Is Josh Smith the top player from his draft?

[DJlaysitup]

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The people that have been saying that Josh is another AK47 better raise that bar a little.

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I still want to see more consistency before I would go and say something like that. It just seems like he has similar stretches like this every year and we have the same conversation. I don't doubt that he will become better than AK47 but I don't want to say he is until I am positive.

And yeah, what a box score for Smoove, just sick.

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I would put him well above AK-47 at this point (and this point is what counts considering ages). If one car is getting faster and the other getting slower - and the one getting faster is newer and has a bigger engine - easy call.

I hate to even mention this - but unless JS somehow d!cks up his personal life - he's gonna be something real special...All-Star...I would think probably...HOF? way too early to even think about that.

JS needs to just keep putting em up. Like Tiger Woods - he only wants to win every time he is playing.

[bfwolf]

I think you guys are really overestimating Josh. I'm not saying he's not a good player. He is a good player. But you guys are talking about him like he's Dr. J. I think he's got a great shot at being an All Star someday, but I don't see anything close to HoF #s in his future.

I could be way off. He's a phenomenal athlete so he's certainly got huge potential. But putting him in the same breath as Dwight Howard? I don't see it.

[SmooveTheFuture]

I remeber earlier in the year when he was turning it over and getting it stolen off the dribble. Many people thought it would take years if not ever to get a good consistent dribble down. He has improved his dribble in just a few months this just shows you how hard this guy works and how good he wants to become. Earlier in the year he was just shooting jumpers all day and not driving. Now he no longer settles for jumpers and attacks the basket alot. His ceiling is so high that if he continues to work hard like he has sky is the limit. He does so many things well and he keeps getting better and better. Its really fun to watch guys improve year to year and if we can start winning more thats even better. These next 17 games are a true test to see what these young guys are really capable of doing will they come out and face challenge or will they will crumble under pressure. These 17 games will help us determine what exactly we have here other then JJ. I really wanna see guys Like Marvin, SpedHead and Solomon elevate there games. I dont see Shelden getting any better cause I think he is just not good but the other guys neeed to step it up if wanna win alot of these remaining games. I think we will see two allstars next year representing Atlanta and we will be well on our way to the playoffs. The future is looking bright for our Hawks we need a few more pieces and we can be a legit contender for the next 6-8 years.

[bfwolf]

I agree that he has made huge strides from the beginning of the year to now. It's been fun to watch.

[Packfill]

I think Dwight Howard, Al Jefferson and Josh Smith will emerge as the tops guys from that draft.

Dwight is clearly number one will a bullet so far and Okafor, Gordon, Deng and Igoudala are still in the mix.

[Atlantaholic]

People overlook Al Jefferson because he plays for the last place Celtics. But he is putting up monster stats.

Since the all star break he is putting up 20 and 13 while shooting 55%

in March he is putting up 22 and 12.5 while shooting 57% and also getting 1 steal and 1.5 blocks. He is also only 22 yo.

the 2004 draft class was one of the deepest drafts in recent memory. You've got Jefferson, J.R and Josh Smith, Jameer Nelson, and Kevin Martin going after the 15th pick. Those players could have been the top 5 of last years draft.

[Packfill]

Jefferson has been an awesome pick-up for my fantasy team.

[BusBoyIsBack]

Josh Smith is still 2nd to Dwight Howard for now.

Let's chill out with the overreactions. Sure he's growing up but he's got a way to go.

I think ppl are making WAY too many overreactions.

We win a couple games without Joe Johnson: Man we really don't need Joe!

Kevin Durant looks good in a couple games: Man he's already better than Josh Smith will ever be!

Josh Smith gets hot: Man he's the best player in his draft class and the best Hawk of all-time!

I can't stand extreme knee-jerk reactions like that.

[DrReality]

They are two different type of players. I'm just really impressed with how Josh's body continues to mature. He's growing into it. Also really impressed with the consistency of his shooting. A couple months ago there was a lot of flack about it.

[BusBoyIsBack]

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They are two different type of players. I'm just really impressed with how Josh's body continues to mature. He's growing into it. Also really impressed with the consistency of his shooting. A couple months ago there was a lot of flack about it.

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Im happy that he's finally attacking the basekt.

Just watching Lebron James style of play when he just lowers his shoulder and elevates over defenders, I always thought, man only if Josh Smith would do that. I thought to myself, man Smoove could be just as good if not better at that considering he may have Lebron in height and in ability to elevate.

Sure he's got to work on his permiter jump shot to make people respect the drive. Sure he has to learn to dribble so driving is easier, but he's got to get that driving mentality and lately it seems like he has it.

It doesn't look like a one or two game accident either.

I actually think his tendency has changed from settling for the given jump shot to driving on the defender even though he's playing sagging D.

He's also faking the drive and hitting open men. I think defenders bite so much on the Josh drive that a kickout is always open and lately he's been doing that.

Today though, he didn't really do that drive and kick thing. Of course those 2 quick fouls didn't help either.

[HawksFan87]

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5 turnovers and 6-16 shooting...I am just asking for a little more consistency before people go off and claiming Josh Smith as some sort of a great finished product.

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You never show up or have something to say when he has a great game. I did not know he was'nt allowed to have a bad game here and there. Smoove is the best player on this team with Joe out. He is on the verge of being a star. He just did'nt have a great game last night. No one did...

[HawksFan87]

You STHU, What you think does'nt matter anyway idiot... No one ever said he will be the greatest player of all time. He may not be better than Dwight Howard now. But he is the most important player on this team. And you're not a realist...

[AtLaS]

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5 turnovers and 6-16 shooting...I am just asking for a little more consistency before people go off and claiming Josh Smith as some sort of a great finished product.

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The turnovers are due to being only 21 and not having a legit point guard to handle the ball. Most young players have turnover problems anyway, Dwight has them too (almost 4 a game). Smith is pretty much forced to do everything on his own right now, when (IF) we ever get a legit PG, Smith's game will elevate to a complete new level.

And actually Smith has been pretty consistent since coming back from his surgery, if it weren't for that horrible first 20-25 games, his FG% would be around 50% and his points and rebounds would be higher.

[TroyMcClure]

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5 turnovers and 6-16 shooting...I am just asking for a little more consistency before people go off and claiming Josh Smith as some sort of a great finished product.

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The turnovers are due to being only 21 and not having a legit point guard to handle the ball. Most young players have turnover problems anyway, Dwight has them too (almost 4 a game). Smith is pretty much forced to do everything on his own right now, when (IF) we ever get a legit PG, Smith's game will elevate to a complete new level.

And actually Smith has been pretty consistent since coming back from his surgery, if it weren't for that horrible first 20-25 games, his FG% would be around 50% and his points and rebounds would be higher.

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I'm sold on Smoove. He is the most passionate Hawk. He grew up here and knows we can win again. He is trying real hard to help us get there. If and when he gets a real coach, the sky is the limit. Let's just hope he wants to play here his whole career and we as fans have an ownership situation that can make that happen. He is the real deal. I think he may be the most feared defender on the break in the game. Maybe ever.

Having said that, he has a lot of work to do dribbling wise and jumper wise. Man on man defense, as well. But hey, he would just now be a junior in college. He is the leader when Joe is gone. That says a lot about him. It also underscores a lack of other, older leaders on the team. he will be worth every penny we ever pay him.

Also, he really can entertain you amidst all of the losing. He makes those kinds of plays. I would trade Joe before Smoove.

[TroyMcClure]

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And actually Smith has been pretty consistent since coming back from his surgery, if it weren't for that horrible first 20-25 games, his FG% would be around 50% and his points and rebounds would be higher.

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What are you talking about? In the 33 games since he has been back, he has had 5 games with single digit points, 8 games with 5 or more turnovers, 7 games shooting under .300 from the field, 5 games with 4 or less rebounds (4 games with 5 rebounds). To me, thats not consistent. I am not asking for double-doubles everynight (which is what Dwight gets you), I am asking for a consistency in playing. I don't get excited with these 15+ rebound games because for as many 15+ rebound games he has (1) he has three times as many 3 rebound games. He is inconsistent and I don't understand how someone can't see that. And to clarify, just because you are inconsistent doesn't mean you are bad, just unreliable from night to night.

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He's playing the wrong position right now. He's not old enough to know how to play the post. He's too small anyway. He needs to explode from the wing. He's just playing ball. That's why he has the turnovers. I'm more excited about his passing than his rebounds. When we have better coaches and offensive sets his to's will drop. He's basically playing streetball against NBA competition and doing a pretty good job.

[AtLaS]

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And actually Smith has been pretty consistent since coming back from his surgery, if it weren't for that horrible first 20-25 games, his FG% would be around 50% and his points and rebounds would be higher.

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What are you talking about? In the 33 games since he has been back, he has had 5 games with single digit points, 8 games with 5 or more turnovers, 7 games shooting under .300 from the field, 5 games with 4 or less rebounds (4 games with 5 rebounds).

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I guess you just forgot to read this part of my post.

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The turnovers are due to being only 21 and not having a legit point guard to handle the ball. Most young players have turnover problems anyway,

Dwight has them too (almost 4 a game)

. Smith is pretty much forced to do everything on his own right now, when (IF) we ever get a legit PG, Smith's game will elevate to a complete new level.

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Besides, you could come up with numbers like those in your quote for pretty much ANY player in the league, when using 33 games.. And I would assume that many of those came in the same game. All I said was that he's MORE consistent than he's ever been.

Why don't you go ask Orlando how consistent Dwight really is? He's not, and he's inconsistent as hell. It's the fact that he's only 21 and has no pg, and please don't say Nelson is a pg, he's an sg in a pg's body who averages 4 apg. When Dwight gets a real PG (just like Smith) he will be MUCH more consistent, have less turnovers, and get many more easy baskets. Dwight, like Josh, has to pretty much create everything on his own which leads to tons of turnovers some games, and bad shooting nights in others. And not only that, we probably have the worst offensive scheme/system in the NBA. I'm sorry that you don't understand that.

I already explained why he has turnover problems, hell Joe Johnson has serious turnover problems, it's because we have no PG to handle the ball and get players easy shots.

BTW if you can't see that Smith has been more productive and consistent in terms of PRODUCTION night in and night out than you haven't been watching. And in a couple of those games, his minutes were shortened.

[AtLaS]

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So you have one pathetic excuse for why he gets 9 turnovers in a game.

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Dwyane Wade recently had 13 turnovers in ONE game, how are you going to use ONE game out of 33?

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Why not talk about his below .300 fg%, or single digit games, or below 4 rebound games. Sure a couple of those games were shortened, if you consider 30 minutes short.

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When you average 15 ppg on the season, 5 games out of 33 scoring in single digits is not inconsistent at ALL. Besides in many of these games, he still had a huge impact on the defensive end with blocks/steals and rebounds.

9 games out of 33 with five or less rebounds, he is averaging 8.2 on the season, again not bad. Again, many of these games he still scored well, and had plenty of blocks/steals and had a big impact on the defensive end.

And again the shooting % is going to be off some nights, look at Kobe/Bron/AI/Gilbert, out of 33 games I guarantee they will have 7 bad shooting games. Besides this goes back to having NO PG and NO OFFENSIVE SCHEME, which for some reason just goes over your head. Josh is forced to create EVERYTHING for himself, and some nights most of his shots are off, but again 7/33 games is not bad at ALL(like 21% of the time), especially considering he's shooting right at 50% over those same 33 games.

I'll take 70-75% consistency from Josh at the age of 21, despite having no point guard and no coach/offensive scheme.

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And actually Smith has been

pretty consistent

since coming back from his surgery, if it weren't for that horrible first 20-25 games, his FG% would be around 50% and his points and rebounds would be higher.

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No, I'm pretty sure you just said he was consistent, I am not reading where you talk about in comparison to his past performances.

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Ok, I said PRETTY CONSISTENT, which is true. Has he not been PRETTY CONSISTENT, that's MORE consistent than any other time in his career, is it not?? It is and you know it is.

BTW I wonder why you didn't address this..

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Why don't you go ask Orlando how consistent Dwight really is? He's not, he's inconsistent as hell. It's the fact that he's only 21 and has no pg, and please don't say Nelson is a pg, he's an sg in a pg's body who averages 4 apg.

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Dwight also averages 3.7 turnovers per game.

[BusBoyIsBack]

Josh has a long way to go to be the best guy in this draft class but I just thought of something that just shows strides of improvement.

Even though he had an off game vs the Celtics, he still managed to accumulate 19 points.

Meanwhile for the old Smoove that would have been an amazing night.

Shows you he's growing up.

[AtLaS]

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Dwyane Wade recently had 13 turnovers in ONE game, how are you going to use ONE game out of 33?

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That has nothing to do with Josh Smith being inconsistent at all.

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This is what you said.

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So you have one pathetic excuse for why he gets 9 turnovers in a game.

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I replied with that, because ONE game cannot be used to say someone is inconsistant. If it's insignificant than you shouldn't have said it.

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I'll take 70-75% consistency from Josh at the age of 21, despite having no point guard and no coach/offensive scheme.

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Wow. You just accepted what I was talking about. He is not consistent. Yet, his consistency is good enough for your pathetic standards. Case closed.

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Wow you have horrible reading comprehension. I said he's "Actually been PRETTY consistent recently," and that he's been "MORE consistent than in the past." I never ONCE said that he's been "very consistent" or that 70-75% was my measure of consistency. I said that I would take 70-75% consistency from a 21 year old with no pg or offensive scheme. That amount of consistency is not bad at ALL, even for an average player. There are only so many KGs/Shaqs/Duncans who are probably 90-95% consistent, but the average player is about 80% consistent, and just for you that is on average about 1 bad game out of 5.

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BTW I wonder why you didn't address this..

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Why don't you go ask Orlando how consistent Dwight really is? He's not, he's inconsistent as hell. It's the fact that he's only 21 and has no pg, and please don't say Nelson is a pg, he's an sg in a pg's body who averages 4 apg.

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Dwight also averages 3.7 turnovers per game.

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I didn't address that because that has nothing to do with Smoove being inconsistent.

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Because you were the one saying that Dwight is someone who you know what you're going to get from EVERY night, which is not true. Did you just forget what you had previously said?? Why make a statement if you aren't going to defend it?

[Dukegotgame]

hawksfantic just STFU.

nobody ever said josh is a finished product. all we are saying is with the amazing improvement he has made, the sky is the limit. so to say smith could end up as the best player from his draft class is realistic. your the only "mindless idiot" on this thread and the first to resort to insults since you have nothing better to say.