Atlanta Hawks: Larry Drew to return as coach

Its not the players or the coach fans are fed up with the owners ASG Hawks fans want change yes we have made the playoffs back to back but that’s all we have done they keep saying something will change but it never happens under these owners we can’t spend any money and missed out drafting good players .

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This team had a good year because of Josh, clearly this teams MVP and inspite of another disappointing performance and season from Al Horford.

I wish Michael Cunningham would quit licking Al’s nuts so this team can develop by trading the lazy heartless bum.

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Don’t worry every thing is great as grandpa says LD is really a good coach.

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Dawgnole,

It is called a process…. From 13 win team to 5 straight years of playoffs… I don’t know how that if failure but I live in the real word. Where winning is hard and should be respected and not some fantasy attainable by anyone that wants it.

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DAWGNOLE-Please explain how you’re negative attitude and disappointment in the teams performance over the last 44yrs changed a damned thing for you, the team, or anyone else? IT’S NOTHING BUT A WASTE OF TIME, SELF DEFEATING, AS WELL AS SELF SERVING.

RUSTY-Apparently you feel continuing to be negatie by discussing what we shouda, coulda, woulda done, makes far more sense to you than realistically discussing what might actually be done to improve the team? That obviously makes sense only to you and those who think like you.

BRIDADIERJERRY-JSmith has only 1yr remaining on his contract to JJs 4, and he seems to want out of Atlanta. He also has a smaller salary, as well as far more trade value, which makes him the most likely 1 of the 2 to be traded. With Horford’s desire and ability to play PF, Josh can be replaced far easier, cheaperand more effectively than JJ.

At any rate, one of them needs to go. We’ve been unable to maintain any OFF consistency and ball movement because one of them is always stopping ball movement by going ISO. Getting a consistently productive SF and a functional starting or backup center to team with Zaza is a must.

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rufus1
May 20th, 2012
4:53 pm

Dawgnole,

It is called a process…. From 13 win team to 5 straight years of playoffs… I don’t know how that if failure but I live in the real word. Where winning is hard and should be respected and not some fantasy attainable by anyone that wants it.
_______________________

Is it a process to go from a Round 2 exit last year to a Round 1 exit this year? Is it progress?

You can continue to dance around the 44-year history all you want, but that is a huge issue for this city in terms of developing a passionate fanbase. And it’s not just the Hawks, obviously. ATL has ONE championship in 155 seasons of competition. That’s the real world.

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Ken Strickland
May 20th, 2012
5:55 pm

DAWGNOLE-Please explain how you’re negative attitude and disappointment in the teams performance over the last 44yrs changed a damned thing for you, the team, or anyone else? IT’S NOTHING BUT A WASTE OF TIME, SELF DEFEATING, AS WELL AS SELF SERVING.
___________________

Ken, please learn how to spell and how to stop screaming in your posts. Then you can explain to me how your satisfaction with mediocrity has “changed a damned thing for you, the team, or anyone else.” You can also explain to me how your delusional thinking is anything but “a waste of time, self defeating, as well as self serving.”

Happy, happy, happy with a half-century’s worth of postseason failure–that’s our Mr. Ken. Maybe you should slip on a skirt and run out there with the Hawks’ cheerleaders. You can smile like they do and continue to “think positive” after yet another early exit.

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and the beat goes on.

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“How in the world is trading JJ and Marvin for a trade exception that we will NOT use, a good move? ”

Who said anything about not using it?

Utah traded Boozer for a trade exception and used that exception to acquire Al Jefferson, which ended up being an upgrade for them. There’s no reason the Hawks couldn’t make a similar type of move by trading Joe and/or Marvin.

The whole idea behind clearing cap space is that it will be used eventually to acquire someone better. Obviously if you are of the opinion that the Hawks will let $18 million in cap space just sit there, then it does no good, but I think a Joe-sized trade exception is more likely to be used by this team than a Childress-sized trade exception.

“The one thing you DON’T do, is trade any of these guys for scraps, just to get them off the books. The teams that aspire to win championships or advance deep into the playoffs, at least trade their assets, for other assets that they can use.”

Maybe not frequently, but it has happened. Just last summer, the world champion Dallas Mavericks let Tyson Chandler walk for nothing because they believed it is in their best long-term interest to keep cap flexibility to pursue free agents.

Every team weighs costs and benefits when making a trade, and when you have a guy who already isn’t giving you enough benefit for the cost and whose cost-benefit ratio is only going to get worse from here on out, the right move is to clear him off the books, especially when he likely isn’t leading to an appreciable increase in the win column.

I realize there are differing opinions of Joe’s value on this blog, but at this stage of his career, I honestly think the Hawks can replace him with someone like Arron Afflalo and lose in 6 games in the first round just as well as they currently do. They did go 4-2 with 3 wins over playoff teams without Joe this season. At Joe’s salary, the value he provides in the win column is nowhere near enough. And yeah, you can say that about other players on this team as well, but other players’ contracts don’t cripple the Hawks’ ability to improve the roster the way Joe’s contract does.

Any serious rebuilding/retooling of this team has to start with moving Joe’s contract. With the amount he gets paid and the trade value of the other key players on the team, there is no way you can keep Joe and seriously expect to upgrade this roster beyond its current 2nd round ceiling. There are, on the other hand, ways you can realistically expect to keep Teague/Al/Josh, dump Joe/Marvin, and improve the roster beyond its current 2nd round ceiling.

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The Pacers are in a much better long-term position than the Hawks mainly because they have cap space. Two years ago, three of their four highest-paid players were Mike Dunleavy, TJ Ford, and Troy Murphy. Needless to say, none of them were making the impact in the win column that would come close to justifying their salaries. So the Pacers let Ford and Dunleavy walk for nothing, traded Murphy for Darren Collison, made a couple of solid draft picks, and now they are a second round team with enough cap space to acquire another high-priced player via free agency or trade.

Three of their four highest paid players from two years ago, totaling nearly $30 million in annual salary at the time, and all they had to show for it after they left was Darren Collison.

Would I trade Joe and Marvin for, say, Eric Bledsoe and cap space? Hell yeah I would, and I would feel quite confident that in two years the Hawks would be in much better shape than they would be with Joe and Marvin on the roster.

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“Well they’ve accomplished more than us this season, that’s for sure. Sixers tied the series 2 – 2. They’re simply tougher than the Hawks, so the physical play of the Celtics doesn’t bother them as much, as it did us.”

So the Sixers and Pacers are in the exact same position the Hawks were in a year ago. How did that work out for the Hawks? How did all that “stepping up” Joe and Josh and Jamal and Al did work out?

I am not crowning the Sixers or Pacers with anything until they win their series. All the good things I said about the Pacers’ future in the previous post aside, they have done nothing more than last year’s Hawks up to this point.

And regardless, like I said before, bringing up the Sixers and Pacers doesn’t relate at all to your original point. All Stars like Iguodala and Granger stepping up against superstars in a playoff series is nothing like role players like Zaza and Ivan stepping up permanently to replace what Josh provides. Zaza and Ivan will never be the help defender and shot creator Josh is, because they simply don’t have that level of talent. You can’t ask people to step up and do something they are incapable of doing. It’s not going to happen on a regular basis.

“What may just happen though, is that Al Horford ( given greater offensive responsibility ) will have the same season Josh Smith had . . with much more offensive efficiency.”

Al Horford, for all the good things he does, has never shown the ability to consistently create his own shot even in one on one situations, let alone draw double teams and create shots for other people like Josh does. Again, you cannot expect someone to “step up” and do something they are incapable of doing. Maybe Al develops those skills down the road, but he is not going to magically become Tim Duncan just because he gets the ball more. His offensive efficiency is where it is in large part because he has very little shot creating responsibility. The greater his offensive responsibility becomes, the worse his efficiency will get, just like with any other player.

“No. The reason why we can trade Josh Smith and be fine, is because we have Al Horford and Zaza to replace him. Re-sign a guy like Ivan and maybe find some other big man that can play either good position defense, or block a few shots, and the Hawks will be fine.”

There are no LeBrons on this team, so everyone including Josh is tradeable and replaceable. But that does not mean that the replacement for Josh is on this roster. If they go out and get Ibaka, and Teague learns how to consistently set up his teammates with good shots over the offseason, then sure, Josh probably won’t be missed. But Zaza and Al and Ivan are not going to step up and do what Josh does game in and game out, because they simply do not have the talent to do so.

If “stepping up” was that easy, the NBA would be like football. Just get a good coach and a bunch of role playing Andy Daltons who fit into the system and you can win. That is never how the NBA has been. Even the ‘04 Pistons, the one lone exception to the rule that superior talent wins in the NBA, had the league’s best defender and rebounder.

“The 2009 – 10 Hawks were the 4th best offensively rated team in the HISTORY of the franchise ”

Ask DawgNole about the history of this franchise.

“and by far a better offensive team than anything we’ve had in the past 8 years here. They also shot 47% FG, higher than any of the 2 teams Drew has coached ( despite him being a better offensive coach ).”

They shot 0.6% better from the field than last year’s 44 win, 20th-in-offensive-efficiency team that advanced farther in the playoffs. The offensive efficiency they posted was primarily because of their excellence on the offensive glass. I don’t deny that they were a great regular season offensive team. My point is that the way they compiled that great offensive efficiency was not sustainable in the playoffs as Orlando emphatically proved.

“The Hawks got the beatdown vs Orlando because the players were scared to mix it up against Dwight, and JJ had a horrific series against them.”

No, they got a beatdown vs. Orlando because Woody’s insistence on doubling Dwight left Orlando’s shooters wide open, the players Woody used on Dwight were physically incapable of mixing it up with him, the team was unable to dominate the offensive glass against a better rebounder, and the player Woody had at his disposal who was physically capable of mixing it up against Dwight got a DNP-CD for the entire series.

Once again, you assume that 6′10″ 240 pound Al Horford can simply “step up” and battle with the 6′11″ 270 pound, athletically superior Dwight Howard. That’s not how it works. Al and Josh couldn’t mix it up with Dwight because they were incapable of doing so, due to Dwight’s superior talent and physical skill. They can try as hard as they want, but without a bigger body like Twin to occupy Dwight, they are never going to step up and battle him on a regular basis. That’s why the Hawks lost that series. The method they used to compile that great regular season offensive efficiency number — crashing the offensive glass and giving themselves extra possessions — did not work against a team that was bigger and better on the defensive glass than they were.

“While a great defensive rebounder, his unwillingness to play close to the rim prevents him from being an ELITE overall rebounder. If he blocked anyone out, he could average 12 rebounds a game.”

OK, well, he has the 3rd highest overall rebound rate of anyone in this year’s playoffs. How did that change the team’s fortunes?

“But I keep talking about that one weakness, the one MAJOR WEAKNESS, because it effects the entire team.”

Everyone on this team has major weaknesses that affect the entire team. If you looked at it that way, ship Teague out because he isn’t aggressive enough, ship Joe out because he takes ten seconds to figure out what he wants to do every time, ship Al out because he can’t create his own shot, ship Zaza out because he can’t finish. All of those weaknesses affect the way the entire team approaches the game. There are no LeBrons on this team.

I try to avoid bringing up individual strengths and weaknesses and look at the overall contributions each player brings. Josh’s overall contributions this season were greater than anyone else on the team, even with that weakness, and this roster does not have the personnel to step up and replace that.

“And with him being the #1 offensive guy now, this team will be more out of balance than ever.”

Not necessarily. Generally speaking, when they run the offense through him in the post, he stays closer to the basket and the team as a whole gets good shots. When they get away from posting him up, he starts drifting to the perimeter.

Of course, this gets thrown out of whack when he’s guarded by a bigger player like KG, who forces him to the perimeter and makes him try to face up and inevitably shoot jumpers.

There is no true #1 option on this team, but Josh is the closest thing the Hawks have. If the Hawks are going to go out and get a true #1 option somehow, I’d rather pair him with the best player currently on the roster than one of the supporting players on the current roster, and that’s before taking salaries into consideration.

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Enter Comments

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Does any Hawk care? That may sound silly, but as I watch with amazment the “real” teams that have heart in these playoffs play, I can’t help but think-what are the Hawks players thinking about themselves-having to watch other teams and they aren’t playing? I would dare to say that yes, most care, but some aren’t looking for the Naismith Trophy-meaning working hard to get their hands on one. They are just concerned about themselves-just glad to be in the NBA. That’s enough for me, they’re thinking. Some have higher goals-I just want us to have a winning record in the NBA season and possibly make the playoffs-management. Some want to make it to the second round. That’s good-but you have to want more. If management wanted more-they would have done whatever it took to put themselves in a position to move to the next round. The Hawks are stuck with what they’ve got. Now this may not be a bad thing, but how are the issues with the Hawks players not listening to, and not following the dictates of the coach. And more importantly-how can Larry Drew implement actual plays in the game of basketball and actually “coach” the game, instead of relying on individual performances of his top “mediocre” players? Josh doesn’t listen, iso-Joes not the answer, Marvin’s a bust. Deal with that question and maybe there-we’ll have an answer to the Hawks issues. The 2012-13 season is already here. What will the Hawks do, and how will they prepare in the summer for the preseason? This time-there will be no excuses. No injuries, no strike shortened season, no contract disputes, etc. What will be the excuse going forward?

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Joe Johnson for Rashard Lewis’s $13.7M buyout and the 32nd pick makes too much sense. None of Washington’s current players become unrestricted free agents until the last year of Joe’s contract. Adding Joe actually saves the Wizards $4M (pre-buyout). Wall, Johnson, Nene, and one of the top picks in this year’s draft is a decent start, especially if Wall takes the next step in his 3rd year. Oh, and Washington would pick up a $4M trade exception too (Joe’s $19.7M to Lewis’s $23.7M).

Hawks could go a number of different ways with the $6M savings. $3M would get JR Smith, who currently has a player option of $2.6M. The 32nd pick should be a decent player as well.

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@Big Ray

Don’t hate; congratulate.

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@O’Brien

Jordan Farmer averaged 4.7ppg and 4.6ppg, respectively, in the 2009 and 2010 playoffs for the Lakers. In those two NBA championship runs for the Lakers in 2009 and 2010, Jordan Farmar would be considered, at best, a [bench] filler and marginal contributor towards those [two] Lakers teams’ success. How many times has Jordan Farmar led the Lakers in scoring in the playoffs? How many times has Jordan Farmar scored 20+ points in the playoffs for the Lakers? Do you think opposing coaches and scouts prepared and developed game plans to neutralize, stop and/or contain Jordan Farmar in the playoffs for the Lakers? Are you thinking, no? I thought so. Do you think opposing coaches and scouts considered Jordan Farmar [to be] a [primary] scoring threat for the Lakers in the playoffs? I don’t think so. Next, you, O’Brien, will be trying/attempting to say/argue/propose that the Lakers should’ve kept Mark Madsen after the 2003 [regular] season because with him [Madsen] the Lakers won [two] NBA championships in 2001 and 2002 but without him [Madsen] the Lakers lost [in] the 2004 NBA Finals. O’Brien, quit playin’ [and clownin’] yourself.

P.S. O’Brien, stop listening to northcyde. Quiet as [it’s] kept, he [northcyde] is not the NBA aficionado that you [O’Brien] and he [northcyde] think he is. [shhh + smh] [Part III]

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Playing the [4] Power Forward position has nothing to do with where
Al is positioned for defensive Rebounds.

His defensive assignment would have more to do with that, than his
position on Offense.

Still a rebounder who wishes to rebound will go get the ball; regardless.

As a matter of fact;
many [4`s have led the league in rebounding.
[Case in point / K.Love]

Even if a player plays the [3] on Offense;
the coach can assign him the [5] man to defend.

It`s not rec league [beginners] where the ref makes the players
match up by positions at the jump circle.

Josh played the [3] much of the time yhis season and led our Hawks
in Rebs.

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@O’Brien

First, O’Brien, you sound (and write) a lot like northcyde with that “let’s wait and see if Jamal becomes a FA, how many ‘good’ teams will offer him [Crawford] a contract” talk/rhetoric. Get some originality (about yourself), O’Brien; think for yourself. [Part I-A]

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Incremental post was in response to the following:

@O’Brien

“…High-sider,
With Jordan Farmar, Lakers won back to back championships. Without Jordan Farmar, Lakers got swept by Dallas in the second round. So how important of a player was Jordan Farmar?

Every year is different. Orlando swept us by 101 points one year, and then we eliminate them in 6 games the next year. Teams change, players change, so Jamal is not the end all-be all for us getting to the ECF. If Al and Zaza are both healthy, we might have beaten Boston anyways.

Let’s wait and see if Jamal becomes a FA this offseason, and see which teams offer him a contract, and for how much.” – O’Brien

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Ken S

Preach on Brother

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Ken S

On one point, I must go against the grain.

JoeJohnson has gotta go.

It really has less to do with his contract and *’`Much More`’* to do
with his Basketball !

I will go more in depth later but;
I do not wish to upset nortcyde this eve.

Seriously;
the more I look at the Big Picture;
JoeGottaGo !

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Larry Drew’s half court offense is inconsistent. More ball movement is needed. I also think he needs a defensive specialist as an assistant coach AND an offensive specialist to assist with their half court game. Certainly there would be less distractions if someone would purchase the team. Drew did a decent job working with a short handed group during crunch time.

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I think trading JJ or Josh would be a mistake. Run a better half court offense and play srong defense with the players on the roster. Continue to build a strong bench. With a healthy Horford, the team would have beaten Boston and Philly.

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Gearon Jr you keep fooling those “fanatics” all you want….

28-47 means your franchise are miles behind from competing as an elite……You cant spin your garbage on most of us Sir ….

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northcyde

I was only teasin` you a little bit.

Since you and I have disagreed over Joe in the past;
I seriously do not wish to hash all that out again.

I think we are very nearly on the same page.

I feel like Josh`s trade value is high.
So any trade talk about Josh is more about getting return value.
Plus, if Josh truly wishes to leave, I say so long.

Back to Joe;
as you know I`ve harbored some negativity toward his game.
[none of my feeling currently are about his contract]

I really think joe is an albatross to the team`s growth.

Please;
we disagree, I respect your views, we understand each other.
I hold no personal grudge against Joe as he seems like a nice man.

So, debating between you and I is only going `round & `round.

We both feel a change must be made involving Joe and or Josh;
not a kaboom, but a change nonetheless.

I maybe can see where both JS + JJ and Marv would depart
and we remain competitive due to Sund being relieved,
and a new GM who has ” vision ” -along with- ” ingenuity ”
to augment those trades with assets in return.

Once again, I was not casting aspersion upon you in my previous post.
Just teasin` a bit.
G-dad

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