Andersen NOT coming to the Hawks?

[Admin]

Hmmm... I might take that back. I confess I didn't think that hard about Drew Gooden previously. What's the wisdom here on Gooden as a 4th guy in the low post?

I'd sign Gooden in a heartbeat. We really need someone off the bench that can score in the low post other than put backs like medium Z.

[Admin]

There's a reason why Gooden has been on 6 teams in 7 seasons.

Because he has limitations. There's no reason why he couldn't be a quality backup for someone who had realistic expectations for him.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

It pretty much says that D.A wants playing time and he doesn't think he will get much pt with Zaza being resized.

Well damn . . . if he doesn't think he can beat out ZaZa for playing time, then keep his azz over there. If this is true, this shows that he's not much of a competitor, and expects his playing time to be handed to him.

Zaza? He's worried about friggin Zaza?

Keep him in Europe if that's the case. We don't need him.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

So Andersen is the bad guy now because he wants to actually EARN the money he'd get? He just doesn't want to walk in the same situation like other not so young Euros like Kutluay & Macijauskas, if he can't get 15-25 minutes it would just waste his and the team's time. Now that Zaza is re-signed it's just very unlikely, that he can get those minutes, cause the guard minutes will be completely eaten up by Bibby/Teague/Crawford/JJ/Flip???, SF minutes will be used by JJ/Evans/Marvin(hopefully), so that leaves 96 minutes, Smith and Horford will get around 35 each, now we have 26 minutes left, the Hawks didn't pay Zaza to sit around (and he wouldn't have signed if he wasn't promised regular playing time), so he'll get at least 15, which means Acie Law minutes for Andersen. Of course it would be nice for the Hawks to have additional depth, but I believe Andersen would've left anyway after a year with so few minutes.

If he's any good, he'd get more than 15 minutes a game, and would take minutes from Horford and Smith ( probably reducing them to 30 minutes a game ) . . and may render Zaza useless. But even if he didn't, this could easily be the rotation of minutes, if we try to go 10 deep.

PG: Bibby ( 30 ) . . Crawford ( 12 ) . . Teague ( 6 )

G: JJ ( 35 ) . . Crawford ( 13 )

SF: Marvin ( 32 ) . . Evans ( 8 ) . . Smith ( 8 . . which I don't like, but would experiment with )

PF: Smith ( 24 ) . . Andersen ( 16 ) . . Horford ( 8 )

C: Horford ( 24 ) . . Zaza ( 16 ) . . Andersen ( 8 )

So if the dude was any good, he could get 24 min/gm. But if he wants to play big minutes, just trade his rights to Sacramento or something.

[BigDirty]

In fantasy land that minute breakdown might be possible, but there is ZERO chance that this would happen in reality. Smith most likely will not accept a reduced role. Zaza didn't sign here so he could play less than before, if you think he wasn't promised a certain amount of playing time you're kidding yourself. Andersen would get Acie minutes at first and considering that he'll most likely need some time to adjust to the league his minutes (he needed more than a month to adjust to the spanish league) would sink even more under the Woodster.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

In fantasy land that minute breakdown might be possible, but there is ZERO chance that this would happen in reality. Smith most likely will not accept a reduced role. Zaza didn't sign here so he could play less than before, if you think he wasn't promised a certain amount of playing time you're kidding yourself. Andersen would get Acie minutes at first and considering that he'll most likely need some time to adjust to the league his minutes (he needed more than a month to adjust to the spanish league) would sink even more under the Woodster.

Fantasy land? Reduced role? What are you talking about?

Part of the problem with this team, was that our top 2 guys ( namely Smith and JJ ) would play an extreme amount of minutes to begin with.

Smith isn't going to complain about playing 3 less minutes a game ( from 35 minutes last year to 32 now under my distribution ), as long as he's getting touches on offense. 32 minutes is probably what he should be playing anyway, to keep him relatively fresh throughout the season. That simply means that he's out of the game for 6 minutes each half, instead of 4 1/2 minutes each half. That's not a reduced role.

Zaza played 19 minutes a game last year. His playing time was dependent on how well he was playing. If he played well, he got more minutes and Horford and Smoove sat longer. If he played bad, Woody didn't waste any time with keeping him on the bench.

So playing Zaza 16 minutes a game isn't much of a dip either, because he wasn't going to play 20+ minutes at center anyway, with Horford in the middle and another big man in the mix. He's a backup center playing typical backup minutes. Zaza came back not because of the playing time, but because we offered him more money . . period.

From what I've seen of Andersen, he'd instantly prove his worth on offense, simply because he has a better offensive game than both Horford and Zaza right now. That's why he'd get minutes if he's brought over.

What will happen, is that Andersen and Zaza will start to battle for minutes at the 5. If Andersen proved that he could be effective offensively and defensively at the 5, he would take minutes from Zaza.

If Andersen has trouble with the NBA game, and couldn't beat out Zaza, guess what? Bury him on the bench.

But just because Zaza re-signed with the Hawks, doesn't mean that Woody has to play him. If we bring in a guy who is better than Zaza, guess what happens to him? He gets buried on the bench or see his PT reduced significantly. If we somehow traded for a Marcus Camby, Zaza isn't seeing much minutes at all, simply because he chose to re-sign.

That's why I say that if Andersen is worried about Zaza, of all people, taking playing time away from him, he's better off playing in the soft Euro league.

At least we know Zaza isn't soft.

Edited July 11, 2009 by northcyde

[BigDirty]

So a healthy Smith will accept less playing time? Yeah we've seen how mature he is in the past. His shots would decrease too because Crawford, Teague & Andersen would take more shots than Flip & Law.

Woody will suddenly give Smith time at SF eventhough he got almost no SF time during the last two years?

A healthy (and hopefully further improved) Marvin will get less minutes?

How did Zaza react when Horford took his starting job? I'm sure he'll be super happy to lose even more time. He agreed here for 4/19, he could've easily gotten a similiar offer from another team.

With your fantasy land minutes you'd have at least two disgruntled front court players.

Bury Andersen on the bench if he struggles? Thanks for making my point, that's exactly why it doesn't make sense for him to sign here. Why would he take less money to walk into a situation that just might waste one year of his career, dude isn't 20 years old, either give him a big enough role or leave him in Spain.

What you always seem to forget with your minute breakdowns is that players have egos and Woody has proven time and time again that he'll play his starters heavy minutes and forget about the bench.

[exodus]

As north says if he is worried about finding minutes in Atlanta then that makes me wonder if he really believes he is an NBA player. What other team could he conceivably get big minutes with? it isn't like the Hawks front line rotation is that strong.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

So a healthy Smith will accept less playing time? Yeah we've seen how mature he is in the past. His shots would decrease too because Crawford, Teague & Andersen would take more shots than Flip & Law.

That's going to happen ANYWAY, just by the presence of Crawford here. That's why I'm so against him playing more than 25 minutes a game. He's jacking up a minimum of 12 shots next year, if not more. Smith will get his touches. But it's also important for Smith to become more active on the offensive boards to generate more chances for himself.

If you add Andersen to the mix, you do have to see if he can help you offensively. Crawford is the one that has to be limited from a shot standpoint. Smoove only needs to stop falling in love with the outside shot, and become more active around the rim.

And for Smith's career, he's averaged 33 minutes a game. Playing him 32 minutes, as long as he's in the game during those critical last 4 - 5 minutes, won't be a big deal at all for Smith.

Woody will suddenly give Smith time at SF eventhough he got almost no SF time during the last two years?

He's done it with Smith before. In fact, he did it when Marvin went down in March. I'm against doing it. But with the right personnel grouping ( maybe a fast lineup consisting of Flip, Crawford, Smith, Horford, and Andersen/Wilcox ) it may can work in short stretches. But if Woody wanted to make way for Andersen, moving Smoove to play SF for a few minutes is a way to do it.

A healthy (and hopefully further improved) Marvin will get less minutes?

Once again, you talk like I'm significantly reducing Marvin's minutes. He averaged 34 last year. This year, he'll get 32 . . all at SF. For his career, Marvin has averaged 31.7 minutes/gm.

How did Zaza react when Horford took his starting job? I'm sure he'll be super happy to lose even more time. He agreed here for 4/19, he could've easily gotten a similiar offer from another team.

LOL . . he didn't react well at all. But he got over that ish. He had no choice. Even without Andersen here, Zaza probably isn't playing more than 20 minutes/gm. Horford is our center, and will get the bulk of the minutes there.

And let's keep one thing straight about Zaza. Zaza is a scrapper that crashes the boards ( usually his own misses ). But in reality, he isn't even as good as Anderson Varejao. So don't talk like he's this stud center. He's a reserve center who isn't good enough to be a starter. And if we bring in someone who is better than him, and will help us more, he's going to see his playing time cut. Zaza is only important to us, because he's the only true big man we have. Why do you think the rest of the board wants to bring in another big man?

With your fantasy land minutes you'd have at least two disgruntled front court players.

Smoove will get his time, so he won't be disgruntled. He may get disgruntled at Crawford, for jacking up all those shots though.

As for Zaza, if we get a guy who is better than Zaza . . . who cares? He's a reserve center who is a fan favorite. But if he is so valued, why didn't other teams swoop in and offer him a contract more than what he got here? It wasn't a single team in the league that was willing to pay Zaza 5 million + dollars. And we didn't either.

Bury Andersen on the bench if he struggles? Thanks for making my point, that's exactly why it doesn't make sense for him to sign here. Why would he take less money to walk into a situation that just might waste one year of his career, dude isn't 20 years old, either give him a big enough role or leave him in Spain.

If Andersen were a CONFIDENT player, he'd have no doubt in his mind that he could get playing time on the Hawks. If he can't take some of Zaza's minutes away from him, the Hawks probably don't need him anyway. But if he came here, and he struggled offensively and defensively, you dang right he'd be buried on the bench. Let him play it safe, and stay in Europe, if he can't beat out Zaza 'friggin' Pachulia.

What you always seem to forget with your minute breakdowns is that players have egos and Woody has proven time and time again that he'll play his starters heavy minutes and forget about the bench.

Woody played the starters heavy minutes, because we had scrubs on the bench behind the starters, for the most part. But when those bench players played well, Woody has ALWAYS played the bench.

- when Lue was a bench player, he played him

- when Zaza got his head out of his arse, he played him

- when Childress was the 6th man off the bench, he played him almost starter's minutes

- when Mo Evans got here, he played him

- when Flip proved that he was a baller, he played him, even to the extent of playing him over Bibby at the end of games.

The fact is this. The guys that Woody didn't play off the bench, were the inconsistent young players that he didn't want to wait on. But even they got their shot ( Acie, Shelden, Salim ). They just couldn't consistently perform.

The Hawks are at a position now, where the emphasis is on winning, not development. So the guys who Woody will play the most, are going to be the guys who will most help us win games.

So if Zaza's minutes gets cut in favor of a guy who proves to be an immeadiate upgrade over Zaza ( whether it be Andersen, or Wilcox, or whomever Hawksquawk or the Hawk organization wants ) , then whoop-dee-damn-doo about Zaza's feelings about not playing.

We can't please everybody on the future 15-man roster.

Edited July 11, 2009 by northcyde

[TheNorthCydeRises]

As north says if he is worried about finding minutes in Atlanta then that makes me wonder if he really believes he is an NBA player. What other team could he conceivably get big minutes with? it isn't like the Hawks front line rotation is that strong.

I'll even take that a step further Ex, since you don't necessarily like Horford's offensive game.

If Andersen did prove to be our best low post scorer, Woody would be hard pressed to keep him out of the game. We all know the struggles that Smith and Horford have in the post. So if Andersen solved that problem, Woody would definitely play that guy . . . at the expense of BOTH Smith and Horford . . and definitely at the expense of Zaza.

But like you said, you have to wonder if he even believes that he is an NBA player, if he has concerns about not getting playing time with the Hawks.