Is the team underachieving?

[Plainview1981]

It seems to me that Jamal is a player that really benefits from the lack of direction of the offense because he is free to go one on one everytime he get the ball. But would he play as well in a more structured system? If so, I would argue the team is underachieving. While Joe struggled early in the season, as of late he has for the most part shown why he had made the all star team 3 years in a row. Josh was snubbed, and even though Al might not totally deserve his bid, he did get in. Some feel that Jamal deserve to go. Looking at that, this team has underachieved. They basically got the same record as SA while only Duncan has played really well for them this season.

They should be getting more production out of ZaZa, Mo, Joe and Teague, but the team rarely gets easy baskets outside of a Josh Smith dunk. I think part of the problem is that Woody goes to the bench and puts in all role players sometimes, but these guys are bench players for a reason. When you put them all on the floor at the same time they will struggle to be production. I think Marvin should be benched for Mo Evans. I know Marvin is the better player, but Mano has been backing up worse players for years, but it balances out the team. Mo is a spot up 3pt shooter so you can't expect him to produce when he is surrounded by ZaZa and Joe Smith. The team did just fine when Marvin was out of the starting line up last season. Coming off the bench with both Crawford and Marvin would give the bench a real boost and I don't believe it would effect the starting lineup that much.

[tbhawksfan]

Wouldn't hurt to try, but Woody wouldn't wanna try something new for the first time

[swolehawk2]

I said the same two weeks ago; Mo plays a lot better with the starters because he is a utility type guy that can hit open 3s.

Marvin is too passive with the starters but with the 2nd unit he can be more aggressive.

Not only would I make that move; I would start Jamal. I want to play with leads instead of falling behind and catching up.

You can get 17 pts of the bench from Marvin and Bibby...let Bibby play pick and roll/pop with Joe and ZZ, hopefully that would get more out of them because they are currently giving us nothing.

I don't think Woodson has the balls to do it, though.

[DJlaysitup]

Yep Hot is normally an insane person...but in this situation it was a moment of clarity.

Marvin is just a guy running around. He's 6-8 but he plays like 6-6. He has to be totally set up for shots....then makes less that 50%...on setups.

Edited February 9, 2010 by DJlaysitup

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Just another way to diss Marvin and Woody I see. Hotlanta is on record of saying that this team wouldn't win more games than they did last year. Underachieving? Yeah right.

* swept Boston

* swept Portland when they were full strength

* won 2 of 3 in Texas

* had win streaks of 7 and 6 games

* haven't had more than a 4 game losing streak

* home record is one of the best in the league

* Josh Smith having arguably his best all-around season ever, and shooting over 50% FG for the first time ever.

* Al Horford making the All-Star team, and shooting a career high in FG%

* Jamal Crawford, a career 40% FG shooter, is shooting 46% ( anything over 44% would be a career high for a season )

* Joe Johnson taking over games with his scoring, especially on the road - and is shooting the best he's shot in Atlanta since having Al Harrington as a teammate.

* winning games despite the below average play of the complimentary bench players: Zaza, Mo, Joe Smith, and Teague

* viewed by most around the league as a borderline elite team

* has turned the Big 3 in the East, into the Big 4

Underachieving? No way. Marvin and Bibby may be playing below expections, but JJ, Josh, Al, and Crawford are dang near playing at All-Star levels. This team, including the coach, has so far gone beyond expectations this season.

If anything, they're OVERACHIEVED . . . if only slightly. But they're definitely not underachieving.

Edited February 9, 2010 by northcyde

[TheNorthCydeRises]

LOL . . . if we have underachieved, what is our record supposed to be?

34 - 15?

37 - 13?

39 - 10?

LOL . . . some of you need to stop. If someone would've told me before the season that the Hawks would have a shot to win their 33rd game out of 50 games, I would've been like . . . Damn, we'd be having a great season !!!

Some players are playing below expectations, while others are playing above what we expected. We've lost some games we definitely should've won, and won games we definitely should've lost.

This is why I LOL all the time on this board. Because no matter how well or bad this team does, people will always say that "if Woody would do this . . or if Woody wasn't here . . . blah, blah, blah,blah, blah"

I told everyone this board that if Jamal Crawford shot 45% FG, that you better give Woody a chunk of the credit for that. No other coach has gotten him to be that efficient of a shooter, for an entire season. So if Jamal keeps playing at this level, give Woody his due in knowing exactly how to use Jamal.

Could it be the other way around? Could it be the fact that Jamal gets to almost solely concentrate in being a scorer, that has elevated his game? Shoot, Woody has even elevated Jamal's defensive game somewhat.

As for Bibby, he has to be the starter, or at the very least, be on the floor when JJ or Crawford is playing. Putting Bibby out there with the 2nd unit would force Bibby to create his own shot, instead of playing off the ball, waiting for a pass. He plays very well off of JJ, so he should continue to play alongside him.

As for Marvin, he's been playing with the 2nd unit off and on, the entire year. And he's still struggled to score consistently. Move Marvin to the bench and elevate Evans is a decent idea . . IF . . . Marvin is struggling mightily and is actually hurting the starting 5 with his presence.

At that point, moving Marvin to the bench should be used to gain some of his confidence back. But even then, you don't cut his minutes to give to an inefficient Evans. You play them both the same amount of minutes ( edit: that they're playing now ). You're just merely switching up when they play.

Edited February 9, 2010 by northcyde

[Plainview1981]

Just another way to diss Marvin and Woody I see. Hotlanta is on record of saying that this team wouldn't win more games than they did last year. Underachieving? Yeah right.

* swept Boston

* swept Portland when they were full strength

* won 2 of 3 in Texas

* had win streaks of 7 and 6 games

* haven't had more than a 4 game losing streak

* home record is one of the best in the league

* Josh Smith having arguably his best all-around season ever, and shooting over 50% FG for the first time ever.

* Al Horford making the All-Star team, and shooting a career high in FG%

* Jamal Crawford, a career 40% FG shooter, is shooting 46% ( anything over 44% would be a career high for a season )

* Joe Johnson taking over games with his scoring, especially on the road - and is shooting the best he's shot in Atlanta since having Al Harrington as a teammate.

* winning games despite the below average play of the complimentary bench players: Zaza, Mo, Joe Smith, and Teague

* viewed by most around the league as a borderline elite team

* has turned the Big 3 in the East, into the Big 4

Underachieving? No way. Marvin and Bibby may be playing below expections, but JJ, Josh, Al, and Crawford are dang near playing at All-Star levels. This team, including the coach, has so far gone beyond expectations this season.

If anything, they're OVERACHIEVED . . . if only slightly. But they're definitely not underachieving.

-Still get killed by Orlando

-Still losing to Cleveland

-Still get whipped by a SA team that has struggled to beat good teams all year.

-Two L's at home to NY

-Blow out loss to Charlotte

I don't need to make a thread just to take shots at Marvin. His mediocre play speaks for it's self. The teamhas said many of times that they failed to play with energy. The "coach" has admitted to ignoring half the game in practice, and the defense (What he spends so much time on) isn't even that good. Record wise the biggest difference this year is being 4-0 against Boston. While the quality of play was strong early this year, the play the last couple of months has really got sloppy. It's sad to see teams like The Thunder passing or about to pass the hawks. It seems like nearly every team has had lots of injury problems besides this one. With that being the case, the record should be stronger.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

-Still get killed by Orlando

-Still losing to Cleveland

-Still get whipped by a SA team that has struggled to beat good teams all year.

-Two L's at home to NY

-Blow out loss to Charlotte

I don't need to make a thread just to take shots at Marvin. His mediocre play speaks for it's self. The teamhas said many of times that they failed to play with energy. The "coach" has admitted to ignoring half the game in practice, and the defense (What he spends so much time on) isn't even that good. Record wise the biggest difference this year is being 4-0 against Boston. While the quality of play was strong early this year, the play the last couple of months has really got sloppy. It's sad to see teams like The Thunder passing or about to pass the hawks. It seems like nearly every team has had lots of injury problems besides this one. With that being the case, the record should be stronger.

Blah, blah, blah Hot. Go ahead and change your tune, after you had no confidence whatsoever in this team to start the season. At least the majority of fans on this board thought the Hawks would win somewhere between 50 and 55 games before the season started. But go ahead and do you. Flip-flop, and change your tune . . and act you fully expected us to be 32 - 17 right now . . lol.

The fact is, every team in the league has good wins and bad losses. You can go through just about every team in the league, and do what you're doing with the Hawks. Cleveland has the best record in the league, but they've lost to Toronto, Chicago, Washington ( in a blowout ), Charlotte ( twice ), and Memphis. But I guess they they're underachieving as well, because they have some bad losses.

It's all blah, blah, blah.

The Hawks are 32 - 17, their best record in 13 years.

The Hawks have won 11 of their last 16 games.

The Hawks are tied for 3rd in the East, and are only 1.5 games behind Orlando for the division lead.

And still, you'd rather complain about the Hawks, than be happy that we're in the position we're in right now. LOL . . we've come to expect that from you though.

[Popeye]

I agree with hot about the bench usage though.... We can't have all bench players in at same time....

[dlpin]

Not to dismiss the hawks successes this year, but things seem better than they are. The hawks are just 3 games ahead of where they were at the same time last year, while being significantly healthier. The difference is that Boston has been mostly injured and as such is 8 games behind where they were last year, the magic have had fit problems and are 4 games behind where they were last year. Again, not to dismiss its successes, but the hawks isn't nearly as improved as many people think.

[spotatl]

This is ridiculous. The Hawks are almost certain to get home court in the first round. I'd bet serious money on them winning more than 50 games. I think they are likely to finish with a top 3 seed in the east. Unless you think the Hawks have a better team than either Cleveland or Orlando I simply don't see how its possible for anyone to look at this team and think they are underachieving.

[Diesel]

It seems to me that Jamal is a player that really benefits from the lack of direction of the offense because he is free to go one on one everytime he get the ball. But would he play as well in a more structured system? If so, I would argue the team is underachieving. While Joe struggled early in the season, as of late he has for the most part shown why he had made the all star team 3 years in a row. Josh was snubbed, and even though Al might not totally deserve his bid, he did get in. Some feel that Jamal deserve to go. Looking at that, this team has underachieved. They basically got the same record as SA while only Duncan has played really well for them this season.

They should be getting more production out of ZaZa, Mo, Joe and Teague, but the team rarely gets easy baskets outside of a Josh Smith dunk. I think part of the problem is that Woody goes to the bench and puts in all role players sometimes, but these guys are bench players for a reason. When you put them all on the floor at the same time they will struggle to be production. I think Marvin should be benched for Mo Evans. I know Marvin is the better player, but Mano has been backing up worse players for years, but it balances out the team. Mo is a spot up 3pt shooter so you can't expect him to produce when he is surrounded by ZaZa and Joe Smith. The team did just fine when Marvin was out of the starting line up last season. Coming off the bench with both Crawford and Marvin would give the bench a real boost and I don't believe it would effect the starting lineup that much.

Under achieving and Under coached... = two different things.

I think we could benefit from better offensive coaching. I think that Jamal would still be good without the choas. Mainly, I think we lack fundamental plays on offense... that create ball movement. I hate to see our offense just put the ball in Joe's hand. He's good but we're better than that. When Smoove got his triple double, one of the things that stuck out to me was that Joe went out for a while and we started running plays.. WHen Joe came back in, we kept running plays... and that's why Smoove was able to find Bibby all alone for the three. We're better when we run plays.

We still have pieces that we don't know how they fit offensively. For instance, Marvin. He doesn't really have a place in any offense because he's too unagressive to matter. Also, Teague. Teague knows what kind of PG he is... Drive and dish.. it's just that our players have never played with a drive and dish PG so it's a hard conversion.

Here's what we will need for this postseason:

1. Bibby and Horf perfect pick and roll. Get about 2 options off the pick and roll.

2. Teague: Get more time with the team playing drive and dish. Also work on your outside shooting.

3. Joe: Learn how to pass to Craw and vice versa. Joe never passes to Craw.

4. Smoove: Develop one consistent low post move to go with your basket attacking moves.

5. Horf: Learn to turn baseline side when you are back to the basket. Everybody knows you're always going inside.

Edited February 9, 2010 by Diesel

[TheNorthCydeRises]

This team has played a much harder schedule so far this year, than we had last year at this time.

* We've played Boston, Cleveland, and Orlando 9 times this year . . . compared to 7 last year

* We've already played 4 games against the Lakers, Portland and Utah this year . . . last year, we hadn't played any of those teams yet

* For the rest of the season, we have 10 games vs teams over .500 ( although Charlotte, Chicago, Miami and Milwaukee are close to .500 - 8 games vs those teams ) . . . . last year, we were looking at 16 games vs teams over .500 ( 10 against the Western Conference eventual playoff teams )

The fact is that if this team can start taking care of business against the sub .500 teams that we're going to play on the road, the Hawks are going to position themselves to make a big time run in the standings,especially in March.

18 of our last 33 are on the road, but only 4 of those games are currently vs teams with a winning record. 10 - 8 is a realistic road record for this team ( if they still haven't solved winning consistently on the road ), but we could be as good as 12 - 6 or 13 - 5.

At home, you're looking at 6 of the 15 games being against teams with a winning record. Considering that one of those games is the last game of the season vs Cleveland, you're really talking about 5 games vs winning records. A 10 - 5 or 11 - 4 at home record isn't out of the realm of possibility.

If this team can go 13 - 5 on the road . . . and 10 - 5 at home . . . that's 23 - 10 over the next 33 games.

That'll put us at 55 - 27.

At no time last year, were the Hawks 15 games over .500

This team is significantly ahead of the pace that they were at last year, due to the teams that we've already played, and have yet to play.

Edited February 9, 2010 by northcyde

[Wretch]

I would not say underachieving... Don't know much about racing, but I'd liken it to a car that isn't running at 100% but is still winning races and is among the leaders. I think if we're going to win "the big race", that Hots is dead on. Our offense needs a tuneup. I'd bench Marvin right now in a heartbeat; not as a demotion though, but as a motivator. Someone needs to light a fire under that kid and coming off the bench may give him the room he needs to step up. At the same time, I like what Mo brings with his 3pt shot and energy.

...on a side note, how perfect would Chill fit at the starting 3 now. :(

[DJlaysitup]

...We've lost some games we definitely should've won, and won games we definitely should've lost....

Good point northcyde...we certainly shouldn't have won that 2nd Celtics game (at their place)...I bet a lot of dogs got kicked that night in Boston .

P.S. to Boston dogs...never stand between the refrigerator and your owner when he wants a beer...especially when JJ is throwing down threes.

[DJlaysitup]

...Under achieving and Under coached... = two different things...

My thoughts exactly D.

[DJlaysitup]

...on a side note, how perfect would Chill fit at the starting 3 now....

Perfectly.

[jhay610]

Perfectly.

In my opinion, not perfectly. Childress scores his points in the same area as Smith and Horford and can't defend the small forward on the other end of the floor. He also doesn't have the jump shot to keep the floor spread when in the game with Smith and Horford.

Edited February 9, 2010 by jhay610

[Diesel]

In my opinion, not perfectly. Childress scores his points in the same area as Smith and Horford and can't defend the small forward on the other end of the floor. He also doesn't have the jump shot to keep the floor spread when in the game with Smith and Horford.

Disagree.

Smoove is a high post PF and Horf plays low post but is not consistent with that yet. Childress working the baseline would fit perfectly with what we do.. For this reason... Bibby and Jamal are able to find a player that is moving without the ball. Marvin's main problem in our offensive scheme is he doesn't move. Mo moves more than Marv does... and that's a shame. Mavrvin finds that spot on the three point line and just wait. At least when Chillz was here, he'd either work the baseline or make himself a supplementary ball handler.

Defensively. I never had a problem with Chillz defense of Sfs.

[Crank]

LOL . . . if we have underachieved, what is our record supposed to be?

34 - 15?

37 - 13?

39 - 10?

LOL . . . some of you need to stop. If someone would've told me before the season that the Hawks would have a shot to win their 33rd game out of 50 games, I would've been like . . . Damn, we'd be having a great season !!!

Some players are playing below expectations, while others are playing above what we expected. We've lost some games we definitely should've won, and won games we definitely should've lost.

This is why I LOL all the time on this board. Because no matter how well or bad this team does, people will always say that "if Woody would do this . . or if Woody wasn't here . . . blah, blah, blah,blah, blah"

I told everyone this board that if Jamal Crawford shot 45% FG, that you better give Woody a chunk of the credit for that. No other coach has gotten him to be that efficient of a shooter, for an entire season. So if Jamal keeps playing at this level, give Woody his due in knowing exactly how to use Jamal.

Could it be the other way around? Could it be the fact that Jamal gets to almost solely concentrate in being a scorer, that has elevated his game? Shoot, Woody has even elevated Jamal's defensive game somewhat.

As for Bibby, he has to be the starter, or at the very least, be on the floor when JJ or Crawford is playing. Putting Bibby out there with the 2nd unit would force Bibby to create his own shot, instead of playing off the ball, waiting for a pass. He plays very well off of JJ, so he should continue to play alongside him.

As for Marvin, he's been playing with the 2nd unit off and on, the entire year. And he's still struggled to score consistently. Move Marvin to the bench and elevate Evans is a decent idea . . IF . . . Marvin is struggling mightily and is actually hurting the starting 5 with his presence.

At that point, moving Marvin to the bench should be used to gain some of his confidence back. But even then, you don't cut his minutes to give to an inefficient Evans. You play them both the same amount of minutes ( edit: that they're playing now ). You're just merely switching up when they play.

and I think that both myself and Diesel told you just the opposite . That Crawford was good before he arrived but he has never played on a actual team before. He has never played on a team that didnt have drama off the court via management or players getting into with coaches . I told you Crawfords coaches never had a problem with him and most said the same thing Woody and our team are saying about him now . It just got overshadowed by the drama.

The team is not underachieving its learning about life at the top . This is the teams first years with a bullseye on its back and thats part of the growing experience.

There is also no need to start Crawford . Bibby can start and play with the starters just fine and when Craw comes in he picks up the pace and thats his job. I love the way teams play iso-Joe and then when Craw comes in it throws off there entire gameplan and by the time they adjust game is over and we have won.

Now maybe after the all star game if we could find a stretch of 4-5 games to experiment a little bit then I would love that just to have an idea before the playoffs comes around .

I like what Woodys done so far and the only thing I would like to see is more pick and roll and more of a emphasis on reversing the ball to the weakside shooter . There are just too many players just standing there wide open while a contested shot goes up .