PchTree Hoops: Time to trade Josh?

[ATL DirtyBird]

http://www.peachtreehoops.com/2010/11/2 ... josh-smith

Valid points. Thoughts?

[geeman]

yea... dude real good JJ get 124 mil and plays like **** and it all Joshs fault. go ahead
trade him and you and all the guy who feel that way can sit in a empty arena and complain why no one wants to see this team.

[parson]

I'd trade Smoove (or Horford or Joe) for a really good PG or a first-rate center but not just to get rid of him. The kid's a budding star.

Articles like this one make me suspicious that the author is desperate to drum up interest.

[ATL DirtyBird]

yea... dude real good JJ get 124 mil and plays like **** and it all Joshs fault. go ahead
trade him and you and all the guy who feel that way can sit in a empty arena and complain why no one wants to see this team.

No one wants to see this team even with Josh.

[HoopsGuru25]

I usually enjoy reading peachtree hoops but that was a crappy article. Smith is playing at the same level he did last year when the team won 54 games. It seems like the focus on be "how in the hell are the Hawks going to move Joe's contract within the next 10 months"? He's not far away from being in the same situation as a 29 year old Jalen Rose.

[johnny878]

blog post was dumb as ****

tihs is where you know the guy has never even watched the hawks play ONE TIME before

"7. Contrary to popular opinion, the Hawks will be better defensively without Josh in the starting line up. Why? Al playing the 4, no undersized center, limited bone head and risky plays and most importantly- EVERYONE PLAYING WITHIN THE GAME PLAN."

[azuresou1]

dkrib is a terrible poster, and I should point out that it's a fan post and not HHB or Bret, who left.

[ATL DirtyBird]

"You make a solid argument very good points in regards to Josh. I agree with most of what you are saying. I really like Josh and his physical ability is very rare, but the more I watch the Hawks this season, the more I realize that Josh can sometimes be very problematic for the team. Josh is good at a large variety of things, and while that may be a strength, it’s also a weakness because, like you said, he has no defined role, and he doesn’t do anything well enough that he can fit into a specific role.

Looking at the issues that the team has currently, a few things stick out to me in particular. On the offensive end, the Hawks are still suffering from lack of diversity, lack of shot distribution, and a semi-predictable offense that is heavily-predicated upon guard play and jump shooting. As many people have mentioned, continuously, the Hawks don’t run many inside plays and hardly ever run post-ups. As a result, they underutilize Horford greatly, who is the only player on the team who has a truly effective post-up, back-to-the-basket game. Josh doesn’t really help to solve these problems. He’s not a great jump shooter, and he doesn’t have a legit post game by any means, so we can’t play him as a traditional four, nor can we trust him as a stretch four. Lately, Josh is actually hurting us even more on offense, because he seems to be taking a lot more shots than he should be taking. With Joe and Jamal dominating the ball and the field goal attempts so often, I get the feeling that Josh feels like he needs to “get his”, and this causes him to put up a lot of ill-advised shots. In tonight’s game, had 21 field goal attempts (made less than half of them) and took more shots than anyone for the Hawks. This not only hurts the team due to Josh’s shot selection, but it also takes shots away from Horford, who should be one of the primary offensive options.

Now, on the defensive end, some of the Hawks biggest problems are perimeter penetration, defense against the 3 point shot, and rebounding. Josh helps here, to a certain extent, since he can help recover on those penetrations and come up with help-side blocks, but at the same time, a lot of what Josh does on the defensive end hurts us. First, in terms of rebounding, I often notice that Josh fails to box out and put a body on his man. That’s one of the main reasons why Hawks give up so many offensive boards. Part of it is due to our guards not chasing down long rebounds also, but when one of your bigs doesn’t box out his man on the defensive end, it throws everything off, because even if everyone else boxes out, the free man is free to roam and often can snatch up the offensive board while the other players are occupied with their men.

Now, in terms of individual defense, sometimes I feel like Josh is a bit overrated. A lot of people who do not have a deep understanding of basketball look at the stats and assume that when a guy has a high number of blocks and steals, it automatically makes him a top-notch defender, but that’s not always the case. The vast majority of Josh’s blocks are weakside blocks, where he comes over to help. Keep in mind that blocks like this come off of a defensive gamble, where the defender leaves his man. In a lot of cases, that free man ends up scoring. Also, I’ve noticed that Josh gambles when defending the post and playing the passing lane when he goes for steals, and a lot of times, these gambles result in easy buckets for opponents. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that what Josh does on the defensive end isn’t great, but a lot of his tendencies on defense actually hurt the team, and they are not apparent when you look at the stat sheet, so people might just overlook the errors. Obviously, Josh is not a great perimeter defender, so we can’t play him out there, but even in the post, Josh is not an elite defender, partly due to his size, and partly due to his defensive gambles. Often, Josh will try to go for the steal when defending the post and give up an easy basket to his man. So, overall, as much as Josh helps the team on defense, he may be hurting us more than most think on that end of the floor as well.

So, when you look at Josh’s impact on both ends of the floor, and factor in his field goal attempts and overall impact on the game, it may be true that trading him or benching him really would be the most effective thing to do to help the team. Think about what it would mean. As good as Horford is at center, a lot of people believe, and the stats also imply this, that he would be even better at PF. Al has all the tools and skills to not only be a good PF, but to be a great one. Moving Josh would allow us to play Horford at his natural position, and a position where he would fill the role perfectly. Additionally, this would give Al Horford the offensive opportunity that he deserves, as he’d likely get a larger number of shots and we could take full advantage of his all-around game, instead of just small samples of it every once in a while. Now, obviously, filling the hole at center could be problematic, but I think that if we could just acquire a sound, defensive center, who moves well and can run the floor, the loss wouldn’t be that bad. We don’t necessarily need a scoring threat from the center position if Horford plays the 4, because Horford would handle most of the interior scoring himself, but if we could acquire an athletic, active center to complement Horford, we would still have another player to run lobs with and to attack the offensive glass.

Hence, as much as I like Josh, it might be best if the team moved on with him either on the bench, or another another team. The way the team is playing right now, something definitely needs to change, and Josh may not only be the center of a lot of the problems, but he also is the Hawks greatest bargaining chip in terms of solving those problems through personnel change. by Mr. Merlot on Nov 24, 2010 1:45 AM EST"

^A reply to the article posted.

[ATL DirtyBird]

Also, how do you guys feel about Joshs sudden need to take a lot of shots? hes taken 20, 21, 19, and 16 recently. hes not shooting many free throws and is taking a lot of shots. Im not exactly ecstatic about our PF shooting that amount shots. Al shooting be getting some of those shots.

[johnny878]

josh smith is taking barely over 1 more fg per game than al. the response is acting like josh is shot hogging and taking alot of oppurtunities from al... when its not true. if anyone needs to stop shooting its joe and jamal.

[ATL DirtyBird]

josh smith is taking barely over 1 more fg per game than al. the response is acting like josh is shot hogging and taking alot of oppurtunities from al... when its not true. if anyone needs to stop shooting its joe and jamal.

So ur happy with Josh launching jumpers instead of Al shooting those or even giving Al some postups instead?

[azuresou1]

No, but I'm happier with Josh's attempts instead of Joe or Jamal's off-the-dribble long twos, since he'll at least drive it every now and then.

[parson]

So ur happy with Josh launching jumpers instead of Al shooting those or even giving Al some postups instead?

The kid's shooting .497 from the field and .400 from 3. Where's the problem?

I'm not ready to declare the guy a good shooter but, so long as he connects, why complain?