Conley/Stuckey vs Horford/Law

[Packfill]

I don't disagree that they both need to become bigger parts of the offense, I just don't trust that they are allowed the freedom to do so. From appearances it seems like Horford's role is to set picks and pass from the top of the key or slightly in to the shooters coming off of picks. I just have an extremely hard time believing that a guy who was demanding the ball against Perk/KG on the low block has all of the sudden become a "pansy", especially not when you consider how unorthodox our offense is.

I think you are giving Woody too much credit for "defining roles." I honestly think he starts out every game giving the ball to JJ to see how he is going, and if he is not on fire, tells JJ to pass and Bibby to look for his shot. He is reactive.

[Admin]

I think you are giving Woody too much credit for "defining roles." I honestly think he starts out every game giving the ball to JJ to see how he is going, and if he is not on fire, tells JJ to pass and Bibby to look for his shot. He is reactive.

I don't think it's giving him too much credit to think that Woody's offense is to look for Bibby or JJ after the double with Horford near the FT line and Marvin and Smoove standing around waiting for the ball and if Bibby or JJ can't get a shot up, pass it into Horford and wait for one of the guards or forwards to get open off of a pick. There's not much to that.

[Traceman]

No chance at all.

I seriously doubt it has been Josh Smith's role to jack up 3s but that hasn't stopped him from doing it.

Horford and Marvin have had their minutes handed to them from day 1. Their situation has no relevance to Acie's. No matter how bad Horford plays he is a lock to get big minutes in the following game.

Comparing the criticism that Horford gets to the criticism Marvin has gotten is like comparing Shaq to Spud Webb in terms of size.

Horford had his minutes handed to him? Are you serious? He came in and TOOK Zaza's job. Period. He was without question one of the two best rookies in the NBA last year and many thought he should have been ROY.

Marvin was in an entirely different situation than Al and Acie. His situation was similar to that which Durant and Green were in last year. The team was CLEARLY in rebuilding mode then and it simply made sense to focus on developing your most talented players rather than playing more mature guys who were probably better at the time.

I still find it hilarious that people accuse Woody of not giving the young guys a chance when this is his FIFTH year and his starting frontline at 22/23/22 is the OLDEST it has been since we traded Harrington and Walker in his first year. Along with POR (who's frontline also averages 22.3 YOA), we have the youngest frontline in the league of any team with a winning record (and maybe of any team with ANY record). He even started off last year giving Acie a chance to start. Not Woody's fault that Acie couldn't stay healthy or perfrom well enough when he was healthy to keep the job.

[exodus]

Horford had his minutes handed to him? Are you serious? He came in and TOOK Zaza's job. Period. He was without question one of the two best rookies in the NBA last year and many thought he should have been ROY.

You misunderstood what i was saying. Horford had no competition at all. Zaza blows. Horford has never had to worry about losing minutes due to poor play. Neither has Marvin.

Acie has two guys in front of him that are having career years. His situation is completely different than Horford's and Marvin's. Saying that Horford is reluctant to shoot because of what is happening to Acie is ridiculous.

I still find it hilarious that people accuse Woody of not giving the young guys a chance when this is his FIFTH year and his starting frontline at 22/23/22 is the OLDEST it has been since we traded Harrington and Walker in his first year. Along with POR (who's frontline also averages 22.3 YOA), we have the youngest frontline in the league of any team with a winning record (and maybe of any team with ANY record). He even started off last year giving Acie a chance to start. Not Woody's fault that Acie couldn't stay healthy or perfrom well enough when he was healthy to keep the job.

I am not sure why you are directing this to me since it has no relevance to anything i have posted in this thread.

[Traceman]

You misunderstood what i was saying. Horford had no competition at all. Zaza blows. Horford has never had to worry about losing minutes due to poor play. Neither has Marvin.

Acie has two guys in front of him that are having career years. His situation is completely different than Horford's and Marvin's. Saying that Horford is reluctant to shoot because of what is happening to Acie is ridiculous.

I am not sure why you are directing this to me since it has no relevance to anything i have posted in this thread.

My fault if you thought I was directing that last part to you. I should have been more clear. I was actually just making a general statement about "people" on the board who accuse Woody of not playing Acie because he "doesn't play the young guys."

As for Horford, I could certainly be wrong but I think his reluctance to try to take bigger slower guys off the dribble is more about his own lack of confidence putting the ball on the floor in traffic and shooting off the dribble than it is a reluctance to shoot. As his skills develop, I hope to see him attack slower guys more. I thought he made a few nice moves last night. Even though Maxiell blocked the dunk, I LOVED how he took it strong to the hoop on that one play and tried to dunk. Hopefully, that is a sign of things to come. He DID finish a similar play later for a monster jam. In addition, he made a sweet bank shot off the glass on a nice post move.

[exodus]

My fault if you thought I was directing that last part to you. I should have been more clear. I was actually just making a general statement about "people" on the board who accuse Woody of not playing Acie because he "doesn't play the young guys."

Last year I felt strongly that Acie should be getting more minutes because the guys in front of him sucked and the Hawks were losing. Even after we got Bibby i felt he should be playing more. Bibby was already coming off an injury and got hurt in his first game with us.

This year the Hawks are in 4th place and Bibby/Flip are having big years. I would like to see Acie play more but the bottom line is that in this situation he is going to have to produce consistently to get more time.

As for Horford, I could certainly be wrong but I think his reluctance to try to take bigger slower guys off the dribble is more about his own lack of confidence putting the ball on the floor in traffic and shooting off the dribble than it is a reluctance to shoot. As his skills develop, I hope to see him attack slower guys more. I thought he made a few nice moves last night. Even though Maxiell blocked the dunk, I LOVED how he took it strong to the hoop on that one play and tried to dunk. Hopefully, that is a sign of things to come. He DID finish a similar play later for a monster jam. In addition, he made a sweet bank shot off the glass on a nice post move.

I just think Horford is timid and lacks court sense. How many times have you seen him fake a jump hook or a turnaround J?

He shoots his midrange jumpers better than Smith but takes far fewer of them. That is on him. He can handle the ball fine. he is much less likely to turn it over on a drive than he is when he is trying to back someone down. he turns it over all the time on post ups. the back to the basket nonsense needs to stop.

he needs to get more aggressive and play smarter, but i think the aggressiveness has to come first. he isn't going to learn how to score if he doesn't try.

[GST]

I wanted Conley because I thought (and still do think) he had a higher ceiling than Horford. However, with Woodson as coach, I doubt picking Conley would have worked out (unless it caused Woodson to get fired, then it would have been a great pick).

[Diesel]

I don't think there were any Conley and Stuckey camps were there? I believe that the 2 biggest camps were Conley/best big left and Horford/best PG left and then you had all sorts of debates about which PG that was between Law, Stuckey, and Critt.

I believe Horford is the best player of them all and easily fills our biggest need of a starting center as opposed to a backup PG, especially considering that Law has shown when he gets PT that he can put up good stats.

Actually, there was really no Stuckey camp? There may have been 1 game claiming Stuckey but the arguments were Yi, Al, Conley Jr.. with the second pick being Law or Critt or Noah or whoever else we thought we could get after Conley Jr.

[HawksBalla]

I wanted Conley and then the best big available. Then we could have used the Shelden Williams trade to bring in a solid veteran point guard and a shooter for the bench. I know they said Conley couldnt shoot, but neither could Kobe or Jordan when they first joined the league. You can be taught. Conley, Smith, Chills, JJ and Marvin would have ran teams off the court.

That said, I was happy with Horford and Law when the draft was over. Horford seemed just tall enough to play center for us, and I figured Acie being an senior all-american he would seasoned and able to contribute right away. 1 out of 2 aint bad I suppose.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

On draft day it seemed like the two biggest camps here wanted Conley/Stuckey or Horford Law. I wanted Conley/Stuckey and i still think we would be better off with those two.

Both Conley and Stuckey are really coming into their own now. Conley is averaging 9 ppg on the season and his production is picking up rapidly. Last month he averaged 15/6. On the season his EFG% on jumpers is better than Marvins. He is shooting 38% on 3s.

Stuckey is averaging 14/5 on the season and averaged 17 ppg last month. At the time of the draft i felt like he would be the perfect guy to fill the role Childress tried to play but couldn't, backing up the 1 and 2.

Meanwhile Horford is averaging 10/8. The logic for drafting Horford is that we needed size and inside scoring. We still have those needs even with Horford. Law obviously hasn't worked out as hoped.

If we had Conley and Stuckey our pg issues would be solved long term. As it stands now there is no clear answer.

But we would still need a big man in the middle. Horford isn't the greatest big man in the middle, but he's a drastic upgrade over Zaza. Seeing that there are really no other big men available, Horford fills his role pretty well for us.

As for Law, it's all in how you look at the situation.

If Law were in Memphis, he'd be splitting time with Kyle Lowry, just like Conley is. If he were in Detroit, he would've been the back up to Chauncey, and probably playing every night.

When Woody decided to give into AJ's whining, and made a commitment to play him in a 3-man rotation at the point, that effectively stunted Acie's learning curve. And it didn't help that as soon as Woody decided to start Acie, he gets hurt and is out for a significant amount of time. Then AJ has the "great" December ( for him ), which limits Acie's time on the court even more.

In Woody's offense, a Stuckey - Conley combo at the point may have been decent. But it'll all depend on how many minutes Conley and Stuckey would've seen on the court. On last year's team, there's no way in the world that Conley plays more than AJ or Lue. Stuckey may not have seen much time either, playing behind JJ, and almost strictly playing the 2 here.

It wouldn't have been until this year, that a guy like Stuckey would've gotten a chance to play major minutes. And even that would've depended on if Chill was retained or not. Conley would still be behind Bibby. And if we still acquire Flip, he'd see Flip cut into his time as well.

So when you really look at it . . . FOR US . . . just having Horford is > than having both Conley and Stuckey, mainly because JJ handles the ball so much anyway. Horford's presence enables us to have an undersized, but one of the most athletic and fastest frontcourts in the NBA. And JJ has always been our defacto PG ever since he stepped foot in ATL. He's the main facilitator.

To see what Law can do with this squad, we'll probably need Bibby to go down for a few weeks. Acie has to change his mindset though. He needs to be on the attack as soon as he steps on the court. He's the fastest guy on the team with the ball, so he needs to start playing like it.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

I wanted Conley and then the best big available. Then we could have used the Shelden Williams trade to bring in a solid veteran point guard and a shooter for the bench. I know they said Conley couldnt shoot, but neither could Kobe or Jordan when they first joined the league. You can be taught. Conley, Smith, Chills, JJ and Marvin would have ran teams off the court.

That said, I was happy with Horford and Law when the draft was over. Horford seemed just tall enough to play center for us, and I figured Acie being an senior all-american he would seasoned and able to contribute right away. 1 out of 2 aint bad I suppose.

I see that Memphis team play a lot. The difference is that Conley is getting major playing time now, especially with Lowry hurt. But they decided to bench Lowry anyway, in the middle of that losing streak. They're content with letting Conley develop, and it's paying off lately.

We just won't be able to see what Law can truly do, until he starts to get major minutes. And there's just not many minutes for Law these days, unless you want to reduce JJ, Bibby, and/or Flip's minutes. That's why he always needs to be in attack mode, as soon as he enters a game. He has to get the mindset that he needs to impact the game IMMEADIATELY.

Woody is very content with riding or dying with his "core 8" though. And as long as we're winning, I can't have much problem with that.