The 3-point Conundrum

[AHF]

26 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

So while it may sound good to say "there's plenty of room to improve" it doesn't seem all that realistic to me.  

 

That is insane to me.

Trae shot 38.2% and is shooting 30.8% now

JC shot 36.4% (after two seasons of 40%) and is shooting 22.7% now

Bogi made 2.7 per game and shot 37% (38.4% career average) and is making 0 right now

JJ shot 37.5% last year and is shooting 14.3% now

JHol shot 37% last year and is shooting 33% now

 

That doesn't offer you hope to improve materially over what we are doing today?  

The only guys who are key rotation members that I would say don't offer strong prospects to improve are DM (who just isn't a very good 3pt shooter and so any improvement I'd expect to be immaterial), AHol (he likely will regress to the mean from his current 44%), and Hunter (Hunter is down from last year but the difference isn't big enough to really move the needle). 

I don't include AJ in the above because simply by getting more minutes he will improve our numbers so he does offer a path to improving our performance even if he doesn't improve his %.

Now that doesn't mean that expected improvement will make us an outstanding 3pt shooting team but it will make us materially better than we are today and that is the definition of improvement.

[JayBirdHawk]

32 minutes ago, AHF said:

That doesn't offer you hope to improve materially over what we are doing today?  

Yeah. It's crazy to be that 15 games trumps a bigger sample size.

[JayBirdHawk]

 

 

 

[Spud2nique]

8 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

 

 

What’s judgemental a$$ @kg01 doing just hangin around the basket with his pelvic region in ready position … 

Cute shorts cagey.  

[kg01]

34 minutes ago, Spud2nique said:

What’s judgemental a$$ @kg01 doing just hangin around the basket with his pelvic region in ready position … 

Cute shorts cagey.  

"Naw, that's just me checking in on Kyle."

[REHawksFan]

4 hours ago, AHF said:

That is insane to me.

Trae shot 38.2% and is shooting 30.8% now

JC shot 36.4% (after two seasons of 40%) and is shooting 22.7% now

Bogi made 2.7 per game and shot 37% (38.4% career average) and is making 0 right now

JJ shot 37.5% last year and is shooting 14.3% now

JHol shot 37% last year and is shooting 33% now

 

That doesn't offer you hope to improve materially over what we are doing today?  

The only guys who are key rotation members that I would say don't offer strong prospects to improve are DM (who just isn't a very good 3pt shooter and so any improvement I'd expect to be immaterial), AHol (he likely will regress to the mean from his current 44%), and Hunter (Hunter is down from last year but the difference isn't big enough to really move the needle). 

I don't include AJ in the above because simply by getting more minutes he will improve our numbers so he does offer a path to improving our performance even if he doesn't improve his %.

Now that doesn't mean that expected improvement will make us an outstanding 3pt shooting team but it will make us materially better than we are today and that is the definition of improvement.

Improve materially??  

I said I'm not worried about Trae.  He'll be fine.

JC shot 36% on 3.3 attempts.  Low volume. He currently takes 2.9 per game. So increase his 22% to 36% and he goes from 0.7 makes to 1.1 makes.  That doesn't help the cause overall at any significant level.  And who's to say with his finger issue that he'll EVER be a 36% shooter again?  

Bogi is hurt.  Any idea when he'll return?  Or at what level?  Anything???  

JJ shot 37.5% in GLeague.  He's currently attempting 0.6 3s per game.  How is that going to help?  

JH is valid and should be expected to increase, but again, the difference between his last year and this year is 1 make per game.  And that was on 28 min/gm last year and he's getting 17 min/gm this year.  How significant is that? 

Part and parcel to this concern is Nate's system.  The Hawks take more 2s than any team in the NBA and the fewest 3s. That's by Nate's design.  His Pacers teams were the exact same.  So without increasing the number of 3s they take (significantly anyway), there's no margin for increasing productivity overall even with substantial increases in shooting % (which are less likely).  

So now we get back to material improvement.  It HAS to come from increased 3pt attempts AND increased shooting % on those attempts.  Is that likely?  I don't think so on a level that would materially improve the production of the team.  

JC, Bogie, JJ, and JH all have issues whether it's injuries or playing time that cause a lot of skepticism from me.  

 

Edited November 18, 2022 by REHawksFan

[REHawksFan]

3 hours ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Yeah. It's crazy to be that 15 games trumps a bigger sample size.

What bigger sample size? 15 games is literally all we have with this team.  

 

[AHF]

10 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

Improve materially??  

I said I'm not worried about Trae.  He'll be fine.

JC shot 36% on 3.3 attempts.  Low volume. He currently takes 2.9 per game. So increase his 22% to 36% and he goes from 0.7 makes to 1.1 makes.  That doesn't help the cause overall at any significant level.  And who's to say with his finger issue that he'll EVER be a 36% shooter again?  

Bogi is hurt.  Any idea when he'll return?  Or at what level?  Anything???  

JJ shot 37.5% in GLeague.  He's currently attempting 0.6 3s per game.  How is that going to help?  

JH is valid and should be expected to increase, but again, the difference between his last year and this year is 1 make per game.  And that was on 28 min/gm last year and he's getting 17 min/gm this year.  How significant is that? 

Part and parcel to this concern is Nate's system.  The Hawks take more 2s than any team in the NBA and the fewest 3s. That's by Nate's design.  His Pacers teams were the exact same.  So without increasing the number of 3s they take (significantly anyway), there's no margin for increasing productivity overall even with substantial increases in shooting % (which are less likely).  

So now we get back to material improvement.  It HAS to come from increased 3pt attempts AND increased shooting % on those attempts.  Is that likely?  I don't think so on a level that would materially improve the production of the team.  

JC, Bogie, JJ, and JH all have issues whether it's injuries or playing time that cause a lot of skepticism from me.  

 

Yes - materially.  Bogi by himself adds around 2.5 made 3's per game.  If we add just 0.5 on top of that between all the % increases that would expected based on larger data sets (like the last 3 years) then we would go from 30th in 3pt shots made per game to the top half of the league (right above Portland).  

Moving from dead last to league average is a material improvement.

[REHawksFan]

2 minutes ago, AHF said:

Yes - materially.  Bogi by himself adds around 2.5 made 3's per game.  If we add just 0.5 on top of that between all the % increases that would expected based on larger data sets (like the last 3 years) then we would go from 30th in 3pt shots made per game to the top half of the league (right above Portland).  

Moving from dead last to league average is a material improvement.

So we've boiled this entire argument down to Bogie giving 2.5 per game.  Everything else is on the edges and fairly minimal.  Great.  When does Bogie come back again?  

You keep just assuming he's coming back at his previous level of production.  I don't hold that same assumption.  

[AHF]

11 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

So we've boiled this entire argument down to Bogie giving 2.5 per game.  Everything else is on the edges and fairly minimal.  Great.  When does Bogie come back again?  

You keep just assuming he's coming back at his previous level of production.  I don't hold that same assumption.  

We have been talking about the upside or opportunity to improve.  It would be kind of dumb in the context of assessing upside to assume he can't produce the way he has after injuries in the past, wouldn't it?

Now if you are charting out the most likely scenario then you could qualify that to reflect additional risk but the best stretch of Bogi's entire career (much better than what I'm saying is the upside) came after he missed or was wrecked for 2 months in the 2020-21 season.  That was a stretch of 25 missed games and 11 where he was still getting his feet back under him.  After that he was All-Star level.  So we've definitely seen it before.  

What he will do is more unknown than what the potential for improvement looks like with him returning (i.e., upside).

[REHawksFan]

8 minutes ago, AHF said:

We have been talking about the upside or opportunity to improve.  It would be kind of dumb in the context of assessing upside to assume he can't produce the way he has after injuries in the past, wouldn't it?

Now if you are charting out the most likely scenario then you could qualify that to reflect additional risk but the best stretch of Bogi's entire career (much better than what I'm saying is the upside) came after he missed or was wrecked for 2 months in the 2020-21 season.  That was a stretch of 25 missed games and 11 where he was still getting his feet back under him.  After that he was All-Star level.  So we've definitely seen it before.  

What he will do is more unknown than what the potential for improvement looks like with him returning (i.e., upside).

OK.  Well hopefully Bogie comes back soon and between he and Trae, they will solve the lack of production from 3.  I hope so because the 2 pt production has been waning as well.  They are down to 21st in the NBA in 2pt FG% at last check.  No doubt an effect of the lack of 3pt shooting.  I'm still skeptical Trae and Bogie will be enough.  I guess we'll see.  Assuming Bogie comes back that is.  

[JayBirdHawk]

24 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

What bigger sample size? 15 games is literally all we have with this team.  

 

Maybe I missed something along the discussion, but if we are talking about opportunities to be better from 3, I'd take the stats over the previous years vs 15 games so far.

[REHawksFan]

14 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Maybe I missed something along the discussion, but if we are talking about opportunities to be better from 3, I'd take the stats over the previous years vs 15 games so far.

That's the discussion but we still have to get past Nate's offense (more 2s, less 3s) and then figure out how to get more volume and higher %.  We can agree guys aren't going to continue to shoot career lows from 3pt BUT when their high % are on low volume AND Nate already wants low volume, it's hard to see a path to get from 9 makes to 14 unless Nate allows them to increase the volume. 

We are sitting at 28 per game now which is last in the NBA.  Bogie took 7+ per game last year.  If he just comes in and adds to without anyone else reducing, that's 35 which is more in line with the league.  That would get us - potentially - to 11-12 makes per game if we add 2.5 for Bogie. And that assumes Bogie has no ill effects from his injury (something I'm more skeptical of than @AHF ).  

Anyway, the bottom line is that we can't avg the fewest takes and makes in the NBA and expect an elite offense.  I think and hope we can all agree with that.  It's the likelihood of seeing substantial improvement without roster changes that we seem to be disagreeing on.  

 

[JayBirdHawk]

6 hours ago, REHawksFan said:

Anyway, the bottom line is that we can't avg the fewest takes and makes in the NBA and expect an elite offense

You get no argument from me on this.

[AHF]

52 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

OK.  Well hopefully Bogie comes back soon and between he and Trae, they will solve the lack of production from 3.  I hope so because the 2 pt production has been waning as well.  They are down to 21st in the NBA in 2pt FG% at last check.  No doubt an effect of the lack of 3pt shooting.  I'm still skeptical Trae and Bogie will be enough.  I guess we'll see.  Assuming Bogie comes back that is.  

I think it is less that you and I disagree about concerns for the offense and risk going forward.  It is that I value the defensive improvements we've seen this year and I have yet to see you really address that.  So I'd much rather see us trade JHol and a pick for a 3pt ace to boost the offense than trade JC for a subpar, subsize defender who can't rebound at the PF spot.  If I have to gamble on the offense recovering or us maintaining the defense despite going the Gallo2.0 route then I'll gamble on maintaining the defense and hoping the offense improves rather than the reverse.  I've seen enough of Trae that I think he and DM can make a tolerable offense with our existing roster but I haven't seen enough strong defense from this team to think they can sustain a top 10 defense if we make a major downgrade on that end.

[REHawksFan]

19 minutes ago, AHF said:

I think it is less that you and I disagree about concerns for the offense and risk going forward.  It is that I value the defensive improvements we've seen this year and I have yet to see you really address that.  So I'd much rather see us trade JHol and a pick for a 3pt ace to boost the offense than trade JC for a subpar, subsize defender who can't rebound at the PF spot.  If I have to gamble on the offense recovering or us maintaining the defense despite going the Gallo2.0 route then I'll gamble on maintaining the defense and hoping the offense improves rather than the reverse.  I've seen enough of Trae that I think he and DM can make a tolerable offense with our existing roster but I haven't seen enough strong defense from this team to think they can sustain a top 10 defense if we make a major downgrade on that end.

A couple of things:

1. I do think the lack of 3pt shooting is a more severe detriment to this team's ultimate success than any potential decline in defense from losing JC.  I tend to believe that the below average 2pt shooting will continue to suffer if we don't have viable threats from outside which means out 3s and 2s will be poor.  IE, the overall offense will likely be no better than league average if we don't solve the perimeter issues. 

2. I do not believe that JC is instrumental to the defensive improvement. I view Clint in the paint, Dre on the wing, and DJM at the point of attack as the primary reasons for the defensive improvement.  Yes, JC is a solid defender. But I don't view him as indispensable or irreplaceable.  And I don't think whatever drop off we see from moving JC is so great that it would restrict me from that move.  

[AHF]

33 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

A couple of things:

1. I do think the lack of 3pt shooting is a more severe detriment to this team's ultimate success than any potential decline in defense from losing JC.  I tend to believe that the below average 2pt shooting will continue to suffer if we don't have viable threats from outside which means out 3s and 2s will be poor.  IE, the overall offense will likely be no better than league average if we don't solve the perimeter issues. 

2. I do not believe that JC is instrumental to the defensive improvement. I view Clint in the paint, Dre on the wing, and DJM at the point of attack as the primary reasons for the defensive improvement.  Yes, JC is a solid defender. But I don't view him as indispensable or irreplaceable.  And I don't think whatever drop off we see from moving JC is so great that it would restrict me from that move.  

I'm not taking the position that JC is the lynchpin to our defense.  I am saying I am worried that sticking a 6'7'' wing who can't rebound there would tank our defense.  That is why I asked people who have watched Bojan at PF to share their views.  My assumption based on his size, history, and metrics is that he would be a disaster at PF and would essentially require Hunter to play PF against any threatening big because BB would be a liability.  But that is not an informed assumption which is why I was hoping to hear the case that Bojan would enhance our D or at least keep it at the same level.  I'd kind of expect that if we are trading for a 34 year old (his age this season) who will be an UFA this offseason.

I would be much less worried about our defense if we were trading JC for Jerami Grant who I would feel more confident in defensively.

Just from a metrics perspective, Bojan looks brutal:

• Negative DBPM every season of his career
• 121 DRTG this year (worst on his team among regulars)
• 115 DRTG last year (worst on his team among regulars)
• He has lower steal and block rates than Trae.
• Even though he is playing PF, his rebound rate is lower than AJ's.
• Add in that he has more turnovers than assists in his career and I'm way more concerned about the fit than you are.

At the end of the day, I do view our defense as the reason we are 9-6 right now and would hate to revert back to where we were last year with a great offense and craptastic defense scuffling to try to get our heads above .500.

[REHawksFan]

4 minutes ago, AHF said:

But I do view our defense as the reason we are 9-6 right now and would hate to revert back to where we were last year with a great offense and craptastic defense scuffling to try to get our heads above .500.

I actually agree here.  I don't want a craptastic defense either.  I'm just of the opinion that as long as Clint/Hunter/DJM are on the floor, the defense will be AT LEAST average or better.  

I'm also of the opinion that as long as Trae is on the floor with competent shooters, the offense will be Top 10. So to me, trading JC is not a big deal if it solves a lot of the perimeter issues.  

As for Bojan specifically, I can't speak intelligently on him as a 4 defender.  I haven't watched him closely enough or know how to find stats defending the 4.  So I don't have much to offer.  I'm just intrigued heavily by his offensive numbers and don't believe the loss of JC is a huge deal defensively.  

Overall, I feel like we've swung the pendulum too far in the defense direction at the expense of the offense.  Last year was elite offense, bottom tier defense.  This year we get top third defense, middle third offense that is trending downward.  And that's against a pretty terrible early schedule. I fear by the time the schedule picks up, games like Wednesday (but not as extreme) will become more of the norm than the exception and we will likely end up with middle third defense and bottom third offense if status quo holds.    

[Gray Mule]

If you don't shoot the 3 you can't hit the 3.  Hawks are not missing the shots because they don't shoot them.  Then, add to this the fact that this Hawk team misses a bigger % than they have in previous years.  Stinks, doesn't it.

Compared to the common sized men the Hawks are really big.  But when we compare their size to all other NBA teams we come up a little short.  Clint - 6'10"  John - 6"9" and, off the bench, Frank - 7'.  This is our "big boys."  

Currently Atlanta is missing three of last season's big 3 point shooters.  Bogie will be back for Christmas and the other two were traded away.  AJ Griffin will, I believe, become our current best three point player.  He will need time to mature into this roll.  Meanwhile, we wait and hope our current players improve to at least where their average was before the season began.

[marco102]

1 hour ago, REHawksFan said:

I actually agree here.  I don't want a craptastic defense either.  I'm just of the opinion that as long as Clint/Hunter/DJM are on the floor, the defense will be AT LEAST average or better.  

I'm also of the opinion that as long as Trae is on the floor with competent shooters, the offense will be Top 10. So to me, trading JC is not a big deal if it solves a lot of the perimeter issues.  

As for Bojan specifically, I can't speak intelligently on him as a 4 defender.  I haven't watched him closely enough or know how to find stats defending the 4.  So I don't have much to offer.  I'm just intrigued heavily by his offensive numbers and don't believe the loss of JC is a huge deal defensively.  

Overall, I feel like we've swung the pendulum too far in the defense direction at the expense of the offense.  Last year was elite offense, bottom tier defense.  This year we get top third defense, middle third offense that is trending downward.  And that's against a pretty terrible early schedule. I fear by the time the schedule picks up, games like Wednesday (but not as extreme) will become more of the norm than the exception and we will likely end up with middle third defense and bottom third offense if status quo holds.    

I have to push back on the trading JC.  His defense has been really good this year.  He is one of the main reasons why the defense has been good. He's communicating and is the right position at the right time.

I would not trade him for the other Bogdanovic.  

We have to get used to maybe not having the best offense, but relying on our defense.  Defense travels in the playoffs better than offense. 

I also think a lot of our players are sumpling at the same time right now and when they get out of it, the Hawks will be top 10 in offense.  Hopefully, they'll keep up the good defense too.

Edited November 18, 2022 by marco102