Barkley: "Atlanta is not going to make the playoffs"

[Thomas]

21 hours ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Bud choosing to play Dennis over Teague on multiple occasions, that says a lot.

That occurring against the Cavs in the playoffs was the final nail in Bud's eyes I think. Played Dennis against our biggest EC competition in the final minutes. 

[Thomas]

21 hours ago, hazer said:

just spouting foolishness to stir the pot 

He has long been the master of this. Not even sure his comments are all that intentional because he does about as much homework as Bill Russell did before they finally yanked him off the air. Bill was charismatic but knew little about the rosters playing each other late in his TV career. At least Bill didn't sound kinda nuts like Charles does sometimes. 

[BrazilianHawk]

23 hours ago, Hotlanta1981 said:

People (including me at one point) have continued to build up the Washington Wizards, but they haven't ever lived up to the hype. Why are they supposed to be such a big threat this year?

Hmmmm... that's a good question.

Wait! I know! It's because this season Wall still didn't get his hands broken. And because Beal got some adamantium implants to his bones. So they're automatically a top-6 team in the East.

[Vol4ever]

Wonder how much Sir Charles would like to lose on that prediction?  

[Mdizzle5]

 If we don't make the playoffs, we don't make the playoffs. It wouldn't be the end of the world. That said, it's more likely that we will. Sorry Chuck. 

[Wretch]

Problem is the same as always...nobody knows who we are.   Every year, we fly under the radar because of the "bigger" and "more important" storylines going on.  Dwight's been forgotten about, otherwise he'd be a decent enough story to push us into the conversation.  Not competition, because we're a legit playoff team, but the CONVERSATION where the national press will talk about us.

From a basketball perspective, these dudes don't know that we had a duplication of talent at the point.  There's not much of a drop between Dennis and Teague.  One's a better outside shooter, one's a more aggressive penetrator...maybe even a better distributor?  Either way, they'll both give us about the same statistically.  The dropoff comes from not having that dual headed PG monster, but there was no way to keep them both IMO...and we may come out better if Prince develops.

Forget Horford.  Much as I appreciated what he did, Horf was never "that dude."  The hype around him has been unbelievable for MANY years.  He's not special and never has been.  He's a solid all round player, and consistent in what he brings, but he's not a consistently great player.  Horf will go (pts./rbs.)...22/13, 10/11, 15/2, 25/12, 8/5 and he'll do it all season and through the playoffs.  Worse, you don't know which one of those he's going to give you...no matter how important the game is.

The difference with Dwight is that you will get consistently great rebounding, night in and night out.  We'll notice that.  He's also a presence in the lane.  Having a guy like that in the middle changes everything.  His scoring will be inconsistent, but he'll provide the same production Horford does - although obviously not as consistent as Horf's midrange.  If he's healthy, I think he makes us better.

There's no way we don't make the playoffs.  It's a silly and shortsighted thought.  If we get solid production/improvement from Baze and Timmy, and a healthy D12, we should be a better team.

[NBASupes]

53 minutes ago, Wretch said:

Problem is the same as always...nobody knows who we are.   Every year, we fly under the radar because of the "bigger" and "more important" storylines going on.  Dwight's been forgotten about, otherwise he'd be a decent enough story to push us into the conversation.  Not competition, because we're a legit playoff team, but the CONVERSATION where the national press will talk about us.

From a basketball perspective, these dudes don't know that we had a duplication of talent at the point.  There's not much of a drop between Dennis and Teague.  One's a better outside shooter, one's a more aggressive penetrator...maybe even a better distributor?  Either way, they'll both give us about the same statistically.  The dropoff comes from not having that dual headed PG monster, but there was no way to keep them both IMO...and we may come out better if Prince develops.

Forget Horford.  Much as I appreciated what he did, Horf was never "that dude."  The hype around him has been unbelievable for MANY years.  He's not special and never has been.  He's a solid all round player, and consistent in what he brings, but he's not a consistently great player.  Horf will go (pts./rbs.)...22/13, 10/11, 15/2, 25/12, 8/5 and he'll do it all season and through the playoffs.  Worse, you don't know which one of those he's going to give you...no matter how important the game is.

The difference with Dwight is that you will get consistently great rebounding, night in and night out.  We'll notice that.  He's also a presence in the lane.  Having a guy like that in the middle changes everything.  His scoring will be inconsistent, but he'll provide the same production Horford does - although obviously not as consistent as Horf's midrange.  If he's healthy, I think he makes us better.

There's no way we don't make the playoffs.  It's a silly and shortsighted thought.  If we get solid production/improvement from Baze and Timmy, and a healthy D12, we should be a better team.

I do believe the first paraprah is true. 

On Dennis and Jeff, I personally think their neck in neck once Dennis took that leap coming into the pre-season. But like you said, we won games last  year on two reasons. Are frontcourt of Sap/Al and our two headed monster at PG in Jeff/Dennis. 

This year, we have seen even in the preseason epic progress from Korver, Thabo, Bazemore and Hardaway Jr. Korver was bad last year. He was only a net positive because he execute extremely well in the offense but his production was really down and he wasn't effective overall. Thabo was effective on defense but his offense was bad last year. From what we seen in the preseason and v. Washington, he might be our best wing. Bazemore is not wasting movement this year and he's taking drives to the basket and the one thing I liked v. Washington, his defense was smothering. Even when Beal who is a supremely talented player and a top 3-5 SG was scoring, Bazemore did an amazing job from preventing him from scoring. THJr has been really playing solid man and team defense. His offense is inconsistent but when he's hot, he's hot and when he's cold, he's cold. If he's hot more than cold, we might be looking at a most improved candidate.  Tim is such a talented scorer. Now, to finally seeing him making the right reads, flashes, cuts, flairs and decisions like posting up a smaller player, Tim is becoming an all around scorer and we might not be available to afford him this off-season. Of course, Bembry and Prince might be our two most talented wings. Just to show you the type of depth we have at a positions that was very weak last year. At the bottom of the stats last year. 

I disagree on Al, he did a lot for us last year. At our worse in terms of execution, we executed more times than not much better than this from what I seen in the preseason and v. Wash. What I noticed with Howard is he doesn't fit better next to Sap but he makes it easier for our team to make a lot more mistakes. Not because he protects you like Al does but because he's such an offense threat in the paint. He forces defenses to defend him with the team. This opens up the game for so many other players and he's such a beast without the ball, he really is cleaning up our bad mistakes like silly Dennis drives, Korver getting caught in no where's land and Bazemore being greedy which can lead to TO's. That said, Dwight is going to have to communicate better, move off the ball better on offense, move more on defense and build more chemistry with Sap. Al was very valuable. His game film is top notch but watching him and Dwight, the big difference is impact while allowing mistakes. With Al, we would have lost that game yesterday but 10 points. Washington played a great game till the bench was too heavily relied on and got them killed. They moved well on D. They deflected a lot of passes. Porter did a great job cutting Bazemore's drives while Beal like many defenders struggled with Korver's movement. I seen some positives and negatives. 

As for Al, I watched his game v. Brooklyn and Chicago. I can say they haven't figured out how to use them for their team. Defensively, it looks good. They have really cut off driving lanes, the issue is, unlike last year, they are giving up way too many threes and their perimeter defense which is usually elite has been average. Al's been executing but he's still not used correctly. On offense, Al is going to have to start diving to the basket. Too many teams on crowding Thomas on the drive so if Al dived, Thomas would have more room to work with. Boston looks good but this doesn't look like a lock ECF team. At the monument, the only great team I seen this season is Cleveland. Even SA is having their gelling issues. 

 

Atlanta has a lot of potential. Like I said, 62 wins is possible. 

[Vol4ever]

1 hour ago, NBASupes said:

I do believe the first paraprah is true. 

On Dennis and Jeff, I personally think their neck in neck once Dennis took that leap coming into the pre-season. But like you said, we won games last  year on two reasons. Are frontcourt of Sap/Al and our two headed monster at PG in Jeff/Dennis. 

This year, we have seen even in the preseason epic progress from Korver, Thabo, Bazemore and Hardaway Jr. Korver was bad last year. He was only a net positive because he execute extremely well in the offense but his production was really down and he wasn't effective overall. Thabo was effective on defense but his offense was bad last year. From what we seen in the preseason and v. Washington, he might be our best wing. Bazemore is not wasting movement this year and he's taking drives to the basket and the one thing I liked v. Washington, his defense was smothering. Even when Beal who is a supremely talented player and a top 3-5 SG was scoring, Bazemore did an amazing job from preventing him from scoring. THJr has been really playing solid man and team defense. His offense is inconsistent but when he's hot, he's hot and when he's cold, he's cold. If he's hot more than cold, we might be looking at a most improved candidate.  Tim is such a talented scorer. Now, to finally seeing him making the right reads, flashes, cuts, flairs and decisions like posting up a smaller player, Tim is becoming an all around scorer and we might not be available to afford him this off-season. Of course, Bembry and Prince might be our two most talented wings. Just to show you the type of depth we have at a positions that was very weak last year. At the bottom of the stats last year. 

I disagree on Al, he did a lot for us last year. At our worse in terms of execution, we executed more times than not much better than this from what I seen in the preseason and v. Wash. What I noticed with Howard is he doesn't fit better next to Sap but he makes it easier for our team to make a lot more mistakes. Not because he protects you like Al does but because he's such an offense threat in the paint. He forces defenses to defend him with the team. This opens up the game for so many other players and he's such a beast without the ball, he really is cleaning up our bad mistakes like silly Dennis drives, Korver getting caught in no where's land and Bazemore being greedy which can lead to TO's. That said, Dwight is going to have to communicate better, move off the ball better on offense, move more on defense and build more chemistry with Sap. Al was very valuable. His game film is top notch but watching him and Dwight, the big difference is impact while allowing mistakes. With Al, we would have lost that game yesterday but 10 points. Washington played a great game till the bench was too heavily relied on and got them killed. They moved well on D. They deflected a lot of passes. Porter did a great job cutting Bazemore's drives while Beal like many defenders struggled with Korver's movement. I seen some positives and negatives. 

As for Al, I watched his game v. Brooklyn and Chicago. I can say they haven't figured out how to use them for their team. Defensively, it looks good. They have really cut off driving lanes, the issue is, unlike last year, they are giving up way too many threes and their perimeter defense which is usually elite has been average. Al's been executing but he's still not used correctly. On offense, Al is going to have to start diving to the basket. Too many teams on crowding Thomas on the drive so if Al dived, Thomas would have more room to work with. Boston looks good but this doesn't look like a lock ECF team. At the monument, the only great team I seen this season is Cleveland. Even SA is having their gelling issues. 

 

Atlanta has a lot of potential. Like I said, 62 wins is possible. 

1.  Al does not play good one on one defense.  That is why we got beat in the playoffs.
 

2.  Al cannot and will not play in the low post.

 

[NBASupes]

2 minutes ago, Vol4ever said:

1.  Al does not play good one on one defense.  That is why we got beat in the playoffs.
 

2.  Al cannot and will not play in the low post.

 

False. We got beat in the playoffs because of poor play from our wings. 

Sap getting killed by Love. 

Bud not making the right adjustments in the 2nd half when Cleveland turned it up a notch. 

 

He been in the paint more for Boston than for us. Last year, he spend way too much time out of the paint. I had the numbers in one of my documents on my old PC. 

Edited October 28, 2016 by NBASupes

[Guest]

2 hours ago, NBASupes said:

False. We got beat in the playoffs because of poor play from our wings. 

Sap getting killed by Love. 

Bud not making the right adjustments in the 2nd half when Cleveland turned it up a notch. 

 

He been in the paint more for Boston than for us. Last year, he spend way too much time out of the paint. I had the numbers in one of my documents on my old PC. 

Yeeeeaaa, and in no way did Al suck in the playoffs last year. Comon bro.

[NBASupes]

9 minutes ago, Spud2Nique said:

Yeeeeaaa, and in no way did Al suck in the playoffs last year. Comon bro.

He didn't suck in the playoffs  

[Guest]

1 minute ago, NBASupes said:

He didn't suck in the playoffs  

Look at his rebounding numbers, they are pathetic. He played soft and with no heart whatsoever. I honestly think Al is a SF in a pf/c body. 

[h4wkfan]

I get your love affair for horford, but cmon man. they had how many extra possessions because of Tristan pushing him around? we would play good enough defense only to give them 2 and 3 chances.

He wasn't THE  reason we lost, but he was a big part of it  

[NBASupes]

13 minutes ago, Spud2Nique said:

Look at his rebounding numbers, they are pathetic. He played soft and with no heart whatsoever. I honestly think Al is a SF in a pf/c body. 

Good to know rebounds equals talent. Reggie Evans= Elite 

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

Good to know rebounds equals talent. Reggie Evans= Elite 

What? Don't descend. I know that you know what I'm talking about so don't try to steer the focus away from the fact that Horford was one of the main reasons we didn't play well vs the Cavs in any of our playoff meetings. 

 

BTW, Reggie Evans was never looked at as a top 1-3 option on any team as Horford was and is. Reggie had more of the role of a Dennis Rodman. Just come in and do the dirty work and board, which ironically enough does not apply to Horford in any way whatsoever. 

[NBASupes]

4 minutes ago, Spud2Nique said:

What? Don't descend. I know that you know what I'm talking about so don't try to steer the focus away from the fact that Horford was one of the main reasons we didn't play well vs the Cavs in any of our playoff meetings. 

 

BTW, Reggie Evans was never looked at as a top 1-3 option on any team as Horford was and is. Reggie had more of the role of a Dennis Rodman. Just come in and do the dirty work and board, which ironically enough does not apply to Horford in any way whatsoever. 

Rebounding has never been the judging point with Al. Al plays a complete game, if you can't see that, I can't help you. 

[lethalweapon3]

I',m looking forward to Ground Chuck's answers when the TNT crew plays my favorite game: WHO HE PLAY FOR?

Candidates (this list could also be used for the game, "NBA Player, or Alabama Actuary?":

Ron Baker

Davis Bertans

Joel Bolomboy

Bobby Brown

Nicolas Brussino

Rakeem Christmas

Cheick Diallo

Dorian Finney-Smith

Bryn Forbes

Treveon Graham

Juan Hernangomez

Willy Hernangomez

Danuel House

Demetrius Jackson

Derrick Jones

Nico Laprovittola

Jake Layman

DeAndre Liggins

John Lucas III

Sheldon McClellan

Rodney McGruder

Maurice Ndour

Daniel Ochefu

Arinze Onuaku

Chinanu Onuaku

Marshall Plumlee

Tim Quarterman

Diamond Stone

Fred VanVleet

C.J. Watson

Isaiah Whitehead

C.J. Wilcox

Troy Williams

Kyle Wiltjer

Paul Zipser

 

~lw3

[NBASupes]

5 minutes ago, lethalweapon3 said:

I',m looking forward to Ground Chuck's answers when the TNT crew plays my favorite game: WHO HE PLAY FOR?

Candidates (this list could also be used for the game, "NBA Player, or Alabama Actuary?":

Ron Baker _ Knicks

 

 

Davis Bertans_Spurs

 

 

Joel Bolomboy_Not sure! Jazz? 

 

 

Bobby Brown_He got cut right. It was a team with a lot of Brown's.  Clippers? 

 

 

Nicolas Brussino_ Who? 

 

 

Rakeem Christmas_Sixers right? 

 

 

Cheick Diallo_Pels, I remember him getting that work in the preseason. 

 

 

Dorian Finney-Smith_ Not sure. Pistons? 

 

 

Bryn Forbes_ Austin Spurs? 

 

 

Treveon Graham_Grizzles

 

 

Juan Hernangomez_Knicks

 

 

Willy Hernangomez_Nuggets

 

 

Danuel House_Wizards

 

 

Demetrius Jackson_Someone got cut for him. Celtics. 

 

 

Derrick Jones_Warriors

 

 

Nico Laprovittola_Real Madrid? 

 

 

Jake Layman_Wizards? 

 

 

DeAndre Liggins_Cavs. 

 

 

John Lucas III_Cavs?

 

 

Sheldon McClellan_Wizards, he was trying to open the game up last night. 

 

 

Rodney McGruder_ Not sure. 

 

 

Maurice Ndour_mavs

 

 

Daniel Ochefu_Celtics 

 

 

Arinze Onuaku_Heat

 

 

Chinanu Onuaku_Wiz

 

 

Marshall Plumlee_Bucks

 

 

Tim Quarterman_Fort Wayne Amror

 

 

Diamond Stone_Clippers right? 

 

 

Fred VanVleet_ I saw him in the pre-season, can't remember where. 

 

 

C.J. Watson_Coach of PHX

 

 

Isaiah Whitehead_Nets

 

 

C.J. Wilcox_Pistons? 

 

 

Troy Williams_Not sure Grizzles? 

 

 

Kyle Wiltjer_He finally left Gonzaga? 

 

 

Paul Zipser_Bulls. Their fans are hyped on him. 

 

 

 

~lw3

There you go. 

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

Rebounding has never been the judging point with Al. Al plays a complete game, if you can't see that, I can't help you. 

What exactly is a complete game? You can't throw the ball to him and tell him get me a bucket, need a big rebound? No.

Al is very good at what he does but he did nothing to put is in a better position to battle Cleveland last year. He's no Karl Malone.

[PSSSHHHRRR87]

All Barkley, no bite.