Since 1990-91, only nine rookies have finished their first season averaging ten or more rebounds per game. Al Horford is currently in that group and assuming he will average more minutes during the second half of the season, he will most likely be the tenth player in the group.
The nine past players include: Shaquille O'Neal, Dikembe Mutombo, Tim Duncan, Larry Johnson, Emeka Okafor, Alonzo Mourning, Derrick Coleman, Dwight Howard, and Elton Brand.
So with Horford, the Atlanta Hawks clearly have a great, young player to start with. Besides Horford, the Hawks have a variety of other players:
Scoring Star
Joe Johnson - wrapped up through 2009-10 season
Promising Young Players
Marvin Williams - Signed through the 2009-10 season
Acie Law - Signed through the 2011-12 season
Shelden Williams - Signed through 2010-11 season
Long-Term Veteran Contracts
Speedy Claxton - Signed through 2009-10 season
Zaza Pachulia - Signed through next season
Solomon Jones - Signed through next season
Restricted Free Agents After This Season
Josh Childress - $4,844,355 Qualifying Offer
Josh Smith - $3,167,882 Qualifying Offer
Expiring Contracts
Tyronn Lue
Lorenzen Wright
Anthony Johnson
Salim Stoudamire
Mario West
Standing second-to-last in the NBA in three point shooting, the Hawks badly need another shooter. Both Mike Miller and Wally Szczerbiak can be had for the Hawks' expiring contracts - around $12,000,000.
Childress has shown that he can be a reliable, versatile reserve, but is probably nothing more than that. Shelden Williams looks like a complete mistake of a pick being chosen fifth overall by Atlanta.
So what do the Hawks need to do to reach their short-term (playoffs) and long-term (championship) goals? First, trade all five of the Hawks expiring contracts and a future draft pick to Seattle for Delonte West and Wally Szczerbiak. With a starting lineup of West, Johnson, Szczerbiak, Smith, Horford with Williams, Pachulia, Law, and Childress coming off the bench.
This upcoming offseason, the Hawks should look to bring back Childress and Smith, along with trying to deal Shelden Williams and Speedy Claxton. At the end of this season, the Hawks need to either resign the newly acquired Szczerbiak or bring in a similar type of perimeter score to space the ball in Atlanta.
Showing posts with label Acie Law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Acie Law. Show all posts
Friday, February 15, 2008
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Camp lures NBA clientele
OFFSEASON INVESTMENT: Camp lures NBA clientele
Garnett, Billups, others get custom workouts at local Abunassar center
By TODD DEWEY
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Take a summer basketball camp and replace the usual wannabes with about 50 actual NBA players, sprinkling in a handful of stars.
Add some high-tech exercise equipment and innovative training techniques tailored to each athlete.
Arm the coaching staff with certified trainers and physical therapists, and have nutritionists on hand to create customized workout recovery shakes and meals for each player.
Turn the intensity level and music on high, and the finished product is Abunassar Impact Basketball.
Former NBA Most Valuable Player Kevin Garnett and former NBA Finals MVP Chauncey Billups led a parade of 47 players who worked out up to six hours per day, six days per week during the offseason at AIB, located near Palace Station.
Other players who participated included Ron Artest, Al Harrington, Antoine Walker, Cuttino Mobley and Tayshaun Prince.
Previous camp alumni include Andrei Kirilenko, Vince Carter, Baron Davis, Chris Bosh and Paul Pierce.
Joe Abunassar, a former student assistant at Indiana under Bobby Knight and assistant coach at Wyoming, founded AIB, which costs $25,000 per year for NBA players.
The program is apparently well worth it, because Detroit Pistons guard Billups and others say Abunassar has played a key role in making them better players.
"Coming into the league, my skills were good, but they needed a lot of honing," Billups said last month. "(Abunassar) took me from jumping around the league the first couple years to climbing that mountain to being where I got to today."
Abunassar trained five of this year's top 11 NBA Draft picks -- including No. 7 choice Corey Brewer, No. 9 Joakim Noah and No. 11 Acie Law -- and 20 of the 60 overall picks.
"We can change their body composition and we can change their game in six weeks," said Abunassar, who has built an impressive clientele mostly through word of mouth. "(The NBA) is such a big difference from college basketball."
Prince of the Pistons said the camp provides the perfect situation for players trying to make the transition from college to the NBA.
"You get good individual instruction on and off the court, and you're going against guys at your position who are just as good or even more talented than you are," he said. "It gives you the opportunity to get better and, at the same time, to stay healthy."
A typical daily regimen at the camp consists of 90 minutes of performance training, or strength training and conditioning, and 90 minutes of on-court skills drills in the morning.
A specialized lunch precedes afternoon 5-on-5 scrimmages that are arguably the best pickup basketball games in the world.
"We compete at a very high level, whether it's one-on-one drills, individual work or 5-on-5," Billups said. "We're here mostly all day, and when we go home we're pretty tired and burnt out."
Abunassar has created basketball-specific drills to mirror each player's movements in an actual game.
In a dribbling drill, for example, Billups is connected to a Bungee cord with resistance behind him, forcing him to stay low and in control as he brings the ball up the court.
In another exercise designed for big men, Garnett wears a belt tied to a Bungee cord and tries to maintain his post position and keep the ball under control. All the while, one coach pulls the cord in different directions to try to knock him off balance and another tries to steal the ball.
Players also can experience high altitude training in a glass-enclosed chamber simulating conditions at 9,000 feet.
http://www.lvrj.com/sports/10597212.html
Oct. 17, 2007
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Garnett, Billups, others get custom workouts at local Abunassar center
By TODD DEWEY
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Take a summer basketball camp and replace the usual wannabes with about 50 actual NBA players, sprinkling in a handful of stars.
Add some high-tech exercise equipment and innovative training techniques tailored to each athlete.
Arm the coaching staff with certified trainers and physical therapists, and have nutritionists on hand to create customized workout recovery shakes and meals for each player.
Turn the intensity level and music on high, and the finished product is Abunassar Impact Basketball.
Former NBA Most Valuable Player Kevin Garnett and former NBA Finals MVP Chauncey Billups led a parade of 47 players who worked out up to six hours per day, six days per week during the offseason at AIB, located near Palace Station.
Other players who participated included Ron Artest, Al Harrington, Antoine Walker, Cuttino Mobley and Tayshaun Prince.
Previous camp alumni include Andrei Kirilenko, Vince Carter, Baron Davis, Chris Bosh and Paul Pierce.
Joe Abunassar, a former student assistant at Indiana under Bobby Knight and assistant coach at Wyoming, founded AIB, which costs $25,000 per year for NBA players.
The program is apparently well worth it, because Detroit Pistons guard Billups and others say Abunassar has played a key role in making them better players.
"Coming into the league, my skills were good, but they needed a lot of honing," Billups said last month. "(Abunassar) took me from jumping around the league the first couple years to climbing that mountain to being where I got to today."
Abunassar trained five of this year's top 11 NBA Draft picks -- including No. 7 choice Corey Brewer, No. 9 Joakim Noah and No. 11 Acie Law -- and 20 of the 60 overall picks.
"We can change their body composition and we can change their game in six weeks," said Abunassar, who has built an impressive clientele mostly through word of mouth. "(The NBA) is such a big difference from college basketball."
Prince of the Pistons said the camp provides the perfect situation for players trying to make the transition from college to the NBA.
"You get good individual instruction on and off the court, and you're going against guys at your position who are just as good or even more talented than you are," he said. "It gives you the opportunity to get better and, at the same time, to stay healthy."
A typical daily regimen at the camp consists of 90 minutes of performance training, or strength training and conditioning, and 90 minutes of on-court skills drills in the morning.
A specialized lunch precedes afternoon 5-on-5 scrimmages that are arguably the best pickup basketball games in the world.
"We compete at a very high level, whether it's one-on-one drills, individual work or 5-on-5," Billups said. "We're here mostly all day, and when we go home we're pretty tired and burnt out."
Abunassar has created basketball-specific drills to mirror each player's movements in an actual game.
In a dribbling drill, for example, Billups is connected to a Bungee cord with resistance behind him, forcing him to stay low and in control as he brings the ball up the court.
In another exercise designed for big men, Garnett wears a belt tied to a Bungee cord and tries to maintain his post position and keep the ball under control. All the while, one coach pulls the cord in different directions to try to knock him off balance and another tries to steal the ball.
Players also can experience high altitude training in a glass-enclosed chamber simulating conditions at 9,000 feet.
http://www.lvrj.com/sports/10597212.html
Oct. 17, 2007
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Top Prospect Videos
Around draft time, Yahoo! posted video of a majority of the top ninety players. Each players video is around four minutes long.
To watch the videos, go to:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/prospects?rank_type=1
To watch the videos, go to:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/prospects?rank_type=1
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