People who thought the Hawks had no chance at making playoffs

[TheFuzz]

I am among the people who doubted we could make the playoffs this year. I was wrong. Teague and Horford stepped up way more than I thought they would. Glad to be wrong about that, because young assets are going to be essential to rebuilding this team into a contender.

Unfortunately, I still don't see who is going to make tough shots for us when defenses tighten in the playoffs. And for the future, we look like a team that, instead of being 1 player away from being a "Final Four" team, is instead destined to be a non-homecourt playoff or high lottery team. So I most certainly don't think we are in a better position than we were a year ago.

Call me optimistic, but I think Ferry won't let that happen. Next year, we have 3 players under contract (!). If we don't sign a nice free agent or two, we'll go after a someone in trade. If that fails, we're a Horford trade away from a full on tank.

[MQDnATL01]

I admit I was one of those people who thought when JJ was shipped out that this team was headed back to the Jason Terry, Shereef Abdul-Rahim days where we couldn't buy 20 wins in a season. Reason being I had no idea who would be the primary scorer or go to guy, I hadn't seen enough of Jeff Teague or didn't believe in his play, I can't trust Smoove etc etc etc, just didn't see it where we going before the season. But I'm glad I was wrong and but it's still a lot of work that needs to be done with team but I'm glad I can say the Hawks are playoff while getting rid their best player in JJ and trying to make parts fit to improve because truthfully JJ was a great player for us and he helped us get out the bottom of that East and I'm not mad at him for taking the money because any one of us would have took it but his style of play didn't fit with the players we had anymore and I believe we'd already peaked with him and couldn't go any higher then the 2nd round of the playoffs so it was time to move on.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

In my original post I listed three things that I didn't like about Joe:

[*]

[*]ISO-Joe did more harm than good.

[*]Joe rarely hit game-winners

[*]Joe never earned his contract.

1) Joe looked to get his shot before anything. If not, then ISO-Joe would have never existed. There was no ball movement when Joe was on the floor. The ball would go to Joe and the other guys scattered like ants and then the double teams would come. Assists do not equal getting teammates involved, just as steals and blocks do not equal a great defender. Hell, even Kobe Bryant who is a notorious me-first player averages almost 5 assists per game over his career. And the Smoove oops were yesterday's version of today's hi/low that Drew runs between Horf/Smoove...

ISO Joe existed because we didn't have a PG to run the show, nor a reliable low post option. And until Crawford came to the team, we didn't have another guy that could adequately create his own shot either. Despite Mike Bibby being the PG, JJ set him up for more shots than Bibby set JJ up with shots.

LOL @ Assists doesn't mean getting your teammates involved. Well how in the world would you measure "getting your team involved" then? If you're simply moving the ball without anything happening coming from that pass, you're passing for nothing. And while steals and blocks doesn't necessarily mean that you're a good defender, it DOES mean that you're an active player on defense that can at least kill a possession.

And Kobe was in the same situation for years in LA, with no PG who could set him up for shots. So he took it upon himself to create his own shot. And because so much attention was paid to Kobe, he could also set up other people for shots. God knows he set up Derek Fisher for more points, than the other way around. The same went for JJ and guys like Bibby.

Games in which JJ had 5 or more assists in the 2 years Jamal Crawford was here

2009 - 10: 38 ( out of 76 games )

2010 - 11: 35 ( out of 72 games )

This is our ISO heavy 2 guard that does nothing but shoot the ball ( let you tell it ), but he's dropping 5+ assists per game in 50% of the games he played in? Some of you act like JJ shot the ball 25 times a game. I'll say that JJ didn't shoot ENOUGH at times, and would defer to guys at the wrong time. Sometimes a guy who you need to score the basketball, simply needs to get up his shots. JJ wasn't an unconscious shot taker like Jamal, who looked to shoot all the time. He deferred too much at times, if you ask me, especially during the playoffs.

2) There is a difference between hitting game winners and being clutch. How many times out of 10 does Joe hit a game-winning/tying with 6 sec left on the clock against the average team? I clearly remember a lot of games in the past 3 seasons being ended on one of Joe's shots clanking off the rim, or him getting stripped, or a floater getting blocked... I admit that the coaching was very predictable in these situations, but Jamal was better in these game winning/tying situations and Al has proved to better this year. I'd say for every game that Joe won or tied on a last-second shot, there were 3 that were lost. When the Hawks needed their 20 million dollar man the most, he didn't deliver. Not saying the man's career was based off those situations and that the losses were his fault, but guy's around the league get a lot of respect off of those situations from fans, players, coaches, and the media.

I'm sorry, but this is just silly on all kinds of levels. If you have the ability to take and make game winners ( usually on shots that are highly contested ), that means you are CLUTCH.

You can try to twist it around any way you can, but that's what it means. You talk about the games where JJ's shots clanked off the rim, well welcome to the NBA dude. Most players ( even superstar players ) are going to fail in those situations more than they'll succeed. But JJ succeeded enough in those situations for people ( who aren't biased against the dude ) to be seen as a clutch player. He consistently bailed us out last year in late game situations.

And then you cite Jamal being cutch. He's made some big shots in his career. And he was a very good "early 4th quarter" scorer. But as far as Jamal's "clutchness" . . LOL. Here are your "clutch" stats for the 2009 - 10 season for Jamal, which was the best shooting year for him in his career, up to this point.

http://www.82games.com/0910/09ATL3.HTM#clutch

25% FG shooting for Jamal when the game was under 5 minutes, and the Hawks were ahead or behind by 5 points.

Here is JJ in the same 2009 - 10 season

http://www.82games.com/0910/09ATL5.HTM#clutch

46% FG shooting in those same situations.

But in your mind, Jamal was more clutch? OK dude. Matter of fact, you have access to Youtube just like I do. Bring up all of Jamal's "clutch" plays as a Hawk.

3) I agree that Joe had a lot of shit talent to play with earlier in his Atlanta days, but the guys he started with during the last 3 seasons were a good group of guys. Horf is a 2 time All Star and Josh is a borderline All Star. Bibby and Hinrich were good veterans at the point and Teague is still growing. Crawford was a sixth man winner. I also agree that ownership and the rest of the FO was shit too and couldn't draft. Childress, Shellhead, Marvin, Law, and Royal Ivey were all busts and we relied on vet mins for years. The point is this team outgrew Joe and was time to move on. The early years were great; the last three not so much. It was the same story year to year...

Nobody is arguing that it wasn't time to break the team up. But we needed MORE than what we had, to get to that next level. The team that won 53 games in 2010, but got blown out by Orlando in the 2nd round, was a team that was really only 7 deep. Our bench was basically Zaza and Jamal. Teague wasn't ready, and Woody didn't help Teague by not playing him as much as he should've. He opted more times than not to let Jamal be the backup PG. And Mo Evans was nothing more than a poor man's Deshawn Stevenson back then. After that, we had a bunch of bums on the squad.

The bench we have now, with guys like Ivan, John Jenkins, and Mike Scott, is far more talented than those veteran minimum or young project scrubs that Rick Sund constantly brought in.

But if Ferry wanted to keep the team together one more year, here is our squad

PG - Teague

G - Harris . . ( because the Marvin trade still could've gone down )

F - Johnson

PF - Smith

C - Horford

G - Williams ( replaced by Mack once Lou got hurt )

G - Jenkins

F - Scott

F - Ivan

C - Zaza

F - Tolliver ( although I would've added someone else . . a defensive minded SG/SF )

C - free agent vet minimum center

If that's the team this year, we'd wouldn't be able to beat Miami . . . but we could very well be a top 3 seed right now. That squad would be better than what we have now.

But the Hawks still could've used the LLE to add a better rotational player to add to the bench. If that put us over the Luxury Tax, so be it. But this ownership has not once went all out to assemble the best team possible. Even when they let Jamal go, they didn't HAVE to let him go. They could've re-signed him for the 5 mill that he ended up playing for in Portland. But to do that, would put them in jeopardy of going over the Luxury Tax by a few million. Or they could've brought in some other 5 million dollar caliber player.

[Kimsey]

Scoring is up from 96.6 to 97.7 a game from last season. Also the overall fg percentage is up from 45.4 to 46.5 a game (noice). All that with a lower team free throw percentage from 74 % to 71 % this season while attempting lower attempts to boot. Not saying Joe gave us empty points but when some says a team is losing 20 points a game, that's not a correct statement. It's almost addition by subtraction in this instance.

A decent all around big would have us competing with Miami imo. Joe was nice and all but it's just glaringly clear where our priorities should lie.

[DrReality]

To some extent I give ferry credit that we've done well but on the other hand the team is flawed with josh still around. Would've loved to see what we would done with Williams healthy

[benhillboy]

Always cool to see the Hawks get some love on other blogs: http://www.sbnation.com/2013/3/31/4166358/atlanta-hawks-jeff-teague-josh-smith-nba-playoffs-2013

[Buzzard]

I am among the people who doubted we could make the playoffs this year. I was wrong. Teague and Horford stepped up way more than I thought they would. Glad to be wrong about that, because young assets are going to be essential to rebuilding this team into a contender.

Unfortunately, I still don't see who is going to make tough shots for us when defenses tighten in the playoffs. And for the future, we look like a team that, instead of being 1 player away from being a "Final Four" team, is instead destined to be a non-homecourt playoff or high lottery team. So I most certainly don't think we are in a better position than we were a year ago.

I thought we were borderline 6 to 8 seed and could fall out. I knew there was no way we would be a 3 seed again. But moving JJ was a solid in my book. Needing one more player and picking in the 20s with no cap is a losing situation. We took a small hit seeding wise for a future big splash. Now we just have to hope it pans out in free agency.

I guess ESPN got tired of being wrong so they picked us for a change lmao.