Michael Gearon Jr. Talks Hawks

[HMFFL]

Michael Gearon Jr. Talks Hawks

On Woody’s performance

“He’s done a good job. Getting the third seed, 53 wins, each year we keep getting better and better—regular season, he has done a tremendous job. But us a franchise, from the ownership down, we judge ourselves in the playoffs. It’s not just the regular season, its’ winning championships and we feel we have the right core here, culturally—coach, GM, players—and that’s what we are trying to do.”

On leaving Woody’s future up to Rick Sund

“Any owner that meddles with coaches and players, that’s a mistake. We have become a franchise that has become a standard for, we are loyal to our coaches, loyal to our GM, loyal to our players. I think loyalty goes both ways. I think (Woody) is the longest tenured coach in the East (tied with Doc Rivers). We brought Joe in here, and we’ve built with a bunch of good young players. I think we are capable of being an elite team, and that is what we have been building for.”

On intentions to bring back J.J.

“That’s always been the goal. Last summer, we committed to doing it back then. We think Joe likes it here. We like Joe here. We fought hard to get Joe here, as everyone knows. He’s a four-time All-Star. He’s been the face of this franchise and the team has been built around Joe.”

On size of future payroll and using cap exceptions

“I have no idea. We haven’t made decisions based on payroll. If we had, we wouldn’t have gotten Crawford. We have always been committed to keeping our core together. Josh Smith was a restricted free agent. We knew Josh wasn’t going anywhere, but the way the league rules work with restricted free agents it’s a different process. With Joe last summer, we offered the max money we could offer him as a player. Rick is more the one to talk to about the mid-level (exception), but I’ve seen more mistakes with the mid-level than I have smart decisions.

[azuresou1]

On his view of the Hawks’ offense

“I’m not a coach, I’m not a GM, but when you watch our team, when we move the ball, we are pretty good.

Does this mean he's going to hire an OC so we'll have someone who will "give a sh*t about the offense?"

[killbuckner]

The Hawks finished with the second best offense in the league. What the hell do you want Woodson to do with the offense? Do you really think that the Hawks have the best talent on offense in the league and the Hawks underperformed on offense this year? I just don't get the people who constantly complain about the Hawks offense when it was so productive this year.

I suppose I do have to thank people like you for continuing to perpetuate the myth that the Hawks are horrible on offense- it made me a ton of money betting the over in the first game.

[azuresou1]

We finished with the second most EFFICIENT offense in the league. Efficiency =/= best.

What do I want Woodson to do? How about not choke away leads in the 4th quarter by running plays outside of isolation at a snail's pace? You can talk about our defensive woes, but defense isn't what lost us all the Cleveland games - it was moving away from what worked offensively in favor of iso-Joe.

You go and be content with making money betting on lines - I'll be content when we consistently play at a high level over the course of games, much less over the course of a season.

[killbuckner]

The most efficient offense is the offense that scores the most points when they have the ball. What other ridiculous stat would you rather use to measure who has the best offense? Unless you are caught up in aesthetics instead of effectiveness then I just don't see what else you could possibly think is more important.

[djjob23]

Hey Killbuckner,
if you watched any of the Hawks games you would understand. There would be times where the Hawks are up 20 points, then they resort to "Iso Joe" and within 5 minutes lose their lead. You are right when you say we have the second most efficient offense in the league, but what counts is "crunch time" and domination. This team has not learned how to dominate, and domination wins games. Because of this, we will not win in the playoffs (when it matters most). So I don't care what stat you have, whether it be 2nd best offense or not, stats don't win games, it's what you do when it matters the most that wins games.

[azuresou1]

The most efficient offense is the offense that scores the most points when they have the ball. What other ridiculous stat would you rather use to measure who has the best offense? Unless you are caught up in aesthetics instead of effectiveness then I just don't see what else you could possibly think is more important.

Why don't you post our 4th quarter scoring stats where we go to iso-Joe/Crawford and compare it to all the other quarters, where we have some semblance of ball movement?

[killbuckner]

azureus- why don't you post ANY stat instead of just whining and bitching about the second best offense in the league? I have no doubt that if I looked up that stat to show htat it was better than you thought that you would just pull something else out of thin air that was suddenly more important than THAT stat. Try posting something that actually has a basis in fact.

[azuresou1]

I can't find 4th quarter stats because Yahoo Situational Stats is broken, but here's our OT performance courtesy of ESPN:

http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/team/ ... /split/307

T-25-26th in PPG, only ahead of Miami, Portland, Charlotte, and Indy
25th in FG%, only ahead of Minnesota, NJ, Charlotte, GS, and Indy
27th in 3PT%, only ahead of Charlotte, GS, and NJ
T-26-28th in PPS, only ahead of Milwaukee and GS
25th in AFG%, only ahead of Minnesota, GS, NJ, Charlotte, and Indy

And you dare to say that we have an efficient offense? Second best offense MY ASS.

[killbuckner]

So lets put this to the test. Last season the Hawks scored 23.9 points per game in the fourth quarter. The Cavs Scored 24.0 ppg. Boston scored 23.5 ppg. Does that make you feel better about the Hawks offense? Of course not- this isn't something based on facts whatsoever for you.

[ATL DirtyBird]

^Our offense is a joke. If we fixed our 4th quarter woes I could assure that the complaining would stop. We might of been a 2 seed if we didnt have the 4th qtr problems

[killbuckner]

Talk about a small sample size. Those stats wouldn't even make up a whole game.

The hawks have a winning record in OT this season in case you weren't aware of that just FYI.

[killbuckner]

I think all teams have their offense slow down in the fourth quater (except for terrible teams that are always trying to bang 3's to catch up) I just think that you guys only freak out when the Hawks lose leads in the fourth.

[azuresou1]

So lets put this to the test. Last season the Hawks scored 23.9 points per game in the fourth quarter. The Cavs Scored 24.0 ppg. Boston scored 23.5 ppg. Does that make you feel better about the Hawks offense? Of course not- because you don't have this based on fact.

Here's the exact same metrics from last season, so you can compare them to this season:

30th in PPG, compared with 25th-26th this year
18th in FG%, compared with 25th this year
T-3rd/4th in 3PT%, compared with 27th this year
T-29-30th in PPS, compared with 26-28th this year
T-10-12th in AFG%, compared with 25th this year

Last year there would be at least some off the ball movement late in games. This year there is none. You'll notice that the Lakers don't even run iso-Kobe late in games - sure, he'll take the last shot, but they'll pass the ball and set screens, things that Woodson still hasn't figured out how to do in the 4th quarter and OT.

[killbuckner]

As I predicted- the fact that the Hawks scored .1 ppg less than the cavs in the fourth quarter and more than the Celtics didn't change your mind the least bit.

But I am sort of confused- You are saying that last season you were happy with the Hawks offense? But don't like it this season and you think that this season the numbers would look different and the Hawks would be doing much worse than those teams?

[djjob23]

^Our offense is a joke. If we fixed our 4th quarter woes I could assure that the complaining would stop. We might of been a 2 seed if we didnt have the 4th qtr problems

I couldn't agree with you more.

It's not just the offense in the 4th quarter we have to look at. Look at the defensive side. No intensity. This has a lot to do with the mentallity of our team. The players don't like "iso-Joe" and it shows, not only on the offensive side, but defensively as well.

[azuresou1]

Last season we had Flip, who is not as good as Jamal. This season, in addition to Jamal, Smoove is (mostly) playing within his game, and Al has worked on his offense to the point that he has the highest FG% of anyone in the league from 18 feet out.

Despite all these improvements, our late game efficiency has dropped (I don't really give a **** about PPG, because we play so slow). Not only does our efficiency drop, as evidenced by the terrible aFG% and PPS, but we also move away from matchups that were working for us throughout the game.


On a somewhat side note, here's a video breakdown of Game 1: http://www.hoopinionblog.com/2010/04/be ... -case.html

[killbuckner]

Why don't you post our 4th quarter scoring stats

Actually- I misread the chart. THIS season is when the Hawks scored 23.9 PPG in the Fourth Quarter and the Cavs scored 24. The Celtics Scored 23.5. Miami scored 22.1.

And once again as I predicted these stats won't make you change your opinion whatsoever. And you will start talking about other stats that matter more.

[azuresou1]

PPG = everything, m i rite?

[HoopsGuru25]

We finished with the second most EFFICIENT offense in the league. Efficiency =/= best.

Why don't you post our 4th quarter scoring stats where we go to iso-Joe/Crawford and compare it to all the other quarters, where we have some semblance of ball movement?

PPG = everything, m i rite?

I was just skimming through the thread...but this might be the most obvious strawman argument I've ever seen.