Good article . . . but that doesn't make what Charles said not true.
You picked out some comments made in the TNT broadcast of the Miami game. Charles routinely speaks in general about things, and not specifically. But most of the time, his overall premise or thought process is right on target.
“There is no doubt that the team can consistently make the playoffs, but is it worth playing every year for a No. 5 or No. 6 seed and a first-round playoff loss?”
The statement may be factually inaccurate, but it's only inaccurate because he said First round loss . . instead of a 2nd round loss. The long history of the Hawks franchise in Atlanta has consisted of this team finishing somewhere between the 4th and 7th seed, and losing in the 1st or 2nd round. We have NEVER made it to the Eastern Conference Finals while in Atlanta.
Never.
So what Charles is alluding to here is "playoff mediocrity". Some people think that when it's clear that your team can't supass a certain level of winning, that you're probably better off blowing everything up and starting over, even if that means that you lose before you start winning again. If this team loses in the 2nd round again, you'll hear talk again about how this team just can't get to the next level.
Listen I like Joe Johnson he’s a good player, but they’re not gonna get past the first round of the playoffs, they could have got that for 10 million a year.
The perception my most everyone this year ( besides Hawks fans and maybe Chris Broussard ), were that these were going to be your top 4 teams in the East
- Miami
- Chicago
- Boston
- New York
And a lot of "experts" had Indiana ahead of the Hawks. The reasoning for this was the loss of Jamal Crawford, a guy that most people believed was an integral part to our success. Even some Hawk fans fully believed that he was better than Joe Johnson. What the national media and some of our fans didn't realize, is that Jamal's defensive deficiencies sometimes cancelled out his offensive excellence. A lot of times, actually. And when Jamal struggled offensively, it REALLY hurt the team when he was out on the floor, because his defense was still bad.
So keep in context what Chares is talking about here. We'd lost Jamal. We added a bunch of minimum contract players. The jury was still sort of out on if Teague could be a good PG. And our star players ( namely Al Horford ) played so-so in last years playoffs. And most of all . . . most people ( including most Hawk fans ), don't believe that JJ is a legit #1 scoring option.
Combine all of this, and you can see why Charles said what he said.
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The fact is that while Atlanta was struggling with a Lebron and Wade-less Miami team, all of Charles' opinions about the Hawks were somewhat validated in the way they were playing. What should've been a 15 - 20 point win last night, was on the verge of turning into a 15 - 20 point loss, had it not been for Ivan Johnson providing a spark off the bench and waking that team up.
The difference you're seeing in Joe Johnson since Horford went down, is that he feels that he needs to be much more assertive on the offensive end. Like you said earlier, he's not sitting back and trying to get everybody involved. He's getting HIMSELF involved, then getting everyone else going.
JJ's drop in production, especially last year, had everything to do with Drew's "spread the wealth" offense, and JJ's pizz poor 3 point shooting last year . . a shot that really didn't return to him until the playoffs started. If it was due to his hurt wrist, then that was a valid reason for his long ball being off most of last year. This year, the shot seems to have returned to at least his career average.
Understand this though . . . for the Hawks to get to the EC Finals, JJ MUST play better. That means that he may have to go into "hero mode" as benhillboy and others call it, a lot more often. As the main offensive weapon on the team, when this guy has it going, he MUST look to put up a lot of points and take over the game. We saw a glimpse of him doing this in Tuesday night's game @ Toronto.
In the playoffs, superstars usually put their teams on their backs. Charles has routinely said over the years that JJ is a "nice guy", but may lack the "killer instinct". And you know what? He's right. The good thing for us this year, is that we're seeing flashes of that "killer instinct" emerging in JJ. It's just too bad that it took the departure of Jamal Crawford and the injury of Al Horford, for it to start coming ou.
In general though, Charles isn't wrong about what he says about JJ and this team. Maybe not specifically factually correct, but not wrong in general.
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Oh . . and the BIGGEST offenders of what you call "Media Driven Misconception", doesn't come from the national media . . it comes from the LOCAL media. Outside of Hawks beat writer Michael Cunningham, the Atlanta media does an EXTREMELY poor job of covering the Hawks. After the 1st Miami win in Miami, hardly a word was said about them. But as soon as they lost to Miami without the Big 2 at home, and blew that big lead in Chicago, the detractors in the ATL media had something to say about that.
Even now, when this team is playing very well without Al Horford, people aren't saying much of anything. Al is the guy that was supposed to be the best player on the team, and the glue of the Hawks. So I guess people are in complete shock that we're still winning at a high clip without AL.
Your next article should be on how the local media covers the Hawks, and how that may create the MDM in and around Atlanta that keeps fans jaded about this team.
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METROSTUFFIN
dolfan23b
antlucas0990
Thanks for the compliment!
