By KEVIN MOBLEY – Print Junior Copy Editor
The Atlanta Hawks are soaring into the 2015 NBA Playoffs with the best record in the Eastern Conference.
Throughout my long and strenuous history with sports, Atlanta professional teams have always, well, stunk.
The Falcons were mildly entertaining in my earliest years with Mike Vick and Warrick Dunn, but they were just that: entertaining. Nothing more. No miraculous championship season or anything of that sort.
The Braves were also decent, but I’ve always been emotionally detached from that team since their Golden Era, which took place during the ‘90s, before my time. Watching the Yankees pick off starters from the team I grew up with like Mark Teixeira and Brian McCann only made things worse.
Then there was the Hawks.
The most Atlanta franchise of them all; marginally good enough to secure an eighth seed in the Eastern Conference and yet still one of the more painful teams to watch in the league. I still don’t understand how Josh Smith and Joe Johnson would probably combine for 75 three-point attempts on a given night, and the Hawks would still lose.
And who could forget that time when the Hawks thought it wise to use the No. 2 overall pick in 2005 to pass on arguably the greatest point guard in the NBA since that point on, Chris Paul, and select good ol’ Marvin Williams?
Since then, Paul has been selected to eight All-Star Games, while Williams has proved to be extremely average at everything he does against NBA competition.
However, one-by-one, the Hawks’ management began to unload overpriced scorers like Smith and Johnson, replacing them with a dynamic, young, pass-first point guard in Jeff Teague, sharpshooter Kyle Korver and a veteran do-it-all small forward, Paul Millsap.
Couple those three with the only good piece the Hawks ever had from the late-2000s, Al Horford, and the result was a team that could at least take a weak first-round opponent, such as the 2014 Indiana Pacers, to seven games.
Enter: Mike Budenholzer and, more importantly, a championship philosophy from his 18 years as an assistant coach for the 5-time NBA Champion San Antonio Spurs.
What has this all led to? An Atlanta Hawks team that is now easily the best team in the Eastern Conference with a 57-19 record, about the only thing Atlanta sports fans have had reason to celebrate in years.
There are many keys to this worst-to-first season that has had NBA fans dumbfounded since December: Teague’s emergence as one of the best facilitators in the game, a deep rotation of young contributors and a motion offense that has the Hawks averaging 25.4 assists per game (second overall).
So while the Hawks might fade in the playoffs this year due to inexperience in post-season play, there are no signs of Atlanta’s new flagship franchise slowing down anytime soon.
