Archives For Analysis

Keeping Drew?

Bo Churney —  May 16, 2013 — 4 Comments

It has been almost two weeks since the Hawks’ season ended… and Larry Drew is still under contract. To me, this is a huge surprise.

Now, I think Drew is a good coach, but with his contract coming to an end, I figured the Hawks would have gotten rid of him already. It seemed like GM Danny Ferry would want to hire his own guy and would have sent Drew on his way by now. However, Drew is still under contract, even though the Hawks are looking at other candidates. To be fair, the Hawks have allowed Drew to interview for any job he may want.

I still don’t think Larry will be back in Atlanta next year, but his odds have increased (to me, at least) purely from the fact that he’s still around. And to be honest, if Josh Smith is gone, I think Drew could work for this team. The two clearly can’t seem to agree on shot selection, meaning that they would probably be better off in different cities next season.

The Hawks have talked with Nate McMillan. Two words: bad idea? McMillan has the same M.O. as Mike Woodson: isolation offense and is supposedly a great defensive coach, despite team defensive efficiency not being reflective of that. Now, McMillan may have learned some things since he was fired from the Trail Blazers, but hiring an isolation-heavy playcaller when you don’t have a dominant wing player would leave me scratching my head. I’d rather have Drew, regardless of the Josh Smith situation.

Of course, I still believe Stan Van Gundy is the best option as coach. He’s a proven winner and has a system that is fun to watch. The Hawks should do everything they can to get him or Brian Shaw, who is probably the best assistant coach in the Association right now.

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Why Al Horford Should Start Shooting 3s

Bo Churney —  May 14, 2013 — 6 Comments

I understand your skepticism.

Josh Smith comes to mind immediately. The screams of “NOOOOO!” from a harassed Philips Arena crowd are probably still ringing through your ears. Why on earth would the Hawks want another “mid-range shawty” jacking up three-pointers?

Because Horford needs to start shooting threes.

Al’s a good shooter; there’s no denying that. This season, he shot 45% on long-twos longer than 15 feet. The two seasons before that (excluding the injury shortened 2011-12 season), Horford shot 48% (!) and 53% (!!!) from that distance.

Recently, it seems that Horford has been working to expand his shooting range. He took six threes this season, the most of his career, and a few of those weren’t just late-clock situations; they were plays specifically set up for Horford to shoot the three. In his pre-game warmups, part of his routine was hitting a three from five spots on the floor. He always ended his warmups by hitting a corner three.

Horford expressed to the media earlier this year that the three-ball is something that he wants to add to his repertoire. While it is still a work in progress, coach Larry Drew did have plays drawn up that had Al set up behind the arc. Continue Reading…

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Reading Between the Lines on Ferry’s Contact with SVG

Buddy Grizzard —  May 13, 2013 — 14 Comments

Atlanta Journal-Constitution Hawks beat writer Chris Vivlamore has a funny way of debunking the reports of other writers. After Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the Hawks are “aggressively” pursuing former Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy, Vivlamore published a pair of reports questioning Wojnarowski’s accuracy. Wrote Vivlamore:

A report that the Hawks are “aggressively” pursing Stan Van Gundy for the yet-to-be vacant head coach position is inaccurate.

But in the same breath, Vivlamore confirms that Van Gundy is a candidate and that Hawks GM Danny Ferry has already contacted him. I would have to say that communicating with another candidate when Ferry has yet to terminate his current head coach is pretty aggressive. But however you characterize it, Ferry’s actions are sending a clear and calculated message to Dwight Howard. That message is, “if you want to influence who our next coach is going to be, we’re all ears.”

Over the summer, I speculated that Van Gundy lacked perspective regarding Orlando’s organizational dysfunction when he lashed out at Howard, but gained it once the damage was done. The fact that Van Gundy has since exonerated Howard and the two have remained in touch bears this out. If Ferry wanted to solicit an outside opinion on Howard’s thinking as he approaches free agency, Van Gundy seems like an obvious place to start. Continue Reading…

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Kyle Korver’s value to the Hawks

Chris Barnewall —  May 12, 2013 — Leave a comment

Kyle Korver will be an unrestricted free agent this offseason and is likely to be a player that many teams are going to go after. His play was invaluable to the Hawks this season thanks to his three-point shooting and his ability to move off the ball. It would be a very bad move by the Hawks to not at least try to bring him back, as shown by Bo Churney’s top ten free agents for the Hawks to pursue.

One of the best statistical indicators of Korver’s ability? He finished fourth in the NBA in true-shooting percentage, only behind Tyson Chandler, Kevin Durant, and LeBron James.

Korver Shot chart (HotShotCharts)

(Chart used from HotShotCharts.com)

Look at how dominant Korver is from the wings and corners. This season, Korver shot 50% from the left corner, 43% from the left wing, 48% from the right wing, and 45% from the right corner. Continue Reading…

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Inexperienced in Mediocrity: Brian Shaw as Next Hawks Coach?

Buddy Grizzard —  May 8, 2013 — 5 Comments

I’m not a fan of the Cleveland Cavaliers organization, which squandered its chance to win a championship during the LeBron James era through a series of incompetent personnel decisions. I also don’t like the fact that owner Dan Gilbert first attempted to placate James by firing coach Mike Brown, then threw a gigantic tantrum once “The Decision” was made.

However, I did find a great quote from Gilbert from 2005 when he hired Danny Ferry to pick up the pieces in the wake of the scorched earth campaign that was Jim Paxson’s tenure as GM. Gilbert said that, although he was taking a risk turning his franchise over to a young executive with no experience at the GM level, Ferry’s championship experience was more important.

I actually think it is even more risky to turn over a team to a person who has a lot of experience but has never won anything. Give me a passionate, smart, hungry, young guy who is out to prove something over experienced mediocrity any day of the week.

Continue Reading…

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Not the Playoff Teague We Expected

David Vertsberger —  May 6, 2013 — 1 Comment

In their first round loss to the Indiana Pacers, the Atlanta Hawks disappointed across the board. A stagnated offense and a Swiss cheese defense doomed Atlanta in the first two contests, but after a change in head coach Larry Drew’s strategy, hopes for a Hawks upset rose in two straight home victories. Eventually, they collapsed and the team inevitably fumbled early into their postseason. Plenty of the team’s failures can be placed on individual players, and one of the most appalling of disappearances in this first round defeat was of Jeff Teague, the starting point guard of the Hawks.

Although he’s yet to make himself a big name in the league, (an infuriating trend for talented Hawks players) Teague’s performance in these playoffs was far less than desired or expected. Teague’s season has shown improvement in his facilitating game when compared to previous exhibitions, yet when the playoffs started, Jeff floundered. This comes as a shock to any of Teague’s followers, as he’s been known to enter “Playoff Teague” mode once the regular season ends. This essentially means he takes on an increasingly aggressive role, upping his game to new heights.

This wasn’t the case here in 2013, partly due to Indiana’s strong defense, but also to Teague’s reluctance to attack the paint. Indiana ranks 11th in the league in fewest points allowed by opposing point guards, and fifth in lowest opposing point guard FG%. This strong point guard Continue Reading…

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Who Should the Hawks Target in Free Agency?

Bo Churney —  May 6, 2013 — 11 Comments

The Hawks could have anywhere from $30-40 million in cap space this summer. While this class doesn’t exactly have the strength of the 2014 class (ahem, the LeBron class), there are some good pickups the Hawks could make to become a contender.

Here’s the top ten potential free agents in order of priority I would have if I was general manager Danny Ferry.

1. Chris Paul
In my opinion, the best free agent of the class by far. Paul finished third this season in win shares (per Basketball-Reference) and Player Efficiency Rating (PER), behind only LeBron and Kevin Durant in both. CP3′s season is already over after the Clippers lost to Memphis in the first round, which slightly piqued my interest in how available he may be to leave Los Angeles. However, I still believe that the Clippers are going to give him too much power in pure roster decisions and too much money for the Hawks to be able to match. Atlanta will be able to offer around four years, $80 million, which is almost $30 million less than what the Clippers can give. In the end, it will likely come down to which team Paul feels has a better chance at winning a title.

2. Dwight Howard
I don’t think there is a chance that Dwight comes to Atlanta, but Ferry might as well try, right? Despite playing all season with a myriad of injuries, Dwight still managed to average 17.1 points and a league-leading 12.4 rebounds per game. For the entire season, he wasn’t the defender that we all remember him being, but he did start to look like his former self towards the end of the year. The number one issue most Hawks fans would have with this would be Dwight’s enigmatic personality, but for me, it is more of an issue of cap space; the Hawks would likely have to re-sign Josh Smith to have Howard sign here, which would likely use all of the team’s cap. As strong as a Smith-Horford-Howard frontcourt would be, they would still need some money to fill out the roster with capable players in order to challenge Miami.

3. Andre Iguodala, ETO
Iggy has an opt-out with the Nuggets, which is something that most believe he will exercise; Continue Reading…

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ChuckFest 2013: Another Lost Season for the Hawks

Buddy Grizzard —  May 6, 2013 — 3 Comments

For all three seasons under head coach Larry Drew, the Hawks have failed to extend a playoff series to a decisive Game 7. In each series, Drew made at least one egregious, inexcusable decision that cost the team a chance to extend the series. However, Larry Drew’s greatest shortcoming in his nine years with the Hawks organization has been his failure to teach Josh Smith how to play basketball.

With 2:13 remaining in Game 6 and the Pacers leading 76-73, Roy Hibbert drove to the basket on Al Horford and lost the ball. While this action was taking place on the strong side, Smith was guarding David West on the weak side. As you can see at the 3:45 mark in NBA.com’s highlights for Game 6, not once during this sequence did Smith turn his head to track West’s location.

If the Hawks had collected the loose ball, the team would have been down three with a chance to tie or draw within a point. Instead, Smith allowed West to gain rebounding position where he collected the loose ball and laid it in. The same scenario happened Nov. 30th in a humiliating home loss to Cleveland. Smith was ball watching and allowed Alonzo Gee to gain inside position where he collected an errant shot and laid it in for the decisive basket. You’d think Smith would have learned his lesson and kept track of his man in a much more important game. Sadly, learning is not a strength of either Smith or Drew, as we will discuss in further detail below. Continue Reading…

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I’m Confused: Which Team is Fragile and Shaky?

Buddy Grizzard —  April 30, 2013 — 7 Comments

Prior to Game 2, I took issue with Indianapolis Star beat writer Mike Wells’ characterization of the Hawks as fragile and easily-shaken. I argued that, “if [Larry] Drew plays his best players the most minutes, the national perception of the Hawks could change.”

It took three games for Drew to reach the same conclusion, but now the whole complexion of the series has changed. And there seems to be some confusion now within the Star’s staff about which team is the fragile, shaky one. Yesterday, in previewing tonight’s Game 4, Star columnist Bob Kravitz had this to say:

A mature, focused team wins Game 4 and closes it out Wednesday back in Indianapolis. That’s the call here, anyway.

A fragile, shaky team loses tonight and lets the Hawks right back into this series.

Continue Reading…

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Now THAT is How You Hit a Team in the Mouth

Buddy Grizzard —  April 28, 2013 — 4 Comments

In my series preview, I said that “the way to beat the Pacers is to hit them in the mouth at the start of the series.” When I said hit them in the mouth, I didn’t have 3-guard lineups, Kyle Korver guarding Paul George or the return of The Horford Treatment in mind. Watching DeShawn Stevenson go -20 in 44 minutes in the first two games was also not what I had in mind.

What I had in mind was Josh Smith, Al Horford and Jeff Teague playing at least 40 minutes per game and Devin Harris, Ivan Johnson and Korver playing at least 30. In Game 3, Horford and Harris played right at 40 minutes while Smith, Teague, Korver and Johnson all played close to 30. Continue Reading…

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