Here is a theory I have and a question to support

[Lrenfro]

Last year we rode Joe so bad that by seasons end he was Practically useless. My theory is this. This year Joe Chilled a few weeks so that he could finish the season strong. I bring this theory to the for front to make this point or ask this question. If we continue to use a small rotation and have several players with DNP's or a combine game play time of 3 min; how well are we to expect our key players to preform come season end or dare I say post season. In succession this brings out another question, have we already conceded to the Boston Celtics baring we end our drought and make it to the play offs. ? If we have not conceded then are we saving our energy for the playoffs. If you are saving our energy then back to square one. Why are some of our players riding the bench?

[Diesel]

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Last year we rode Joe so bad that by seasons end he was Practically useless. My theory is this. This year Joe Chilled a few weeks so that he could finish the season strong. I bring this theory to the for front to make this point or ask this question. If we continue to use a small rotation and have several players with DNP's or a combine game play time of 3 min; how well are we to expect our key players to preform come season end or dare I say post season. In succession this brings out another question, have we already conceded to the Boston Celtics baring we end our drought and make it to the play offs. ? If we have not conceded then are we saving our energy for the playoffs. If you are saving our energy then back to square one. Why are some of our players riding the bench?

I wouldn't get matchup difficulties and bad coaching confused with JJ taking a break. I believe that there should be something to stop Woody from playing the same lineup over and over again. Woody has yet to develop confidence in other players. It's bad too because Acie is back now, Salim played well for a few games, Chillz is good off the bench, and we need to determine what we have in Solo and Richardson. Woody has to develop the bench.

[Admin]

Woody uses a 7-8 man rotation and he is certainly not the first coach to ever do that but it will eventually wear our team down. I honestly can't fault him though for not having confidence in the bench players although I would really like to see Salim get some more minutes. I think that if he had a couple more veteran guys to bring off the bench he would use them and it really bothers me that for whatever reason we haven't added any quality depth after the Bibby trade.

[TheDude]

even some of our last man standing bench players can get into some action...woody doesnt necessarily need to put all of them in at the same time but having richardson in some minutes with the starting team and also solomon and salim with the same philosophy would help.....even if you play them just a couple/few minutes in the game with the starters, then that helps....i dont know why woody doesnt do this.

[exodus]

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Last year we rode Joe so bad that by seasons end he was Practically useless.

Huh? Last season Joe got hurt and didn't play for the last month due to his calf injury.

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This year Joe Chilled a few weeks so that he could finish the season strong.

That is ridiculous. nobody tries to brick jumpers which is what JJ did a lot the first half of the season.

You give your all every time out. Personally i believe JJ wasn't 100% to start the season but we will never know.

[DChawk]

Yeah i was just watching the highlights of last nights game on NBA.com and one of the play-by-play guys doing the highlight - I think it was Peter Vescey? - was going off on Woodson for playing such a small rotation. I was surprised, he seemed somewhat knowledgeable about the Hawks. He also went off on the lack of fans in the stands and about how much he loved Chillz.

[Admin]

I'm pretty sure that he mentioned his calf was still bothering him and then he started playing a little better and had that thigh injury and really has just recently gotten back to what appears to be 100%. It really bothers me that some people thought he was dogging it out there since that really doesn't seem to be the type of guy that he is but it's great to see him playing out of his mind again like he has been the past few weeks.

[exodus]

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I'm pretty sure that he mentioned his calf was still bothering him and then he started playing a little better and had that thigh injury and really has just recently gotten back to what appears to be 100%.

It really bothers me that some people thought he was dogging it out

there since that really doesn't seem to be the type of guy that he is but it's great to see him playing out of his mind again like he has been the past few weeks.

Yeah that was getting on my last nerve. People sure do have short memories.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

The Hawksquawk conspiracy theories kill me. It was pretty obvious why JJ wasn't playing well, but people wanted to believe something more sinister.

As far as the rotation, I'll say this again . . everybody CAN'T play. To me, Salim has always been a guy with a "go-to scorer" mentality. Because he's so streaky, you almost have to give him 7 - 10 shots a game, to get decent production out of him.

Because he is a scorer and not a shooter, he normally won't come into a game and hit his first few shots. It's almost like it takes him 5 minutes to get going. Well, when you're a bench player with a specific role, you don't have 5 minutes to get going, Especially not when we have an all-star 2-guard that we can play heavy minutes in front of you. And with 2 ballhandlers in Bibby and Acie, it's easy to just keep Salim on the bench.

Salim, West, Solo, and Richardson just aren't good enough to justify playing time every game. Each one of those guys have a SERIOUS negative ( or negatives ) against the one thing that they can do somewhat decent. And the guys ahead of them are FAR AND AWAY better than them, which also makes it easy for Woody to keep them on the bench.

No way I'm taking minutes from Chill, Marvin, Smoove, or JJ, just so our scrub bench can play spot minutes every game. They should only play when someone is in foul trouble or when somebody gets hurt.

If Bibby can't go tomorrow, Salim and possibly West will see more time, with Acie assuming the starting PG position.

[AtLaS]

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Because he is a

scorer

and not a

shooter

,

Actually JJ IS more a shooter than a scorer. Just take a look at Gilbert's 06-07 season vs. JJ's 06-07 season, from the naked eye it would look like he's inefficient compared to JJ. But it's not the truth. Gilbert actually had a better TS% (which measures scoring, not shooting) than JJ, meaning he was a more efficient scorer.

SCORERS tend to get to the FT line more and shoot high %'s from the FT line, like Gilbert because he gets to the line a TON. JJ doesn't get to the line a lot, and this is the first year he's ever shot a good % from the FT line.

I'm not knocking JJ, just saying that he IS more a shooter than a scorer.

[Admin]

I think he was referring to Salim as to being a scorer and not a shooter.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Yes sir. I was referring to Salim, not JJ.

Dol, I think we both know that this is just another attempt to show how "clueless" Woody is. But when you really look at the situation, he's playing the people that he trusts to win games.

The minute we blow a lead with one of those scrubs in the game, they'll be crying about how Woody left him in the game too long.

[Admin]

He really is in a catch 22 type of situation and I think the lesser of 2 evils is to play the guys that he trusts and see what happens. It's better to lose with your stars than with your scrubs. I doubt anyone other than maybe Solo will be back from our scrubs next year anyway so they shouldn't be too concerned with trying to develop them during our playoff chase. If I remember correctly a few years ago Detroit was only about 7 deep and they did pretty well. That might be where Woody got it from.

I think if we had Tlue and Lo back here Woody would use them a lot more than he uses Salim, JRich, and Solo ... but for whatever reason we failed to bring in the depth that we really need.

[lunar]

there is a good chance that alot of them will be back.

the only one that would want to leave is salim so he'll be gone, but seeing as though we have no draft picks and two key free agents to sign there is a very good chance that west and richardson go through summer league and training camp and win the jobs once more. also, solomon will be in his last year so he'll get a spot by default. only way this doesn't happen is if we get multiple players in a Snt for one of the joshes or we sign a vet for the cheap. but more than likely we have the same team next year.

[DJlaysitup]

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He really is in a catch 22 type of situation and I think the lesser of 2 evils is to play the guys that he trusts and see what happens. It's better to lose with your stars than with your scrubs. I doubt anyone other than maybe Solo will be back from our scrubs next year anyway so they shouldn't be too concerned with trying to develop them during our playoff chase....

Agreed Dolfan...we are well past the "rest stage" and we never really were there anyways. Heck, we were down to just AJ as a PG there for awhile. If we had had Bibby all year and another shooter who could get the job done I would fault Woody. One of the things folks don't talk about much when it comes to BK, is the poort job he has done with (high) 2nd round picks. Bk was like a dreamer when it came to the 2nd round - instead of taking a guy who would have topped out as a role player - but at least could be a role player in the league - he tried to find the diamond.

All-in-all, I'm no Woody fan - but he has done what he thinks is best to maximize wins this year...rotation-wise. Giving Salim or Solomon more minutes wasn't going to help...besides...it doesn't matter if our guys are fresh or not if we make the playoffs and play Boston...unless you bet point spreads.

[Lrenfro]

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Last year we rode Joe so bad that by seasons end he was Practically useless.

Huh? Last season Joe got hurt and didn't play for the last month due to his calf injury.

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This year Joe Chilled a few weeks so that he could finish the season strong.

That is ridiculous. nobody tries to brick jumpers which is what JJ did a lot the first half of the season.

You give your all every time out. Personally i believe JJ wasn't 100% to start the season but we will never know.

Exodus, I am not the type to get into these heated arguments however I do question the ability of a lot of squawkers to read and think at the same time. I am not sure how you could quote me and still not understand what was said. I will explain what I mean. The last time I checked if a player has a calf injury he would be practically useless. I am not sure what basketball experience you have but if you don't try your best it would be pretty easy to brick jumpers. You don't have to try to brick jumpers but if you are not trying your best you will brick jumpers.

I too question Joe's health issues but like you said we will ever know. You did read in the subject that this was a theory right?

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I'm pretty sure that he mentioned his calf was still bothering him and then he started playing a little better and had that thigh injury and really has just recently gotten back to what appears to be 100%. It really bothers me that some people thought he was dogging it out there since that really doesn't seem to be the type of guy that he is but it's great to see him playing out of his mind again like he has been the past few weeks.

ahhh here we go again. If my calf was still bothering me I would chill for a few weeks until it was better so that I could finish the year strong. I am not saying he was dogging it out. Just taking it easy for the benefit of the team so that he will not have an injury at the end of the season.

I love coming to Hawksquawk because of the debates. I do believe however if we could learn to read and think at the same time that we could have better conversations and we will probably figure out that most of the time that we are arguing, we actually are agreeing in a different way. But I guess our threads would not be as long then. I still love you guys come nights end though.

Ok I am ready for the rebuttal's. Not to say I will respond but I welcome the usual.

[exodus]

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The last time I checked if a player has a calf injury he would be practically useless.

You didn't mention the injury in your original post. All you talked about was "riding him too hard".

JJ's injury wasn't from playing too many minutes. It was from two sharp blows to his calf. His minutes were irrelevant to his injury. It wouldn't have mattered if he was playing only 20 minutes a game. An injury is an injury. It should also be noted that JJ has played big minutes his whole career.

You don't get a hematoma just because your team is riding you too hard.

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I am not sure what basketball experience you have but if you don't try your best it would be pretty easy to brick jumpers. You don't have to try to brick jumpers but if you are not trying your best you will brick jumpers.

If a player isn't trying hard it will show up on things that require a lot of effort (getting back on D, fighting through screens, rotating quickly on D, challenging shots). Taking a jumper doesn't require much effort. Everyone tries to make every shot they take.

The notion that JJ wasn't trying as hard to make his jumpers early in the season is ridiculous.