The state of our Hawks - 2011/2012 (or "A slightly more positive assessment than most")

[thecampster]

I’m kind of tired of reading all of the negative comments about our Hawks the last couple of days and I wanted to provide perhaps some fresh optimism on a position by position basis.

PG - Last season we began the year with Bibby, Crawford, Teague. Our other 4 players on the floor ran themselves into circles trying to cover for Bibby defensively. Teague’s confidence at the start of the season was shot. Although a fine scorer with the ball in his hands, Jamal had a Jordan effect on the rest of the team. When he had the ball, the rest of the team just stood around and watched. Try to remember that there were nearly as many games last year where Jamal shot us out of games as into them. He had the lowest rebound rate among guards last year even though he is 6-6 and is a defensive liability.

This season, Teague is/should be the starter or will be the off rotation guard filling the spot of Jamal last year. Missed in the whining about chemistry with Hinrich last year is the fact that we were light years better defensively with him in the game. Just check the message boards from March/April last year. Once Hinrich was on the team, he was beset by injuries that hampered him. Defensively, PG will be a strength compared to this team last year.

SG – Last year, Joe Johnson was hiding the severity of his elbow at the start of the season and was essentially ineffective, out or recovering for about a 25 game stretch. His backup was Jamal and this caused defensive nightmares when he and Bibby were on the floor together. In addition, Mo Evans complained openly about playing time at the two feeling slighted. The Crawford that is who of which we do not speak was buried on the bench and shooting without conscience when he did play. At one point, Drew put Marvin in at SG when JJ was out just to stop the horrendous D and Marvin actually played the spot quite well.

This season, JJ is healthy and spent the entire off-season working on his game with Durant. Tracy McGrady will back him up. Although not the lightning in the bottle of Jamal, he is much steadier offensively, taller and generations better defensively than Crawford.

SF – Marvin spent 80% of last year looking like the hunchback of Notre Dame. In one game, he shot 3 point jumper flat footed and fell over the 3 point line. Just when he started to look better, he was slammed…not once but twice in 2 weeks re-aggravating the back. The afore mentioned Mo Evans was his backup and was eventually replaced by Damien Wilkins. Wilkens was a breath of fresh air for our squad because he was the only guy under 6-8 to play D.

This season will see our first glimpse of a healthy Marvin Williams in 3 years. That alone is an improvement at the position. However, the club added a desperately needed 6-10 3 point shooter in Radmonovic who will play at least average D based on height alone.

PF- The 2 biggest criticisms of Josh Smith last year was the re-emergence of the 3 point brick and his ballooning weight. His backups are currently hoping to make the rotation on other clubs. Not known to everyone, Josh suffered through knee tendonitis the last 25 games of the year, severely hampering his play on the court.

This year, Josh has lost 30 lbs and again spent the entire offseason working on different aspects of his game receiving rave reviews from everyone in attendance at Hawks practice so far.

C – The most consistent player on the Hawks last year, Al Horford. Most consistent that is until about 25 games to go in the year when a hard foul by Blake Griffin had Al landing flat on his back. His production dropped noticeably after that point as did the consistency of his mid-range jumper.

Al is back, healed and ready to go, as is Zaza. The noticeable improvement is a muscled up, toner Jason Collins.

All is not lost in Hawk land with the departure of Crawford and Wilkins. I for one see our club as stronger, not weaker with some tweaking left to go. I saw our season last year of one with players trying to play through injuries due to a lack of team depth. We started the season on fire when healthy and I expect the same.

[sturt]

Also, we've had a year of the Drew offense now... should be some benefit over last year by virtue of not having to spend so much practice time teaching it.

I'm negative right now, though, because you can't be letting go of assets and getting nothing in return... if this team is going to ascend to a higher place, you've got to let your GM make some deals, and not be so resistant to the tax. I know it's not my money, but if you can't maximize this roster's success now, when will you maximize it and have any effect. There's an opportunity here to become significant, but you're going to have to add a Billups and a big.

[Crank]

I’m kind of tired of reading all of the negative comments about our Hawks the last couple of days and I wanted to provide perhaps some fresh optimism on a position by position basis.

PG - Last season we began the year with Bibby, Crawford, Teague. Our other 4 players on the floor ran themselves into circles trying to cover for Bibby defensively. Teague’s confidence at the start of the season was shot. Although a fine scorer with the ball in his hands, Jamal had a Jordan effect on the rest of the team. When he had the ball, the rest of the team just stood around and watched. Try to remember that there were nearly as many games last year where Jamal shot us out of games as into them. He had the lowest rebound rate among guards last year even though he is 6-6 and is a defensive liability.

This season, Teague is/should be the starter or will be the off rotation guard filling the spot of Jamal last year. Missed in the whining about chemistry with Hinrich last year is the fact that we were light years better defensively with him in the game. Just check the message boards from March/April last year. Once Hinrich was on the team, he was beset by injuries that hampered him. Defensively, PG will be a strength compared to this team last year.

SG – Last year, Joe Johnson was hiding the severity of his elbow at the start of the season and was essentially ineffective, out or recovering for about a 25 game stretch. His backup was Jamal and this caused defensive nightmares when he and Bibby were on the floor together. In addition, Mo Evans complained openly about playing time at the two feeling slighted. The Crawford that is who of which we do not speak was buried on the bench and shooting without conscience when he did play. At one point, Drew put Marvin in at SG when JJ was out just to stop the horrendous D and Marvin actually played the spot quite well.

This season, JJ is healthy and spent the entire off-season working on his game with Durant. Tracy McGrady will back him up. Although not the lightning in the bottle of Jamal, he is much steadier offensively, taller and generations better defensively than Crawford.

SF – Marvin spent 80% of last year looking like the hunchback of Notre Dame. In one game, he shot 3 point jumper flat footed and fell over the 3 point line. Just when he started to look better, he was slammed…not once but twice in 2 weeks re-aggravating the back. The afore mentioned Mo Evans was his backup and was eventually replaced by Damien Wilkins. Wilkens was a breath of fresh air for our squad because he was the only guy under 6-8 to play D.

This season will see our first glimpse of a healthy Marvin Williams in 3 years. That alone is an improvement at the position. However, the club added a desperately needed 6-10 3 point shooter in Radmonovic who will play at least average D based on height alone.

PF- The 2 biggest criticisms of Josh Smith last year was the re-emergence of the 3 point brick and his ballooning weight. His backups are currently hoping to make the rotation on other clubs. Not known to everyone, Josh suffered through knee tendonitis the last 25 games of the year, severely hampering his play on the court.

This year, Josh has lost 30 lbs and again spent the entire offseason working on different aspects of his game receiving rave reviews from everyone in attendance at Hawks practice so far.

C – The most consistent player on the Hawks last year, Al Horford. Most consistent that is until about 25 games to go in the year when a hard foul by Blake Griffin had Al landing flat on his back. His production dropped noticeably after that point as did the consistency of his mid-range jumper.

Al is back, healed and ready to go, as is Zaza. The noticeable improvement is a muscled up, toner Jason Collins.

All is not lost in Hawk land with the departure of Crawford and Wilkins. I for one see our club as stronger, not weaker with some tweaking left to go. I saw our season last year of one with players trying to play through injuries due to a lack of team depth. We started the season on fire when healthy and I expect the same.

I dont see optimism in this post I see excuse making . You blamed last year totally on jamal giving excuses for nearly every single player you mention except him .

All is certainly not lost but last years struggles were not simply the result of jamal,injuries,and learning a new offensive system .

[thecampster]

Atlanta record last year 44-38.

Feb 4th - Clippers - The Foul. This is the game of the infamous Blake Griffin foul on Al.

Record at the time: 32-18 / 64% (Even with injuries to JJ and Marvin). Record after "The Foul" 12-20 / 37.5%.

During that stretch of 32 games, Josh Smith goes over 20 points just 9 times in 32 games...he is out in 5 of those games.

Al breaks 20 points just 6 times.

Go back to January.

Joe comes back from "the Elbow", Hawks go 17-7 until "the foul". A winning percentage of 70.8%.

So after Joe got healthy, the Hawks were a 71% win team over the next 24 games (1/3 of a season). With Al, Josh, Marvin ailing the Hawks were a 37.5% team. Yes, I do think our problems had more to do with injuries, depth and defense than management.

[CWebb]

You're not alone, I'm quite optimistic as well ! I think we still need to add one or two pieces to the team though.

What about the idea of starting Zaza at the 5 ?

1 Teague

2 Johnson

3 Smith

4 Horford

5 Pachulia

I guess the problem with this lineup would be spacing. But it'd give us size, a lot of rebounds and toughness in the paint. The bench would be solid with Hinrich, Tmac, Marv, Rad and a few minutes for one of our centers.

[Vol4ever]

_{I guess I cannot see the optimism. I admittedly have become neagative because I see a franchise that will let Jamal walk for nothing when we could get assets to help this team win in return but our ownership will not go from 70 million to 72 million to do it?}

_{Crawford as a SNT asset along with the 3.6 million exception for Childress expires on 12/16. We do not have the bigs to compete in the playoffs. Regular season games youe ok but when the playoffs roll around we are toast.}

_{Just frustrated at this ownership because we do not have the pieces needed to win a championship, we have a core and a bunch of bums on the bench. We have no Superstar and CP3 is a Star and could be had by the Hawks for Teague and JS.}

_{I will quit now....}

Edited December 12, 2011 by Vol4ever

[CWebb]

_{I guess I cannot see the optimism. I admittedly have become neagative because I see a franchise that will let Jamal walk for nothing when we could get assets to help this team win in return but our ownership will not go from 70 million to 72 million to do it?}

_{Crawford as a SNT asset along with the 3.6 million exception for Childress expires on 12/16. We do not have the bigs to compete in the playoffs. Regular season games youe ok but when the playoffs roll around we are toast.}

_{Just frustrated at this ownership because we do not have the pieces needed to win a championship, we have a core and a bunch of bums on the bench. We have no Superstar and CP3 is a Star and could be had by the Hawks for Teague and JS.}

_{I will quit now....}

About the Smith/Teague trade : I think nobody ever said it was possible, except nbasuperstar. Trust who you want

[NekiEcko]

But that was the main focus of this trade, we could put more there but was the major pieces.

[Buzzard]

About the Smith/Teague trade : I think nobody ever said it was possible, except nbasuperstar. Trust who you want

The NBA shot down Scola ( almost equal to Smoove production wise), Kevin Martin ( night and day above Teague production wise ), Lamar Odom, and a 1st round pick. Where do you see Teague and Josh as being something Stern would approve? You need to laugh at this one man, not take it serious.

Edited December 12, 2011 by Buzzard

[Joker]

About the Smith/Teague trade : I think nobody ever said it was possible, except nbasuperstar. Trust who you want

It was possible and it didn't even come from me first. Trust who you want is very true.

[swolehawk2]

There is some hope in improved scoring from our bench. Last year if Craw was off we basically had no scoring from the bench. ZZ on occasion.

Let's say we sign Stackhouse, but nobody else. (Cheap Bastards)

Kirk, T-Mac, Stack and Radman, give us 4 bodies that can score off our bench. Of course, they won't be consistent, but 4 scorers to rely on from the bench is better than 1.

This also puts more stress on teams' defense, when you have multiple bench guys that are capable of scoring.

Hey, a dude can hope, right?

[Guest]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the Hawks will surprise. Lots of people scoff at the signings but I think we have a considerably better bench than last year. We have players who can actually play (not the Mario and Josh Powell's). They may be old and not their former selves but we are not asking them to be. With so many games is so short a time the bench is gonna have to produce, we need bodies on that bench. We have lacked bench scoring (beside Jamal) for far too long.

I will always be optimistic about my Hawks at the start of every season.

Edited December 13, 2011 by JayBirdHawk

[Crank]

The NBA shot down Scola ( almost equal to Smoove production wise), Kevin Martin ( night and day above Teague production wise ), Lamar Odom, and a 1st round pick. Where do you see Teague and Josh as being something Stern would approve? You need to laugh at this one man, not take it serious.

Odom is 32 Scola 31 and martin is 28 with a history of missed games due to injuries ...what teams could possibly be built from that ?

Josh is 26 and Teague is 23 at least you can say they can be apart of at he future of the franchise . If you add a couple of picks it would be a good deal . If we could add one more young player to that it would be a great deal .