Bspn

Before Joe Johnson became an Atlanta Hawk the Hawks were a 13 win team. He singlehandedly transformed them into a 45 win team. The Hawks won't be a 10-15 win team but I guarentee that they will not make the playoffs in the next few years. With JJ and Deron the Nets have the second best frontcourt in the NBA behind the Miami Heat. I don't really see any team in the East that can give the Nets problems besides the Heat and the Celtics.

In '04-05, the Hawks were a 13 win team. They finished with 26 wins the next season when Joe Johnson joined the team. The year after that they finished with 30 wins, & the year after that 37 wins. It wasn't until 4 years after Joe Johnson joined the Hawks that they finally broke out & became a legitimate playoff contender finishing with 47 wins. Maybe it's not so much Joe Johnson, but a natural progression of the improvement in players of cornerstone young talent like Al Horford & Josh Smith, along with the excellent coaching of Mike Woodson? Just a thought.
 
Before Joe Johnson became an Atlanta Hawk the Hawks were a 13 win team. He singlehandedly transformed them into a 45 win team. The Hawks won't be a 10-15 win team but I guarentee that they will not make the playoffs in the next few years. With JJ and Deron the Nets have the second best frontcourt in the NBA behind the Miami Heat. I don't really see any team in the East that can give the Nets problems besides the Heat and the Celtics.

Frontcourt, you mean backcourt?

On paper, they should have the best backcourt. King's put together a nice roster. Getting a banger like Evans to go with Teletovic and hump. Question is depth and does Lopez rest on the laurels of his contract while not getting as much touches as before.
 
In '04-05, the Hawks were a 13 win team. They finished with 26 wins the next season when Joe Johnson joined the team. The year after that they finished with 30 wins, & the year after that 37 wins. It wasn't until 4 years after Joe Johnson joined the Hawks that they finally broke out & became a legitimate playoff contender finishing with 47 wins. Maybe it's not so much Joe Johnson, but a natural progression of the improvement in players of cornerstone young talent like Al Horford & Josh Smith, along with the excellent coaching of Mike Woodson? Just a thought.

Exactly it wasn't just Joe Johnson, it was Josh Smith, Al Horford, Mike Bibby back when he could still play...
 
Lets be reality...We're gonna be stuck somewhere between mediocre and great for a while
Unfortunately this. I can see why people aren't high on us after how high the expectations were for us when we first acquired Melo to go with Stat and how we quite frankly haven't lived up to them at this point. It's up to the Players to shut them up. We as fans just have to hope they do.
 
anyone listening to their radio show right now? they talk about the jeremy lin situation, stephen a is so biased it's getting really tough to continue listening
 
Mike and Mike just said we are the 6th or 7th best team in the East

I'm sick of this bull **** from experts

they are not experts by any means, they just have more sources than others....they are reporters and not basketball scouts.

Knicks are all about not having stagnation in the offense and we have to hope that Felton, Kidd and Prigioni are good enough to never have stagnation. The defense will be there because it all starts with Woodson and he will demand it.

People forget we went 18-6 under Woodson.

I believe we can be anywhere from 2nd to 5th seed....but def not 7th thats ridiculous..we were only 7th because we had such a rollercoaster season and half of it was under Mike D who was sinking our ship.
 
anyone listening to their radio show right now? they talk about the jeremy lin situation, stephen a is so biased it's getting really tough to continue listening
I always listen to the show, he is bias at times but he does have his moments of making good points S.A.S is pure entertainment lol.

 
There isn't a player in the NBA that can guarantee any team 30 more wins other than maybe Lebron or Dwight Howard. Joe Johnson? Do you really think the Hawks will go from being a 40 win team to being a 10-15 win team this year just because they lost Joe Johnson? I don't see the Nets winning 52 games this season after having come from only winning 22 last year without him. That's just way too optimistic. I would estimate about 40-45 wins out of the Nets at best.
JJ has become extremely OVERRATED since joining the nets. When was he ever a superstar? Hes an average player to above average now. Gerald Wallace the same. Our Big 3 has a borderline superstar (melo if he shows up), a possible great player for now hes above average (Stat) and Tyson Chandler DPOY. I dont see JJ or Wallace improving like Stat + Melo can.
 
JJ has become extremely OVERRATED since joining the nets. When was he ever a superstar? Hes an average player to above average now. Gerald Wallace the same. Our Big 3 has a borderline superstar (melo if he shows up), a possible great player for now hes above average (Stat) and Tyson Chandler DPOY. I dont see JJ or Wallace improving like Stat + Melo can.

This! People jump on the Net's bandwagon because it's the trendy thing to do. No one will read the headlines if Steven A Smith says "guess what Knicks are still better", it doesn't grab attention.

For the people bitching about our ISO-ball/lack of chemistry etc, we have never had a decent training camp. Give it time, we now have 3 guards capable of above average passing and running the offense. People started to figure out their roles in the run under Woodson and we went 18-6 fighting through injuries to key players. Everyone is underestimating how well we could do. Realistically we are a 3-5 seed, and probably securing HCA.

Before believing half the BS out there from the "Knickerbashers", think logically. We have added personnel that gives us great depth at PG & C (our biggest needs last season) and still have 3-4 roster spots available to further bolster our lineup. Give Grunwald time (he has earnt it so far this offseason) and let's start making logical conclusions 20+ games into the season.
 
A lot of you guys are underestimating the Nets. I don't think they'll have the same growing pains we did, simply because they have an elite PG to tie it altogether. Their parts also fit a lot better than ours. With that being said I still think the Knicks will be better but not by much. If Nets stay healthy(which is a BIG if) they should finish around the 4th or 5th seed. Imo it'll be like this...

1.Miami
2.Boston
3.Knicks
4.Pacers
5.Nets
6.Sixers
7.Bulls
8.Cleveland
 
i'm usually a pessimistic person. A friend of mine thinks we miss the playoffs altogether. I'm going with us as a 7th seed, and i won't guess the games we win, till i see who we face, and injuries etc
 
JJ has become extremely OVERRATED since joining the nets. When was he ever a superstar? Hes an average player to above average now. Gerald Wallace the same. Our Big 3 has a borderline superstar (melo if he shows up), a possible great player for now hes above average (Stat) and Tyson Chandler DPOY. I dont see JJ or Wallace improving like Stat + Melo can.

Yeah, I dunno when Joe Johnson became this superstar player all of a sudden. When he signed that ridiculous contract with Atlanta I remember seeing a ton of people thinking the Hawks were on drugs.

& Personally I don't agree with all these people talking about the Nets as having "the best backcourt in the NBA". I think Kobe & Nash form the top tandem in the league even at their advanced ages. I would fear those guys in a playoff series way more than I would Deron & JJ.

I still say the Knicks have a better squad than the Nets & I have a feeling Felton, STAT & Melo will have good chemistry this season. All of them have something big to prove this year & all of them have personally a lot of doubters they would like nothing more than to shut up.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ba...n-a-ridiculous-deal-with-the-A?urn=nba,252877

Thu Jul 01 12:30pm EDT
Joe Johnson to sign a ridiculous deal with the Atlanta Hawks

By Kelly Dwyer

ept_sports_nba_experts-413711086-1278000756.jpg
It's never a good sign when, a full week before a player is set to put pen to paper to ink his most recent contract, that a good portion of the NBA community regards that contract as the worst it has ever seen.
Not the worst trade, nor the worst draft selection. And we're not talking about considering Joe Johnson's new contract with the Atlanta Hawks (as first reported by Adrian Wojnarowski) as the worst contract we've ever seen a few years into the deal, or a few years after it expires in retrospect.

We're feeling this way, right now. On July 1, seven days before he even gets to sign the deal. Worst contract, ever.

It's that bad. Six years, and $119 million dollars for a player regarded as a second option at best on a great team. At best. Johnson will be 29 years of age to start this contract, 35 to end it, so Atlanta will get his one peak season (unless last year's run of over 21 points and a combined 9.5 rebounds/assists was the best we've seen), and then the downfall.

At about $20 million a year.

Bear in mind that Johnson achieved those stats by absolutely dominating the ball for the Hawks. Just owning it, for large stretches, forcing either a potential score or a potential assist to be added to his ledger just about every other time down court. All while playing huge minutes, 38 per game in fact; which was actually the lowest mark we've seen from Johnson since his second year in the league.

It's just an astonishing deal, on so many levels. A good part of me thinks that — because his stats are so inflated by his ball dominance and big minutes — that Johnson will be worth about half of his yearly salary next year (next year!), so imagine how far he'll taper off by 2016? Johnson isn't the most athletic player we've seen, he isn't tricky enough with the ball to get to the line much (a shocking 3.5 free-throw attempts per game, criminal for someone who has the ball so much, and for so long), and this isn't someone who will age well.

On top of that, didn't we watch him age quite considerably in the playoffs last season? Johnson averaged 11.8 points per game in the second round, shooting a terrifying 29.5 percent along the way. He seemed nonplussed as ever as his Hawks fell out of the second round again, and for the second time in five years, he's chosen big offseason money over a chance at a championship.

The Hawks? They're the big boys, here. They're supposed to be smarter than this, and in spite of all the talk about how this team had no choice but to stick with the status quo and see what happened? Bollocks.
This man could be nearly half of your salary cap in a few years. We have no idea how the new collective bargaining agreement will shake out, but even under the ridiculous payroll runs of the last six or seven years, handing nearly $120 million to a 29-year-old who has yet to do anything more meaningful than dribble a lot and shoot a lot and look real tired in January? It boggles the mind.

Yes, you're backed into a corner, and you can't afford to let your best offensive player go without any proper sign-and-trade compensation. I understand that, but signing above what you originally hoped to pay only goes so far. There has to be a cutoff price, at some point, and paying Joe Johnson around $20 million in 2015-16 has to be that point. Hell, paying Joe Johnson $20 million in 2011-12 has to be that point.
This is just an absurd contract that, even if the Hawks ownership is banking on selling the team midway through Johnson's deal as has been rumored, cannot be justified or argued-for in any meaningful way.
There's just no way around it. Joe is a nice player who might get to shoot himself into yet another All-Star berth next season. If he's lucky, the year after that, even. Give it to him. Let the Hawks roll to the second round again, earning the ownership a few more gate receipts as they take yet another first-round series to seven games.

Doesn't matter. As it stands, this is the worst free-agent contract I have ever seen. Roll over Eddy Curry, tell Jim McIlvaine the news.
 
6th place sounds about right.

Here's the problem with this team - it's gotta be one of the worst teams athletically in the NBA. It's going to struggle against less talented but athletic teams like the 76ers and Bucks.

Spacing on the floor was a huge problem last season, and I don't see it getting much better, since the knicks have lost all its players from last year that could penetrate and break down a defense - Lin, Fields, and Shump (at least temporarily).
 
6th place sounds about right.

Here's the problem with this team - it's gotta be one of the worst teams athletically in the NBA. It's going to struggle against less talented but athletic teams like the 76ers and Bucks.

Spacing on the floor was a huge problem last season, and I don't see it getting much better, since the knicks have lost all its players from last year that could penetrate and break down a defense - Lin, Fields, and Shump (at least temporarily).

Felton will be fine in that capacity. I think it would help our spacing if we added 1 more shooter though. Novak is nice but he's strictly a spot up guy, & JR is either very hot or very cold. I think this team is built to suit Mike Woodson's philosophy though. Structured offense & focus on defense. Our perimeter D will be a problem though, at least until Shump comes back healthy.

Btw, Fields was never really an effective penetrator. His ball handling skills were pretty poor & his passing ability was below average. He was a guy who excelled playing off the ball cutting to the rim for easy buckets, not a guy who was good with the ball in his hands.
 
i'm usually a pessimistic person. A friend of mine thinks we miss the playoffs altogether. I'm going with us as a 7th seed, and i won't guess the games we win, till i see who we face, and injuries etc

Are you saying your personality gets in the way of making simple, rational decisions?

Your friend just sounds like a drama-queen.

Here I made a bold and surprising statement, give me attention(and rep).

:barf:
 
Felton will be fine in that capacity.

I'm not so sure about that.

A structured offense and focused defense is what the Knicks will have to play if they're going to win. But, here's the problem with this strategy, with an old, unathletic team - if the team doesn't shoot well and/or commit turnovers, they're going to get blown out by good teams and lose close games to decent athletic teams (e.g., the 76ers).
 
I'm not so sure about that.

A structured offense and focused defense is what the Knicks will have to play if they're going to win. But, here's the problem with this strategy, with an old, unathletic team - if the team doesn't shoot well and/or commit turnovers, they're going to get blown out by good teams and lose close games to decent athletic teams (e.g., the 76ers).

Right, that's why I think we need another reliable shooter to really make this team work. You're right we will have struggles against younger, more athletic teams. The way to combat that is to play good fundamental basketball, run screen & roll effectively, kick out to quality shooters who can knock down their shots, good low post game, play solid D. We have all the pieces, just need 1 more shooter IMO.
 
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