Merged: Insider request: Hollinger on the Hawks

[atlien]

Insider: Are the Hawks for real?

Can someone post this up! Should be interesting, considering how down he was on us before the season.

Thanks!

[volman]

Hollinger has the Hawks at #2 in the power rankings!

Sheesh, you'd think for all those stats and PER rankings, we'd be at least a little lower.

Remember, we DON'T have childress anymore! haha.

Glad to see the Hawks are still getting some recognition....

LINK

[atlien]

Oh and we are Number 2 in his first power rankings:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/po...mp;lid=tab3pos1

[emorywjs]

Anyone has ESPN insider? Hollinger put up an article on ESPN "Wrong about Hawks". Want to know what he is writing. Anyone can paste here. Tks.

[volman]

Does anyone have Insider? I used to have it, but not anymore.. There's some more Hollinger stuff on the Hawks..

LINK

Much appreciated!

[atlien]

lol looks like there´s sufficient topics on this one!

[Boomer]

Five more thoughts on the NBA:

1. The Hawks are a good team.

Or, more specifically, there is a 99.1 percent chance that the Hawks are a good team.

For an NBA team to win its first six games is an accomplishment; for a team to do so when four of the six games are on the road is particularly impressive. If the Hawks were an average team and played an average schedule over the first six games (Atlanta's schedule was probably more difficult than average, but just play along with me here), the odds of their winning six straight, when four of the six are on the road, would be just 0.9 percent.

Thus, six games into the season, we can reject the idea that the Hawks are an average team, at least until we're provided with substantial contrary evidence in the coming games. As for the idea that they'll go 31-51, as some crackpot said before the season started -- well, that can be dismissed even more readily. Using the same assumptions as above, there is only a 0.17 percent chance that a 31-win team could pull off such a feat in its first six games.

So, the assumption we'll work from, until further notice, is that the Hawks are good -- probably 50-win good, provided Josh Smith gets back with reasonable speed (and based on how quickly he returned from a groin injury two years ago, that's a fairly safe assumption.)

[Boomer]

That makes me so happy to see Hollinger eat his crow. He was really getting on my nerves with all of his doom and gloom predictions for the Hawks this offseason.

[Admin]

Here is the rest:

2. If you need a diversion from the constant AI chatter in Detroit, check out what Tayshaun Prince has been doing. He has blown up, averaging 18.7 points and 7.7 boards while shooting 11-of-17 on 3-pointers; currently, those number are good enough to rank him 12th in the league in PER. Prince is averaging twice as many free throws as his career norm and has made 34-of-37; additionally, he only has nine turnovers in seven games. It's a pretty amazing start for a player who had produced four consecutive seasons of near-identical performance, and one that's worth monitoring to see how long he can keep it up.

3. The one positive of the Al Harrington situation in Golden State is that it forced the Warriors to use a player who was better anyway. Brandan Wright isn't the floor-spacing big man that Don Nelson loves, but he's productive in multiple ways for Golden State. The lefty sophomore is shooting 54.3 percent from the floor and blocking a shot every 11.3 minutes; those numbers come on the heels of a rookie season in which he played very well in limited action (377 minutes). He might have earned the coaches' trust last night as well: He made several key plays down the stretch as the Warriors came back to beat Minnesota in overtime.

4. I had mentioned that J.R. Smith might be the biggest beneficiary of the Chauncey Billups trade, but somebody forgot to tell J.R. His season has been nothing short of disastrous thus far -- he's 6-for-28 on 3s, shooting 38.8 percent from the floor and has a 9.51 PER, all of which is a far cry from the mind-blowing numbers he put up in the second half last season.

About the only good news for him is that the Nuggets are so thin they have to keep playing him and hope he snaps out of the slump -- heck, even Cheikh Samb got some run last night. And if you're into seeing the glass as half full, Smith does have a recent history of playing better in the second half of the season. Still, this is a terrible start for a player who had breakout potential.

5. We've been a little slow on this story south of the border, but people continue to scratch their heads about the Raptors' decision to essentially freeze out star forward Chris Bosh in the fourth quarter of Toronto's 94-87 loss to Boston on Monday. Bosh played the final 8:18 without a shot or a free throw, as the Raptors opted to put the ball in the hands of Jermaine O'Neal, Jose Calderon or Anthony Parker instead.

What made it so odd was it came directly after a game in Charlotte in which Bosh put the whole team on his back in the second half, completely dominating the play as Toronto rallied for a win. Perhaps the Raps would have lost anyway -- they were facing the defending champs on the road, after all -- but if the plan of attack is (A) unconventional, and (B) doesn't work, the coach is going to be left open for scathing criticism. And right now, Sam Mitchell is taking the heat.

[exodus]

As for the idea that they'll go 31-51, as some crackpot said before the season started -- well, that can be dismissed even more readily.

LOL

So, the assumption we'll work from, until further notice, is that the Hawks are good -- probably 50-win good, provided Josh Smith gets back with reasonable speed (and based on how quickly he returned from a groin injury two years ago, that's a fairly safe assumption.)

Wow that is a pretty bold prediction, but then again all of his predictions come from the numbers.

[capstone21]

Hollinger has the Hawks at #2 in the power rankings!

Sheesh, you'd think for all those stats and PER rankings, we'd be at least a little lower.

Remember, we DON'T have childress anymore! haha.

Glad to see the Hawks are still getting some recognition....

LINK

I think his whole formula is stupid and means absolutely nothing.

[Johann]

Atlien, how did you get the squiggle over the "n" in "senor?"

[bird_dirt]

Oh and we are Number 2 in his first power rankings:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/po...mp;lid=tab3pos1

wtf? i'm glad we're 2, but he's got the 4-2 hornets over the champion c's, and the pacers over the jazz? he must be off his meds.

[crimedog]

Not Hollinger, but his formula for calculating power rankings. He doesn't personally rank them, which is one aspect of Hollinger I like. However, you can definitely have beef with how he weights his formula.

Yeah, past performance/talent/injuries/etc. aren't factored. In fact, I'm not entirely sure that record is part of the calculation. It weights recent performance highly and does so with margin of victory and strength of schedule. So the hornets don't have the margin (or record) that the Cs do, but they have a tougher sched.

The Blazers are 4-3 with a tough sched but since they had a blowout loss, their margin kicked them down to 16... however their tough sched keeps them ahead of the Magic who have a very good margin of victory but a weak schedule.

The biggest problem with it at this point in the season (to me at least) is that its only weighed against this season so through 7 games, one big win or loss can really throw your margin of victory (defeat) out of whack.

[BossTweed]

Wow that is a pretty bold prediction, but then again all of his predictions come from the numbers.

Yeah, I was surprised he jumped all the way to 50 wins. Portland won 13 games in a row last year and ended up 41-41. Of course, only 3 of those were on the road.