Horford still waiting on big-man help

[MaceCase]

The real issue here is that Al is upset that he still won't get to call himself a full-time or starting PF. The team has had pretty good Center depth behind him before and the starting lineup has often been changed to accommodate him against bigger and offensively competent Centers over the last 3 years. Ferry continues that trend by drafting 2 Centers for the future while signing another 2 and claiming one off waivers for the present yet Al is still complaining.

Were this any other player you would have already seen the "Diva" title thrown around. His complaints are more a personal preference rather than a team goal. Additionally, all of Al's success has come from playing primarily next to a player both smaller and possessing lesser length than him, yup, even in college.

[BAMABIRD]

Would have been nice to hear Horford publicly lobbying for free agent centers to come to ATL. Don't recall him saying anything, but yet he was on twitter crying about Teague leaving.

In his defense, he did publicly lobby for Centers during the draft. Problem is we drafted a guy who weighs less than AL and is years from being a consistent contributor.

Which was fine, but he should have been lobbying to established NBA players to come play with him. It's one thing to lobby to the front office for help but to be able to get a guy to come play with you is a tougher sell.

[MaceCase]

Would have been nice to hear Horford publicly lobbying for free agent centers to come to ATL. Don't recall him saying anything, but yet he was on twitter crying about Teague leaving.

In his defense, he did publicly lobby for Centers during the draft. Problem is we drafted a guy who weighs less than AL and is years from being a consistent contributor.

Which was fine, but he should have been lobbying to established NBA players to come play with him. It's one thing to lobby to the front office for help but to be able to get a guy to come play with you is a tougher sell.

I agree, Chandler Parsons and James Harden were pretty vocal about their pursuit of Dwight talking about how' they'd call and text him everyday. We can't place blame solely on the front office being unable to attract star players when these days you have it that players themselves are doing most of the recruiting seeing as they are free of tampering charges.

Al has been in All Star lockerrooms, he was a big part of the players' union, he's always on all of sponsored international trips, he most definitely should be in tight with all of the top tier players in this league outside of just those who he roomed with in college.

I'm not saying that it's foolproof or that there was actually a player that we should have acquired but he's not doing the team any favors when he's the lone remaining star and instead of acting as the spearhead for attracting players to actually come help him he's publicly attacking an already much maligned front office.

[Jamaaliver]

Which was fine, but he should have been lobbying to established NBA players to come play with him. It's one thing to lobby to the front office for help but to be able to get a guy to come play with you is a tougher sell.

Fair point. I found it revealing that Houston's recruiting party included Harden and Chandler plus the Head Coach, GM and legendary Houston Centers of the past.

Our recruiting party included Bud and Ferry, two guys Howard probably never heard of or saw play...

I'm sure all 5's would like it if they didn't have to bang in the post so much. It would prolong all their careers. But if a guy is best inside, that's where you play him.

I don't know. I've heard Drummond and Hibbert say how much they love banging in the post. Largely because they're bigger than 99% of the guys guarding them. Rodman, Ben Wallace, Shaq are other guys who loved getting dirty and flexing their muscle in close to the basket.

Also, I'm not sure I'd say AL is best inside. I mean, clearly he's a solid post defender, but offensively he operates best in the midragnge area, allowing him to use that beautiful jumpshot or pass to wing players cutting to the basket.

[Jamaaliver]

And yet another reason why AL needs to be preserved:

Al Horford did not accompany the Atlanta Hawks for their road game in Dallas and will miss the preseason finale due to a lingering hamstring problem.

Seriously, AL is always nursing some lingering injury. And as Roddy White will tell you, hamstring injuries tend to linger...

[Jamaaliver]

And Lucas Nogueira is proving to be even MORE injury prone.

http://www.peachtreehoops.com/2013/10/23/4946898/lucas-nogueira-injury-hamstring-estudiantes-atlanta-hawks

[Durins Baynes]

Even the biggest of big men start to complain as their careers go on. For years, even on the Lakers, Shaq moaned about not having more help inside to rebound for him, and take the pressure off. He wanted a Ho Grant like player to do his dirty work on the boards and let him do less banging (so basically he wanted a poor mans Horford to do a lot of his work on the glass for him). If you can get a guy like that to pair him with, you do it. But you don't make your team worse in order to take a guy away from his strength. Shaq needed to play inside more and stop complaining (especially on D and on the boards- you know, after someone takes a shot), and Horford basically is in the same position. If you can get a guy who lets him play the 4 without getting worse, then good, but Asik isn't really an improvement over Milsap talent wise. It's better to wait for the right deal, than to make a move just to get a worse starter who happens to be a 5.

[tbhawksfan]

Put a competant CENTER next to Horford and....the Hawks will be better. He knows that. Absolutely nothing wrong with him saying it

[Jamaaliver]

Put a competant CENTER next to Horford and....the Hawks will be better. He knows that. Absolutely nothing wrong with him saying it

Amen, brother.

A competent 7-footer gives a stronger frontcourt than we've had in over a decade.

Even the biggest of big men start to complain as their careers go on. For years, even on the Lakers, Shaq moaned about not having more help inside to rebound for him

Shaq was 7-feet, 300 pounds and lazy. AL is just tired of always being smaller than the guy guarding him. And tired of always having a PF who's smaller than the person guarding him. We've had an undersized frontcourt for most of the last decade. Time to at least TRY featuring AL with a Center.

[tsherkin]

Horford has the J and speed to be a 4.

Asik is a legit 7-footer who rebounds, defends and draws fouls. He'd be PERFECT next to Horford...

[Yungsta404]

Horford has the J and speed to be a 4.

Asik is a legit 7-footer who rebounds, defends and draws fouls. He'd be PERFECT next to Horford...

well apparently some people on here thinks that we wont be a better team with asik cause they value milsap scoring over the toughness,defense, and rebounding asik brings.

[tsherkin]

Horford has the J and speed to be a 4.

Asik is a legit 7-footer who rebounds, defends and draws fouls. He'd be PERFECT next to Horford...

well apparently some people on here thinks that we wont be a better team with asik cause they value milsap scoring over the toughness,defense, and rebounding asik brings.

I like Millsap, he's a fine player, but yeah, Asik is clearly better at both defense and rebounding, while being large enough to enable Horford to stop playing out of position, which would be good.

[MaceCase]

Horford has the J and speed to be a 4.

Asik is a legit 7-footer who rebounds, defends and draws fouls. He'd be PERFECT next to Horford...

well apparently some people on here thinks that we wont be a better team with asik cause they value milsap scoring over the toughness,defense, and rebounding asik brings.

I like Millsap, he's a fine player, but yeah, Asik is clearly better at both defense and rebounding, while being large enough to enable Horford to stop playing out of position, which would be good.

You say "good" but the question is whether it would be "better". There are surely areas of the game that Asik is great at and there are others that Millsap excels at but overall is it a move that particularly propels the Hawks up the standings?

The big unknown in the debate is Horford himself. Some believe that beyond just his whining over personal preference and having to use less ice after games that he is an entirely different animal at the 4 than he's ever demonstrated at the 5 (or any of the other instances where he has actually played at, functioned as, defended or been defended by the 4). Others reason that from evidence and display of his actual skillset that whatever he will gain defensively he will lose offensively.......thus making it one big push overall.




So now moving beyond the hypothetical of some posters on this board somehow being the ones responsible for holding up Daryl Morey from shipping Asik to the Hawks for Millsap.... Danny Ferry has managed to build a flexible team in the interim until, I guess, we lose veto power.

Is it perfect? No, but as has been explained before, Al has and has had players on the roster that can take the defensive burden off of him having to defend all of these burly fellows while also having frontcourt players good enough on offense to allow for him to take advantage of those same slow plodders that can't keep up with him. That latter part is a bonus he wouldn't have with Asik, teams aren't exactly going to be throwing their better frontcourt defender at Asik simply because he's tall. Heck, you'd wonder if they'd have any defender on him outside of boxing out after a shot went up and in case you haven't noticed, there are no Derrick Roses or James Hardens on this team to make up the scoring.

[Jamaaliver]

The big unknown in the debate is Horford himself. Some believe that beyond just his whining over personal preference and having to use less ice after games

I'm not sure it's as simple as him whining or being worried about icing down his soreness.

Again, he's already lost a season to injury. And spent half of last season playing while recovering from that same injury. Now he's nursing a hamstring injury, a malady that tends to linger for weeks/months.

Horford's never struck me as a guy who whines; this seems like a legitimate concern, long and short term. Not only do we not have a starting Center to play next to him, we don't even have a reliable BACKUP to spell Horford. (Ayon is unproven and already injured.) If AL were to go down to injury for an extended amount of time, we would literally be stuck with 3 power forwards as our frontcourt.

Again, it's not as if it's only me, parson and Horford asking for the switch. I've heard a dozen coaches, scouts, players, analysts over the years mention how good Horford was at PF and how good he could be at the position. Under Drew, he spent almost half the game at PF.

How good would he be as a power forward?

“He’d be a beast,” coach Larry Drew said.

He is taking a beating, particularly at the defensive end. Drew is trying to minimize the issue by going with a “big” lineup about 40 percent of the time: Horford moves to power forward, Josh Smith to small forward, Jason Collins steps in at center and Marvin Williams goes to the bench.

Drew admitted, “I’ve even thought of making the change permanent.”

http://blogs.ajc.com/jeff-schultz-blog/2011/02/08/al-horford-an-all-star-at-center-but-hes-taking-a-beating/

In truth, I'm pretty sure Horford is leaving as soon as he gets the chance should things not improve. Why take a beating at the wrong position for a team going nowhere? I seem to be hearing more and more quotes from him like this one:

My biggest thing is I'm going to try and take care of my body as best I can ... yeah, I was under the impression some changes were going to happen. They didn't happen. And I have to deal with it and adjust to this new style of play."

Or this one:

“I was hoping to play more in the power forward position," Horford said. "We couldn’t work things out with Zaza (Pachulia) and he had to leave. I understand that now I have to go play some center. I would like to play a little more power forward. I was talking to coach (Mike Budenholzer) and the way that the offense works, the 4 and the 5 are pretty much interchangeable.

"Having to guard the big 5 night in and night out, I felt took a toll on me so I’m hoping they will be able to find a big body, a big player to be able to help."

http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/atlanta-hawks/2013/jul/15/horford-prepared-stay-center/

[Jamaaliver]

That latter part is a bonus he wouldn't have with Asik, teams aren't exactly going to be throwing their better frontcourt defender at Asik simply because he's tall. Heck, you'd wonder if they'd have any defender on him outside of boxing out after a shot went up and in case you haven't noticed, there are no Derrick Roses or James Hardens on this team to make up the scoring.

Not that I'm advocating Asik specifically, but his stats are startlingly similar or even better than two recent teams that made runs to the NBA Finals:

Asik's production exceeds Tiago Splitter's from lasts eason when SAS ran to the Finals.
Asik's production MASSIVELY exceeds Kendrick Perkins' production for OKC when they went to the Finals and Perkins' production when Boston won the title. His post defense and rebounding were integral in each of those teams deep playoff runs.

Looking all the way back to 2011 to the team that won it all, Omer Asik's recent production is almost identical to Tyson Chandler's production in the season Dallas won the championship.

My point is that crisp offensive execution, ball movement, outside shooting and heady guard play can compensate offensively for limited defensive players. Particularly limited BIGs who can score enough on putbacks, alley oops and garbage buckets to keep their defenders honest and justify being on the court.

ALL great teams feature heavy minutes of defensive big men with limited offensive potential.

[MaceCase]

Horford has missed a total of 81 regular season games out of a possible 476 over the entire 6 years of his career. 55 of those missed games came in only one single season where he sustained a freak injury. We can theorize that he MAY sustain more injury as a C but the fact is he actually hasn't and there is no need for anyone to be playing sideline doctor making their own determinations of when he was 100% or not.

Elton Brand is on the roster......Elton Brand is on the roster.......Elton Brand is on the roster.

Al has never played half of his games at PF under Larry Drew....He's played 18% & 23% of available PF minutes under Drew so individual instances being mentioned is really a puff of smoke or better yet, coach speak. Never fall for coach speak especially when you are in a position to measure their actions.......not their words.

Asik is a vastly inferior offensive player to the likes of Splitter and Chandler, these are guys that have led the league in a slew of offensive metrics and then Perkins quite frankly is one of the worst players in the league period. The comparison is inept, further so by stating "crisp offensive execution, ball movement, outside shooting and heady guard play can compensate offensively for limited defensive players" ........that and having Duncan, Parker, Ginobili, Harden, Durant, Westbrook, and Dirk on your team. Things are just a little different though when you are relying on Jeff Teague, Kyle Korver, Demarre Carroll and Al Horford.

[MaceCase]

Additionally on the topic of durability, perhaps it would benefit Al to not be amongst the league leaders in minutes per game (13th overall). By my count, LaMarcus Aldridge was the only other bigman to average 37 minutes per game and the difference amongst starting Centers is much more stark. Amongst Centers only Joakim Noah was close in MPG to Al while the rest all comfortably fall between 25-33 mpg.

Maybe it's not banging against guys 30lbs heavier, perhaps it's banging against guys 30lbs heavier while you're tired and they are fresh.

[dorkestra]

From the Sixers, would you guys have any interest in a deal based around Jared Cunningham + Filler for Spencer Hawes?

[MaceCase]

From the Sixers, would you guys have any interest in a deal based around Jared Cunningham + Filler for Spencer Hawes?

If that's all it took to get him then I don't see why we'd say no but I doubt that he's sexy enough to appease the Horford clan.

[Jamaaliver]

Maybe it's not banging against guys 30lbs heavier, perhaps it's banging against guys 30lbs heavier while you're tired and they are fresh.

Absolutely agree with you here. Horford and Zaza weren't both healthy at the same time for the last year and a half.

Collins and Johan were extremely subpar replacements. AL and Zaza were each forced to carry a much heavier burden in the other's absence.

Elton Brand is on the roster......Elton Brand is on the roster.......Elton Brand is on the roster.

Elton Brand is a 34 year old, backup PF. Not sure I'd depend on him at any time this season to play [b]extended[b] minutes as Center. Especially since undersized Paul Millsap is ALREADY injured also.

Al has never played half of his games at PF under Larry Drew....He's played 18% & 23% of available PF minutes under Drew so individual instances being mentioned is really a puff of smoke or better yet, coach speak. Never fall for coach speak especially when you are in a position to measure their actions.......not their words.

I was going off of research from Jeff Schwartz of AJC. Admittedly it was from Drew's first season as Head Coach, but that was the only season in whuch AL and Zaza were healthy for the entire year.

Asik is a vastly inferior offensive player to the likes of Splitter and Chandler, these are guys that have led the league in a slew of offensive metrics and then Perkins quite frankly is one of the worst players in the league period.

Chandler is vastly superior to Asik offensively? Ummm, Okay. The truth is, acquiring a big strong post defender is a necessity to be elite. Obviously, we need to improve the quality of offensive players around them as well. Why not acquire an Asik and then pursue Luol Deng, Danny Granger or Carmelo Next offseason, simply plugging a top scoring wing next to an already finished frontcourt. Seems like it'd be easier to attract a top free agent if we already have a set lineup to plug them into. As opposed to telling them to trust D Ferry.

What's the point of shortening AL's career (he's already injured by the way) just so we can be a .500 team every year? It'd be different if we were an elite, championship contender with him at the 5.

Seems myopic to piss off your best player, further expose him to continue risk of fatigue/injury for pretty much no benefit at all. (6th seed as best scenario, lottery as worst scenario.)