Atlanta Hawks - Offseason Review

Long the laughingstock of the league, Atlanta turned the corner last year, taking advantage of a weak Eastern Conference to sneak into the playoffs with a sub-.500 record and push the world champion Celtics to seven games. Some critics held their praise pending the outcome of this offseason. Two of Atlanta’s young gems, Josh Smith and Josh Childress, became restricted free agents. Atlanta stalled negotiations with both players, leading to frustration for the players as no other NBA teams wanted to tie themselves up early in free agency to a player they may not get. Eventually, Childress signed a lucrative deal to move to Greece, and Smith signed an offer sheet with the Memphis Grizzlies. Atlanta bid adieu to Childress, in a signing that may or may not be the vanguard of international competition for top pro basketball talent, but quickly matched the offer to Smith (5 years, 58 million).

Keeping the Core Together

The underlying premise behind most prospective writing on the Hawks is that the team best course of action would be to lock up all of its young players, keeping them together so they can mature as a unit. Certainly the core of Smith, Childress, Joe Johnson, Marvin Williams and Al Horford is one of the youngest in the league. However, there is significant overlap in positions played by those five. While redundancy at positions is not a problem per se, it requires careful management of playing time, in order to maximize productivity. Many writers commenting on the loss of Childress noted how productive he was, moreso even than his more heralded teammate Johnson. I believe that is a bit overstated, and may have more to do with the bench players he played against (we’ll call it the Manu Ginobili effect for now). In this article, I’d like to focus more on the frontcourt players (Horford, Smith and Williams) to see if the Hawks have made sensible decisions about allotting their talent, and whether their offseason decisions will derive future gains.

Usage Percentage for the 2007-2008 Atlanta Hawks

As defined over at basketball-reference.com, usage percentage (usg%) is an estimate of the percentage of team plays used while the player is on the court. Basically, it a percentage of a team’s field goal attempts, free throws and turnovers that one player consumes. Look in http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/glossary.html for the full formula) It is not an exact measure, in part because free throws are estimated at the standard factor of .44 (to factor for “and one” situations, technical fouls and flagrant fouls, none of which count as additional possessions). There are other statistical oddities, such as when a player does not take a shot at the end of a quarter of half (consuming the possession, but not contributing a field goal attempt, free throw attempt, or turnover). However, usage percentage appears to provide a very accurate estimate for who consumes the most possessions on a team. It can certainly serve as a building block for an optimization strategy for a team, since it stands to reason that putting the ball in the hands of your best shooters and least turnover-prone players is advantageous.

Wasteful Consumers and Less Wasteful Consumers

Looking at the pertinent stats, it becomes apparent that giving the ball to Horford, and to a lesser extent, Williams, and taking it away from Smith will maximize the Hawks’ yield up front. The following table explains:

PLAYER USG% FG% FT% TOV/MIN

Al Horford 16.0 .499 .731 137/2540

Marvin Williams 20.1 .462 .822 127/2765

Josh Smith 25.0 .457 .710 245/2873

Also keep in mind that for most of last season, Horford matched up against centers, while Smith matched up against forwards, even though Horford has more of a power forward’s size. (See all of last year's lineup combinations at http://www.82games.com/0708/0708ATL2.HTM)

Furthermore, Horford far outstripped Smith in rebounds per 36 minutes (11.1 to 8.4), giving Horford a better chance at second shots and other high percentage plays.

Plan for Optimization

This analysis through Usg% tends to support the traditional wisdom that good post players deserve a healthy share of offensive looks. This is not always the case, especially for post players with high turnover rates and/or low free throw percentages. Neither is the case with Horford.

In analyzing the above players, it seems like the Hawks should do the following:

Horford: Should start at power forward and should increase his Usg% to near that of Johnson, the team’s primary ballhandler and perimeter shooter.

Smith: Should start at small forward, using his tremendous physical abilities to manhandle other teams’ starting small forwards and to embrace a utility-man role exemplified most recently by Shawn Marion and Andrei Kirilenko. This would result in fewer plays run for Smith, an important consideration considering the tenuous relationship he has with current Hawks coach Mike Woodson.

Williams: He is the closest comparison to Childress (high shooting percentages and low turnovers), and would make a suitable replacement for Childress as 6^th man. While Childress shot an insanely high field goal percentage last year, Williams’ greater ability to get to the free throw line and convert free throw attempts should close that gap. Furthermore, the realist in me notes that moving Williams to the bench will suppress his value, something the pennywise Hawks might be interested in as Williams approaches restricted free agency.

Center: Under this analysis, the Hawks really should have gone after some big people with low Usg% this offseason, in order to maximize the productivity of Horford, Smith and Williams (recognizing that starting guards Johnson and Mike Bibby both have high Usg% themselves).

Kurt Thomas (13.2% with the Sonics and 14% with the Spurs last year) would have been an interesting addition, lending tough defense, a decent jumper and veteran experience at an affordable price, given what he resigned with the Spurs for.

A more interesting candidate would have been Kwame Brown (14.6% with the Lakers and 14.8% with the Grizzlies). Brown is an Atlanta native who has shown some signs of life, and at times, the confidence of Phil Jackson in his defensive abilities.

Even more interesting would be David Andersen, a top European center whose rights the Hawks have held since they drafted him in 2002. Despite decent reviews from scouts, the Hawks showed little interest.

Zaza Pachulia heads up the list of underwhelming internal candidates currently under contract with the Hawks. The list also includes recently signed Randolph Morris and long-term 12^th man solution Solomon Jones. Pachulia has shown promise and fire, but his higher Usg% (18.3% last year in limited minutes, 21.3% in 06-07 with the starting job) would likely take the ball out of more efficient shooters’ hands. Morris and Jones are largely unproven, though still young enough to cause interest.

As it currently stands, Horford is likely the starting center in an unchanged starting five, one that allocated too many possessions to Smith.