A troubling article about Joe's future

[spotatl]

And no- not a troubling article about Joe leaving- a trouble article about Joe staying.

Just read this article about FA this summer and its WAY down on Joe Johnson. http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=945

Let's compare Ginobili to Johnson, for example.

Player Win% WARP TS% Usg Reb% Ast% SB%

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Ginobili.. .647 6.3 .555 .243 7.6 7.8 3.7

Johnson .544 5.4 .542 .267 7.3 5.6 1.6

Johnson is known as one of the league's most versatile guards, yet Ginobili has him beat across the board except in terms of the ability to create his own shot. Does that explain why Ginobili is at the top of the group and Johnson the bottom, especially when the latter is four years younger? Not entirely, but in terms of players who could make an immediate impact by changing teams next year, Ginobili belongs in the discussion. I do think SCHOENE is understating Ginobili's riskiness because it does not specifically account for durability and proneness to injury, something that has always been an issue for Ginobili.

As for Johnson, a fine recent fanpost on BlogABull raised concerns about his long-term development using similar players. Even that post, however, was not quite this pessimistic about Johnson. There are a couple of factors at play here. First, Johnson's statistics have never matched his reputation. Second, players of Johnson's ilk--above-average starting wings--have tended to decline in a hurry in their early 30s. By year three, just two of Johnson's top 10 comparables (Steve Smith and Jalen Rose) were offering their team any kind of value. A max deal for Johnson could end up very ugly.

I know that many people don't think that Joe is worth the max, but I also know that people aren't necessarily ready to let Joe go with no compensation. But if Joe's stats do fall off as much as this article says then Joe would be one of the worst contracts in the league on his new contract. Just thought that people would find the article interesting.

Here's the chart they showed comparing several of the potential free agents and how much they are expected to produce.

Player Tm Stat Age 2011 2012 2013 Tot

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Manu Ginobili___ sas UFA 32.7 11.6 9.5 5.7 26.7

Amare Stoudemire phx UFA 27.4 6.7 5.9 4.1 16.7

David Lee_____ nyk UFA 27.0 6.3 6.2 4.1 16.6

Rudy Gay_____ mem RFA 23.7 4.7 4.5 5.1 14.3

Dirk Nowitzki___ dal UFA 31.8 7.1 3.9 2.5 13.5

Paul Pierce____ bos UFA 32.5 4.3 3.9 3.5 11.7

Carlos Boozer__ uta UFA 28.4 6.8 3.1 1.0 10.9

Joe Johnson_____ atl UFA 28.8 3.6 2.5 0.9 7.1

Edited February 25, 2010 by spotatl

[HawkItus]

All those numbers point to one thing. Mano has had and probably still has a better team around him. That includes the coach and the players. Honestly, if Joe had of played with San Antonio over the last 5 years his numbers would be better than Mano's.

[coachx]

Stupid article.

Ginoblis just a 6th man like Jamal Crawford.

He was never the Spurs #1 option.

Put JJ on those past Spurs teams and they would have been even better. JJ is better offensively and defensivley. JJ can play 3 or 4 positions but Ginobli can only play 1.

Edited February 25, 2010 by coachx

[niremetal]

Stupid article.

Ginoblis just a 6th man like Jamal Crawford.

He was never the Spurs #1 option.

Put JJ on those past Spurs teams and they would have been even better. JJ is better offensively and defensivley. JJ can play 3 or 4 positions but Ginobli can only play 1.

Also, the "players of Joe's ilk" analysis ignores the fact that unlike most starting wings, JJ does not rely on his athleticism or explosiveness to score. On the contrary, the vast majority of his points come off long jumpers/3s, using his tricky dribble to create space and hit jumpers, and the occasional post-up. I think that barring a catastrophic injury, he should "devolve" in the same way Ray Allen has - he won't get to the rim as often, but his outside shooting touch and range will make him a threat to score 20-25 on any given night until he's at least 33/34. Honestly, I would expect Wade to devolve a lot more quickly than Joe - a point Bucher made on ESPN Radio a couple nights back. Once Wade's athleticism starts declining, it's tough to see him succeeding as a 6'3 combo guard with a shaky outside shot.

Also, people talk about JJ having peaked and J-Smoove being the future, apparently looking only at their ages. But Smoove relies on his athleticism much more than JJ does, and Smoove's athleticism is not going to get any better. Pretty soon, it'll start deteriorating. Don't be shocked if Smoove starts declining at or before age 29, not unlike Marion (whose skill set is actually better-suited for aging gracefully than Smoove's). There's more to who will be good in the future than simply looking at dates of birth.

Edited February 25, 2010 by niremetal

[spotatl]

More comparisons of "similar" players to Joe and how they aged in the other article that was linked to. http://www.blogabull.com/2010/2/8/1300945/what-can-we-expect-from-joe-johnson

[mrhonline]

Michael Finley. <---- That's the guy to look at as far as similar numbers and body type, IMHO.

[macdaddy]

Steve Smith had gimpy knees when he was 25. Joe has proven to be in better shape and more durable than most nba players. The thing here is you can't not sign guys like Joe because they'll be on the decline at the end of their contract. If you do that you'll never get to enjoy top tier players in their prime. Being saddled with their contract later is part of the deal but the one thing we know is big contracts are easy to trade in the last year to acquire great talent for nothing. Which is much better than free agency to me. Joe just has to not decline too much until that last year.

[AUhawksfan]

Smoove relies on his athleticism much more than JJ does, and Smoove's athleticism is not going to get any better. Pretty soon, it'll start deteriorating. Don't be shocked if Smoove starts declining at or before age 29, not unlike Marion (whose skill set is actually better-suited for aging gracefully than Smoove's). There's more to who will be good in the future than simply looking at dates of birth.

That's one thing that has always stuck in the back of my mind: When will Josh's game plateau, and when will it start to decline? I know this is still a ways off but he will eventually need to develop another part of his game if he wants to help prevent this. I could see Josh's career being similar to McDyess. He always relied on his athleticism in his heyday, but has really worked on other parts of his game and is still a major contributor for good teams. Of course, he went through a major injury as well.

[Rome26]

IMO, JJ could be as productive 5 years from now if he post up more. At 6-7 240 it's ashame he doesn't do it more now.

[tbhawksfan]

JJ's going to make a nice S&T this summer, maybe even with Bibby. Get younger, get back talent and let the new Hawks leaders show the way. Eh, need a new coach too.

[Guest]

Looks like a RealGM type of post with a more sophisticated metric. Instead of telling you the excel spreadsheet formula they use, they keep it hidden and use words like "comparable players" and have a long acronym for their metric.

Of course he doesn't describe his procedure. Oh no, someone might steal the idea! Or more likely, see all the flaws and point them out. He tells you all the variables he uses, then says he calculates a "similarity" score. He's a Hollinger follower. Anyone who has been on Hawksquawk long enough would know my general thoughts on Hollinger, just apply them to this guy as well.

[exodus]

IMO, JJ could be as productive 5 years from now if he post up more. At 6-7 240 it's ashame he doesn't do it more now.

JJ posts up all the time. He generally starts his post up from further out but he gets doubled when he starts to back in close. The GS announcers were griping the other night about JJ backing down their guards over and over, claiming it was an ffensive foul.