Joe out 4-6 weeks

[lethalweapon3]

Unleash JC2 on LeBron!!!

[/lookingpastphilly]

~lw3

[Atlantaholic]

I'll agree with everyone who is confused as to why it has taken to the fourth week of this season to do something about this injury. If what was said is true: that there has been issues with the elbow since last season, how the hell do you justify it taking this long to arrive at this diagnosis? Someone in our coaching/training staff is not getting the job done.

[suiluap]

I hope that Mario West will not return to the squad to replace injured JJ. :helpsmilie:

[DJlaysitup]

Well to be fair to JJ, maybe it was hurting sometimes and then not hurting others? I dunno - I've never had a "Loose Body" floating around inside a joint before. It could have just gotten worse here recently.

Obviously everybody will have to step up (like JP did last night) while he is out. If they do it could work out well over the length of the season...if not, at least we will know which guys can be trusted in pressure situations and which guys can't.

As far as JC2's DNP-CD last night I'm a bit puzzled. Apparently LD liked his rotations and didn't want to go any deeper. Still - he could have at least put CrawJr. in for that last tenth of a second in the first half :rolleyes: . It seems odd to me that Teague seemed to be gravitating towards the Mario West role while JC2 was showing some things in his limited minutes. Then this happens and LD is suddenly more comfortable with Teague. Anyway - Teague did step up last night and didn't make as many bonehead plays as usual - maybe this is the chance he has needed (fingers crossed).

[cam1218]

JC2 not playing is concerning...We will really need this guy--especially now with JJ out.

Drew said he will play JC2 or Teague depending on what the game/situation dictate. Teague actually played pretty well and Mo Evans was knocking down a few shots. There wasn't any real need for JC2 in the game so I wouldn't really be too concerned about it.

[terrell]

Well, we have gotten most of our 12 wins this year without a great deal of contribution from JJ, so I'm thinking we can probably tread water just fine until he comes back.

Guess you dont think his assists, rebounds, and being the teams best man on man defender,

had anything to do with those 12 wins, huh?

Drew said he will play JC2 or Teague depending on what the game/situation dictate. Teague actually played pretty well and Mo Evans was knocking down a few shots. There wasn't any real need for JC2 in the game so I wouldn't really be too concerned about it.

Agreed.

[frosgrim]

My main concern about JJ being out is that this team, which was already thin at SF, just got paper thin. Drew is going to have to keep minutes in check or we'll see a cascading injury problem.

I hope JJ makes it back fully and completely in the 4 week time period. He's critically important to the team. Those who say we've won 11 with him being ineffective, well, we've also lost 7. An effective JJ gets 2-5 more wins.

The silver lining is that we now know why he's been off and it is early in the season. The goal now is to stay in the playoff race. We can make a push in the spring to move up the seeding. Probably 6th seed is as high as we can hope, though.

[GST]

I think this is a blessing, at least from a long term perspective. We are going to get to see what the core can do without JJ. This should give us some idea if we can trade JJ and continue with what we have, or if the whole team needs to be blown up.

[Atlantaholic]

Guess you dont think his assists, rebounds, and being the teams best man on man defender,

had anything to do with those 12 wins, huh?

Best man on man defender? This is laughable, since his defensive effort throughout the majority of the year has been his worst since he became a Hawk. And 5 assists 4 rebounds and 17 points on 40% shooting isn't exactly an insurmountable amount of offensive production to be able to ask our other 12-13 guys to pick up. If he were playing at an All Star level it would be a different story but he was giving us absolute crap for most of the year. You increase Marvin and Jamal's minutes and there isn't a dropoff from JJ production so far this year. We're probably not going to beat the good teams (we weren't with him in the lineup) but we should take care of all these Eastern conference scrub teams just like we've been doing all year. JJ currently ranks 8th on the team in winshares per 48 minutes. Which indicates his play has had very little impact in the amount of wins the team has gotten this year. You can see that by just checking JJs stats during our wins, where he has averaged 16.5 points 5 asissts and 38% shooting... I.E. he played like an absolute waste of space. So yeah, I don't think JJ had a lot to do with our wins.

[frosgrim]

Best man on man defender? This is laughable, since his defensive effort throughout the majority of the year has been his worst since he became a Hawk. And 5 assists 4 rebounds and 17 points on 40% shooting isn't exactly an insurmountable amount of offensive production to be able to ask our other 12-13 guys to pick up. If he were playing at an All Star level it would be a different story but he was giving us absolute crap for most of the year. You increase Marvin and Jamal's minutes and there isn't a dropoff from JJ production so far this year. We're probably not going to beat the good teams (we weren't with him in the lineup) but we should take care of all these Eastern conference scrub teams just like we've been doing all year. JJ currently ranks 8th on the team in winshares per 48 minutes. Which indicates his play has had very little impact in the amount of wins the team has gotten this year. You can see that by just checking JJs stats during our wins, where he has averaged 16.5 points 5 asissts and 38% shooting... I.E. he played like an absolute waste of space. So yeah, I don't think JJ had a lot to do with our wins.

I disagree that JJ hasn't contributed to the team. His presence on the court had to be accounted for by the opposition. Even with his bad shooting, teams were still double-teaming him. Did JJ hurt the team by shooting poorly, without a doubt. But, he did have an impact on the games that were played, and good bit of that was positive due to what other teams had to worry about.

The reality of the situation is that a healthy JJ makes this team better. To argue otherwise is just demonstrating a severely skewed view on what sort of player Johnson is. In fact, Joe is on par with those 2nd tier stars in the NBA. He's not Kobe or Wade, but certainly up there with Roy and the like.

[terrell]

I disagree that JJ hasn't contributed to the team. His presence on the court had to be accounted for by the opposition. Even with his bad shooting, teams were still double-teaming him. Did JJ hurt the team by shooting poorly, without a doubt. But, he did have an impact on the games that were played, and good bit of that was positive due to what other teams had to worry about.

The reality of the situation is that a healthy JJ makes this team better. To argue otherwise is just demonstrating a severely skewed view on what sort of player Johnson is. In fact, Joe is on par with those 2nd tier stars in the NBA. He's not Kobe or Wade, but certainly up there with Roy and the like.

Exactly.

[tremor]

JJ's poor performance so far this season should be put in perspective. Some other guys also played not so well, bad or really bad, namely Jamal, Marvin and Zaza. Joe still has been third best player on the team and was able to contribute in number of ways thanks to his high BBIQ while Smoove and Boss (AKA Lion) were leading (with the little help of old good BB) the team to 12-7 record which is not so good considering quality of opponents but also not so bad considering circumstances.

[lethalweapon3]

The coolest thing about Joe's performance to date is that even with The People's Bum Elbow, he was the league's second-best assist maker among starting SGs, with 5.2 assists (behind Tyreke Evans' 5.7 dimes per game), especially when one considers the relatively low 1.8 turnovers (Evans has 3.6; most of the other top passers among traditional SGs exceed 2 and even 3 turnovers a night). I believe it's a career-high assist-turnover ratio; also his rebounding is down yet remained top 10 among starting SGs. Even though his elbow joint has impacted his shooting and rebounding, it apparently hasn't impacted his passing abilities in this new offensive scheme.

~lw3

[Atlantaholic]

I disagree that JJ hasn't contributed to the team. His presence on the court had to be accounted for by the opposition. Even with his bad shooting, teams were still double-teaming him. Did JJ hurt the team by shooting poorly, without a doubt. But, he did have an impact on the games that were played, and good bit of that was positive due to what other teams had to worry about.

The reality of the situation is that a healthy JJ makes this team better. To argue otherwise is just demonstrating a severely skewed view on what sort of player Johnson is. In fact, Joe is on par with those 2nd tier stars in the NBA. He's not Kobe or Wade, but certainly up there with Roy and the like.

JJ wasn't healthy though, and he wasn't playing even approximately close to a 2nd tier level... and we still won 11 of 18. I don't think we will be significantly worse of now than we were during those first 18 games.

[Chickenstanley]

Does it make anyone (other than me) wonder if this elbow condition was never mentioned by JJ in order to assure there would be no hang-ups in getting his MAX contract?

CS

[Atlantaholic]

Does it make anyone (other than me) wonder if this elbow condition was never mentioned by JJ in order to assure there would be no hang-ups in getting his MAX contract?

CS

Than why would he wait until the fourth week of the season to have surgery? He could have had the surgery right after signing the contract, right? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm pretty f***ing baffled as how it took four weeks to arrive at this diagnosis. If anything I blame the training staff for not conducting an MRI sooner... I mean if the guys freaking elbow has been hurting for months how did it not occur to anyone to look for other answers sooner? Especially with the way Joe Johnson was playing, it is beyond strange to me that no one thought there could be something seriously wrong with the guy.

[Diesel]

Than why would he wait until the fourth week of the season to have surgery? He could have had the surgery right after signing the contract, right? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm pretty f***ing baffled as how it took four weeks to arrive at this diagnosis. If anything I blame the training staff for not conducting an MRI sooner... I mean if the guys freaking elbow has been hurting for months how did it not occur to anyone to look for other answers sooner? Especially with the way Joe Johnson was playing, it is beyond strange to me that no one thought there could be something seriously wrong with the guy.

This is my point. NO vet wants to go through training camp. Joe could have skipped it. So the thoughts around here that Joe was holding out for contract just doesn't add up. Moreover, I read the Miami Herald this morning, it said that Joe Woke up with Pain the other day and went in to have the trainers look at his elbow. He got a SECOND opinion from Dr. Andrews before having the surgery. The fact that:

1. He woke up with pain.

2. He got a 2nd opinion.

tells me that Joe has been playing through this injury believing it would get better, that Joe's elbow got worse as the season continued and that Joe did not want to miss any part of the season. Look at Joe's history. He's not injury player, he's an ironman. You break your eye orbital but you play in the playoffs? He's a guy that stand with Cal Ripken Jr. and Brett Farve when it comes to playing. Joe didn't disclose the injury before probably because he thought it would go away.

[frosgrim]

JJ wasn't healthy though, and he wasn't playing even approximately close to a 2nd tier level... and we still won 11 of 18. I don't think we will be significantly worse of now than we were during those first 18 games.

You're missing the point. Other teams had to always account for Johnson. Everyone assumed JJ's shooting problems were just a slump and that he'd break out any game. When JJ gets it going he is unstoppable. Thus, you have to play defense to account for him, even if he's not shown it in a handful of games. Those double-teams really open up shots for guys like Horford and Bibby.

Without JJ, opposing teams don't have to double anyone on the Hawks roster. Points will become harder to get against good defensive teams (read not Memphis).

On top of that, we are left with Crawford getting major minutes at SG along side Bibby. Our perimeter defense is going to be flat out awful.

I find it amazing that some posters are questioning the value of Johnson. The contract he has is what it is, but the Hawks are a worse team today without Johnson than they were with Johnson.

[Wurider05]

I have always wondered what the team would be like if JJ went down. I am glad that is not a knee or back injury.

[Atlantaholic]

You're missing the point. Other teams had to always account for Johnson. Everyone assumed JJ's shooting problems were just a slump and that he'd break out any game. When JJ gets it going he is unstoppable. Thus, you have to play defense to account for him, even if he's not shown it in a handful of games. Those double-teams really open up shots for guys like Horford and Bibby.

Without JJ, opposing teams don't have to double anyone on the Hawks roster. Points will become harder to get against good defensive teams (read not Memphis).

On top of that, we are left with Crawford getting major minutes at SG along side Bibby. Our perimeter defense is going to be flat out awful.

I find it amazing that some posters are questioning the value of Johnson. The contract he has is what it is, but the Hawks are a worse team today without Johnson than they were with Johnson.

Except we couldn't score a lick against good defenses with Joe (read Milwaukee, Orlando, Dallas, Boston etc.), so I'm not sure what your point is. Also the Hawks have been better on defense when Joe is on the bench this season. I don't have the numbers but one of the articles in the front page of Hawksquawk brings up that fact. Since we are running a motion offense we don't need to rely on isolation and double teams to get open looks. Against Memphis we had on of our highest totals of assists on the season... Anyway no point in arguing this. Let's just see how the team performs without JJ and see who's right. All year Joe Johnson has been bricking open shots and playing no defense, his win shares, per, fg% and the teams overall performance should be indication enough that the guy has been amongst the least valuable players on the team thus far... Hopefully when he gets back from injury he will resemble an all star again and not a poor man's Jim Jackson.