. A max contract, Diaw, a 4th pick in the deepest big heavy draft in recent memory, and a mid 1st pick.

JJ was a good deal under most circumstances but definately not if the pick we conceed is the 4th best.

W

[Diesel]

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Regardless, what has JJ won for us? He hasn't. That's not his fault but it still applies to his value.

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This is about the wrongest statement that this board has ever seen.

The other year, when the Lakers were Losers and they had Kobe, did the Lakers record apply to "his value"?

When Houston sucked with Yao Ming... Did Houston's lack of success "apply to his value"?

Lack of Accomplishments does not translate to Lack of value....

Give me Barkley, Malone, Stockton, Ewing anyday over a lot of guys who did win rings... Like David Robinson or Pippen. There's no doubt in my mind that Barkley was better than Pippen.

[Guest Walter]

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This is about the wrongest statement that this board has ever seen.

The other year, when the Lakers were Losers and they had Kobe, did the Lakers record apply to "his value"?

When Houston sucked with Yao Ming... Did Houston's lack of success "apply to his value"?

Lack of Accomplishments does not translate to Lack of value....

Give me Barkley, Malone, Stockton, Ewing anyday over a lot of guys who did win rings... Like David Robinson or Pippen. There's no doubt in my mind that Barkley was better than Pippen.

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AND Kobe and Yao didn't cost their respective franchise a top 4 pick in the best, deepest big draft in memory, a mid 1st, and Diaw. Mind you, both Yao and Kobe's teams "lapsed" for a season rather than being cellar dwellers.

Regardless, lack of accomplishments does apply to a players value TO THEIR TEAM. I am not asking JJ's trade value for us (although considerably less than Kobe's or Yao's), I am asking his value TO US. Is his value TO US worth all that we have spent on him and given up if as a result of BK's mad scientist, ego-driven GMing we still have a low lottery team? The answer is a clear "NO".

Simply put, if we do not get beyond a 10th seed in the EC this year, out of the lottery by next year, and top 6 seed the year following, we will have wasted JJ's time with us and our capitol would have much better been spent on this year's #4 pick.

W

[drzachary]

[Diesel]

You said that the fact that we haven't won anything applies to his value.

That has nothing to do with what it took to get him.

Do you see how very wrong you were yet?

We can argue the value of a player that didn't want to be here, a pick that = what now, and this pick to come elsewhere...

But my point about your wrong statement is that Our record has very little effect on JJ's value. Ask any team what would they give for JJ and you would probably be surprised about his value. I don't think any team would say... Oh, he's playing for that losing team. Just like Jordan the earlier years, team record has very little to do with player value.

[Diesel]

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egardless, lack of accomplishments does apply to a players value TO THEIR TEAM. I am not asking JJ's trade value for us (although considerably less than Kobe's or Yao's), I am asking his value TO US. Is his value TO US worth all that we have spent on him and given up if as a result of BK's mad scientist, ego-driven GMing we still have a low lottery team? The answer is a clear "NO".

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Name three player in this league that you believe we can exchange JJ with and get a much better result than what we have...

Surely, you don't believe if we had Diaw, and these two picks back that we would be a better team than we are right now.

Let me tell you what would have happened had we not gotten JJ back.

Phoenix would have gone to the NBA Championship Finals.

We would have finished worse than we did.

Diaw would have gone back to France as he threatened he would.

Right now, we'd probably have just one win and hoping to god that we can get Oden in the Lottery.

Dude, you don't care about the competitiveness of the Hawks because you sit in middle of Nowhere NC and you don't even watch the games. Here's my question.

Would you pay to see that Hawks team that you long for? You know, the one who would tank every gaming HOPING to get Oden.

[Guest Walter]

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But my point about your wrong statement is that Our record has very little effect on JJ's value. Ask any team what would they give for JJ and you would probably be surprised about his value.

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If another team gave up a #4 pick in this year's draft, a mid-1st pick, Diaw, and took on JJ's deal I would be surpised.

I agree that JJ's value doesn't decrease league-wide playing on a poor team (at least not yet), but his value TO US decreases. If you examine my original post you'll never see where I suggested his trade value diminishes. However, If we're going to be a high-lottery team with him (and getting him cost us that very pick), how is he worth whatever we paid for him?

W

[Guest Walter]

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Surely, you don't believe if we had Diaw, and these two picks back that we would be a better team than we are right now.

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Better team that we have right now?!? How should I respond to this? Have you observed our record? Yes, I know. Injuries, but you GD-well know this team is poorly designed, utterly flawed, lacking necessary talent regardless.

Anyhow, perhaps not now. Perhaps we wouldn't have the experience to win as much now, but we could have more talent. Let's say we get the 4th pick in the draft and draft our center of the future, used the mid-1st to mid-late 1st pick also sent to Pheonix to get a Pg prospect, AND utilized the $12 million or so in cap space we are currently using on JJ to sign a mega-FA. Realize that we could not in this scenario assume any different regarding the MW selection, however, had we not had JJ we certainly would have drafted Roy. Consider 2007 FAs: Paul Pierce, Dirk, Vince, Bosh, Billups, Antwan Jamison Jerry Stackhouse Rashard Lewis - to name a few.

Here's your hypothetical team realizing we may have enough to sign 2 max players without JJ's contract.

Thabeet/ZaZa

Bosh with ATL/GT connections (or Howard? next year)/JS

MW/JS/Childress

Roy/Childress

Marcus Williams or another young Pg/Speedy (probably wouldn't sign him giving us more $$$ elsewhere)/Lue/Roy

I'd damn sure take that lineup in 2-3 years! We would OWN the paint and have a perimeter game to match it well. Talent would be better, more well dispersed, and with some seasoning we'd be a goliath.

W

[Guest Walter]

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If you can't respond specifically and credibly, continue to evade with juvie icons.

W

[Eddielives]

It's a damn funny icon and you know it Walter.

[mrhonline]

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It's a damn funny icon and you know it Walter.

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Seconded.

[OT: Walt, you still in Asheville?]

[Guest Walter]

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It's a damn funny icon and you know it Walter.

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Seconded.

[OT: Walt, you still in Asheville?]

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[Diesel]

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Thabeet/ZaZa

Bosh with ATL/GT connections (or Howard? next year)/JS

MW/JS/Childress

Roy/Childress

Marcus Williams or another young Pg/Speedy (probably wouldn't sign him giving us more $$$ elsewhere)/Lue/Roy

I'd damn sure take that lineup in 2-3 years! We would OWN the paint and have a perimeter game to match it well. Talent would be better, more well dispersed, and with some seasoning we'd be a goliath.

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The problem is that neither of those players (Thabeet/Roy) has proven anything. In fact, Roy may be damaged goods. I think that is why such a significant move to get a true top tier players was made. Yeah, we could have gone the CLipper route and continued to draft Young players who may or may not turn out... and done it for 5-10 years... But getting JJ signaled to the rest of the league that we had become seriouis about trying to win. Winning teams do not build through the draft alone. Winning teams pick up free agents and trades to win as well as get a well picked draftee.