Hawks are very capable - - - -

[Gray Mule]

:training:

This Hawks team is very capable. They are capable of beating the elite of the NBA.

They are also very capable of being blown away by the lowest of the low in the NBA.

Which Hewks team shows up today? Or, do they bother to show up at all?

We seem to have one or two players, and not always the same ones, who show up

and have a great game. Problem is, everyone don't really try to get the job done. You

get the feeling that, since they traded away Bibby, they lost something. Don't know why

or what is going on.

Obviously, they don't really listen to the coach and he is powerless to do anything about it.

Don't get the idea I'm defending our coach. I'm not.

Their shooting runs hot and cold. Coach won't make adjustments, or can't. He has some

strange ideas. He plays JT a lot for a while, then benches him and puts him on ignore.

Crawford is no PG. Yet, he has been the PG in liew of Jeff Teague and Hawks have suffered

big blowouts. Why? Lately, Crawford stinks. He and JJ both run hot and cold. Yet, coach

somehow feels compelled to go with Crawford and bench JT.

:roulette:

[Gray Mule]

:picknose:

Zaza showed up ---Again!

For all Hawksquawkers who are always downing Zaza, he has recently stepped foreward

and assumed somewhat of a leadership rola. Gasp! Zaza? Yep. Someone has to step

up and when no one did, Zaza has taken it upon himself to do so.

What's wrong with this? With all the great and almost great players on our starting five,

it comes down to our second string center to light the fire under the tail of these guys.

Zaza is not great. In fact, he usually has to really work on it to be kinda good. We know

there are lots of things Zaza can't do. It's been discussed here, over and over, for years.

He is one of the Hawks people love to hate. Not really hate but, in discussing a trade,

we ofter see Zaza thrown into the mix as an extra just to make the salaries match.

:saythat:

Someone has to be the rudder on this ship. Right now, Zaza is the man.

:dancer:

[Colin]

Zaza is the only player coming out every night and playing with heart as of late. Zaza wants to win, and you can see it on the court, it's been that way for years. You saw it:

• Against Garnett in the series we lost to the Celtics in 7.
  
• You saw it in the big MUST-WIN game 4 (12 points, 18 rebounds) against the Heat.
  
• You saw it against the Cavs when we got swept how he refused to let Varejao push him around, and got ejected.
  
• You saw it against the Magic when he and Gortat got into smelly-European-backup-center shoving matches when we got swept by the Magic.
  
• You saw it the last few weeks, as everyone is playing scared and shooting jumpers, heartless and unmotivated. 19 & 10, flagrant and a tech against the Heat, 13 & 5 (including 9/10 from the line today in only 12 minutes)
  

Zaza isn't afraid of anybody, and as much as you guys s*** on him for trying to do too much when he is on the court, compare it to the rest of the team, people not trying to do anything with their minutes. Zaza has much less impact on the game than some of our bigger players (JJ, Smoove, Horf), yet he plays like the game hinges on him (for better or worse). Maybe Zaza needs to catch a few more starts in the last weeks of the season, and bring some toughness to the court. Sure, he may have some 2-11 games where he gets blocked 7 times, but he also has games where his offensive rebounds and sweaty headbutts are the deciding factor. SOMETHING needs to happen, at least Zaza sees it.

[APE]

Zaza had been playing like garbage until Mary Drew woke his *ss up with DNP-CD's a few weeks ago. It's nice that he's steping up the bench leadership role since Jamal has become Jamal...and do we have any more bench players?

[DJlaysitup]

Zaza had been playing like garbage until Mary Drew woke his *ss up with DNP-CD's a few weeks ago. It's nice that he's stepping up the bench leadership role since Jamal has become Jamal....

Just fact checking you Bruin, so I looked into the boxscores for the last two months. You have a point that Zaza's nimbers have gone up %age-wise since the two DNP-CDs (PHX and GSW - Feb 23 and 25th). But a few games prior to that he did have a 10/9 game against Charlotte and some of his lesser stats seemed to be "minutes related".

You probably are right about him getting "woken up" a bit though.

note: I fully expected to prove you wrong by checking..but I don't twist statistics when they aren't what I expect....for the most part you seem to be right.

Edited March 21, 2011 by DJlaysitup

[AnthonyI11]

ZAZA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Colin]

Just fact checking you Bruin, so I looked into the boxscores for the last two months. You have a point that Zaza's nimbers have gone up %age-wise since the two DNP-CDs (PHX and GSW - Feb 23 and 25th). But a few games prior to that he did have a 10/9 game against Charlotte and some of his lesser stats seemed to be "minutes related".

You probably are right about him getting "woken up" a bit though.

note: I fully expected to prove you wrong by checking..but I don't twist statistics when they aren't what I expect....for the most part you seem to be right.

I have always believed it to be minutes-related. Sure, i'm probably the most bias opinion when it comes to Zaza, but it seems pretty obvious that Zaza needs minutes to be productive, more-so than most anybody on the court. Sure, he has good few minutes spurts of productivity sometimes, but Zaza makes an impact the longer he is on the court.

I checked his game log to see how the stats looked when you set up a minute-related split. I chose 20 minutes, as I judged that to be a "good" amount of time for a backup center to get per game. (NOTE: Zaza was his most effective off our bench in 2008-2009, and he played 19 minutes per game, averaging 6.3 points & 5.7 rebounds).

This year, in games where Zaza plays at least 20 minutes (including 19:xx); he averaged:

• 16 Games
  
• 24.5 MPG
  
• 8.4 PPG
  
• 52% FG Percentage
  
• 7 Rebounds
  

That puts his PER36 stats somewhere around 12.6 points and 10.5 rebounds, including a 15% rise in FG percentage from the games where he played less than 19 minutes.

That being said, conceivably Zaza earned more minutes these games because of his improved play, and less minutes when he wasn't performing well. However, watching Drew's subsitutions this season, that isn't primarily the case. There are games where Zaza has been extremely efficient and an aid to the team, and barely seen the court. That 1 minute that he played against New York was depressing. Sure, Hilton matched up better (conceivably) when Jared Jeffries was on the court, but it's not like Jeffries even shoots the ball. Zaza should always be the first big off the bench unless we're playing a team where Zaza's size is unnecessary.

Zaza's offensive rebounding, toughness, heart, and ability to get to the line (as ugly as it may be) makes it worth putting up with his illegal screens, missed tip ins and terribly-slow covering on defense. With the funk that the Hawks are in, and looking at the way Zaza has been playing (going back to the Portland 12 rebound game), Zaza should be playing at least 15-20+ minutes every night. Sure, he may be in foul trouble some nights and really be out of it, but he'll at least hustle for loose balls that Smoove and Craw airball on from 3.

To be honest, I trust Zaza more as a outlet passer on a fast break than Smoove. I've seen Smoove throw it off the backboard into somebody's popcorn far too many times. Put Wilkins on the floor to make up for some of Zaza's slow feet and his defense won't be that terrible. Plus, he is occasionally great at poking the ball out of centers hands at the top of the key (especially Pau).

More minutes, more production. We need at least somebody out on the court who wants to earn their money by fighting inside.

[AHawks89]

Zaza has the most heart on the team, and always gives it his 100%. Haha, remember this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cQjjvFAf6Q

[tremor]

The funny thing is Zaza didn't play that much considering how well he played.

[Buzzard]

:picknose:

Zaza showed up ---Again!

For all Hawksquawkers who are always downing Zaza, he has recently stepped foreward

and assumed somewhat of a leadership rola. Gasp! Zaza? Yep. Someone has to step

up and when no one did, Zaza has taken it upon himself to do so.

What's wrong with this? With all the great and almost great players on our starting five,

it comes down to our second string center to light the fire under the tail of these guys.

Zaza is not great. In fact, he usually has to really work on it to be kinda good. We know

there are lots of things Zaza can't do. It's been discussed here, over and over, for years.

He is one of the Hawks people love to hate. Not really hate but, in discussing a trade,

we ofter see Zaza thrown into the mix as an extra just to make the salaries match.

:saythat:

Someone has to be the rudder on this ship. Right now, Zaza is the man.

:dancer:

I agree 100% Gray and will add that if our coach wants to go with a big starting lineup, its ZaZa all day over Collins. That is really not even a contest yet for some reason our rookie coach wants to reward a stiff like Collins with starts over a hard worker like ZaZa.

Collins 25 starts, 12.2 mpg vs ZaZa 4 starts, 14.9 mpg. I do not understand Collins starting at all.

[Buzzard]

:training:

This Hawks team is very capable. They are capable of beating the elite of the NBA.

They are also very capable of being blown away by the lowest of the low in the NBA.

Their shooting runs hot and cold. Coach won't make adjustments, or can't. He has some

strange ideas. He plays JT a lot for a while, then benches him and puts him on ignore.

Crawford is no PG. Yet, he has been the PG in liew of Jeff Teague and Hawks have suffered

big blowouts. Why? Lately, Crawford stinks. He and JJ both run hot and cold. Yet, coach

somehow feels compelled to go with Crawford and bench JT.

:roulette:

I disagree with the premise that we can beat the elite teams right now. Only way that happens is if Teague is inserted as a 30mpg player and he shines. Without a top quality PG our small team will continue to suffer four game sweeps against the elite.

Edited March 21, 2011 by Buzzard

[Randy]

This team is a mystery. You never know who is going to show up and who doesn't. (Or whether they will be in jail and can't show up.) And for that matter who's going to play. You have two guys (Collins and Teague) who start one night, then may not even play the next. You have sg's playing pg, guards playing forward (JJ), forwards playing guard (Damien) center's playing PF (Horford) or is it the other way around? Then there's Josh leading the break and tossing up 3's pretty much like LeBron (except for the part where the ball meets the hoop.) I'm in agreement with LD - the team is in disarray, and though I like Captain Kirk, it does seem to have gotten worse since Bibby left.

Bibby did have his shortcomings, but I wonder if maybe he was the "coach on the floor" and the other guys looked to him, and are now lost and all going their own separete ways. So far, I've not pinned the blame on LD, but I am starting to wonder. So far he's made Woody look more like John Wooden than Mike Woodson.

[Crank]

Their shooting runs hot and cold. Coach won't make adjustments, or can't. He has some

strange ideas. He plays JT a lot for a while, then benches him and puts him on ignore.

Crawford is no PG. Yet, he has been the PG in liew of Jeff Teague and Hawks have suffered

big blowouts. Why? Lately, Crawford stinks. He and JJ both run hot and cold. Yet, coach

somehow feels compelled to go with Crawford and bench JT.

:roulette:

What games did we get blown out simply because jamal was in at pg ? Considering that jamal has played pg in come capacity in every single one of our games hes played this year and last year this statement falls short .

Considering that JJ played 42 mins Kirk 34 mins , Marvin 31 minutes and jamal 30mins so he benched teague to give jamal the minutes he normally wouldve haim anyway ?

It seems you are making things up simply because you want teague to play but the facts dont matchup .