The Hawks' Triumph Of Maxing Out What They Could Accomplish

[Guest]

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 You could pen several dusty, forlorn country tunes About the Atlanta Hawks. They’ve done nearly everything right over the past few years and their thanks has been getting blasted off the court in two consecutive postseasons by the Cleveland Cavaliers, who were literally built overnight and who are as notable for their locker room bickering as their occasionally incandescent basketball.

This season’s exit was particularly unfair, as the Hawks emptied themselves only to be undone by a world-historic three-point shooting exhibition. On defense, Atlanta fought through screens, rotated quickly, and closed out hard and were met with J.R. Smith and Kevin Love nailing long-range jumpers as if they were alone in the gym. On offense, Mike Budenholzer arrayed an impressive catalogue of ideas, and the Cavs nixed each one as quickly as Coach Bud could scribble them on a whiteboard. The Hawks demonstrated that it’s possible to play well and still suffer the indignity of a sweep, if your opponents are good enough and the universe is in a cruel mood.

They also demonstrated that it’s possible to succeed in the NBA and be deemed a failure. Conventional basketball wisdom that posits there’s nothing worse than being a little bit less than championship-worthy dismisses teams like the Atlanta Hawks, and it makes for dour and self-defeating sports fandom, discouraging us from appreciating anything short of gobsmacking greatness. It invites us to ignore the pleasures of beautifully workmanlike squads that don’t soar so much as simply function, as if functioning isn’t difficult and worthy of our awe. The default post-mortem on this Hawks' season is an argument about whether they should blow up their roster or keep its core intact and retool. There has been little consideration of what they are and a lot of noise about how they should become different.

The impulse to project what’s next for a franchise isn’t so awful or destructive by itself, but it blows past a lot. For example, Paul Millsap has graduated from Carlos Boozer methadone status into a two-way terror who can shoot threes and check just about anyone taller than six-foot-five. Kent Bazemore was a gap-toothed bench mascot on the Warriors not so long ago, and now he’s a defensive pest with a jumper. Kyle Korver isn’t a handsome journeyman spot-up ace anymore; he’s a headache. Al Horford has always been wonderful, but finally free of Josh Smith and Joe Johnson’s long shadows, his talents are more visible than they have ever been. There is so much to like about these Hawks, so many transformations that have taken place under Budenholzer’s watch. It’s giving them considerably less respect than they have earned to talk only about what they need to change.

And yet, a degree of change is inevitable and necessary. Bazemore is almost definitely out the door this summer for more money than Atlanta will want to pay him. Jeff Teague is likely to be traded as the team moves Dennis Schröder into the starting lineup. Horford will have the option to leave in free agency, which could bring about drastic flux. As with most franchises that come up considerably short in their title hunt, every option is on the table for the Hawks. They could be mostly the same next year or barely recognizable.

Surely, Budenholzer is mulling those options, puzzling out what he wants to get in return for Teague, what the contingency plan is if Horford exits. You don’t get to where Budenholzer has gotten without being stubbornly forward-facing. He and his charges will spend the next few weeks converting memories into actionable data, because that is their job.

Fans and observers have no such obligation. It’s curious that we so often act like we do, constructing to-do lists for franchises and measuring the difficulty of each task. This can be fun, but it’s also constricting. Every team lacks for some thing or another, which isn’t to be ignored but shouldn’t be obsessed over, either. This is what we do when we fixate on the future: we devalue what exists in the here and now.

And the Atlanta Hawks are now, perhaps not for long, a minor triumph. They’re a collective of castoffs, mid-round draft picks, and lesser lights who peaked last season as a tireless offensive juggernaut and, as they fell to earth this season, reimagined themselves on the fly as one of the league’s stingier defenses. They don’t thwart themselves, and they don’t capitulate. There is a feeling while watching them that you are seeing the best of everyone involved, that these players wouldn’t be quite this good without each other and without their coach. They’ve maxed out what they can accomplish, which has turned out to be two doomed, decent playoff runs. That tells us it’s probably time for them to make a change, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t achieved something special, even in failure. The Hawks will become whatever they need to become this summer. In the meantime, we have space enough to remark that they’ve already given us quite a show.

By Colin McGowan

Never heard if this guy, some interesting points.

All I could  think about was why the hell did we lay an egg against a depleted Washington Wizards teams. We could have  been the 3rd seed playing the Raptors. Except  Bud in his wisdom says 'We don't  care where we end up" #%!!#€#$!@. Smh

[pimp]

48 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Never heard if this guy, some interesting points.

All I could  think about was why the hell did we lay an egg against a depleted Washington Wizards teams. We could have  been the 3rd seed playing the Raptors. Except  Bud in his wisdom says 'We don't  care where we end up" #%!!#€#$!@. Smh

Well, that Raptors have owned us the past two season, so i'm not sure if we would beat them either  . Even if we did beat the Raptors , it would have just delayed  that  butt whooping from  the Cavs by 7 to 10 days. 
 

[DJlaysitup]

Well - why not a country song :^)  - Johnny Cash...Ring of Fire:

 

Well us Hawks, did the best we could...some fans, thought we were good

Then we ran, into old Lebron...wasn't long, that our hopes were gone

Hawks ran into a Burning Ring of Fire!  The Cavs made threes and the score went higher...and it burned, burned, burned...that ring of fire, that ring of fire.

(da da dat da dat da da da da - da da dat da dat da da da)

Edited May 11, 2016 by DJlaysitup

[NBASupes]

It was a good read.

[cam1218]

2 hours ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Never heard if this guy, some interesting points.

All I could  think about was why the hell did we lay an egg against a depleted Washington Wizards teams. We could have  been the 3rd seed playing the Raptors. Except  Bud in his wisdom says 'We don't  care where we end up" #%!!#€#$!@. Smh

Thanks for posting the article. I still disagree with the 3rd seed argument because I'm not sure we would have advanced past the Heat. We were 1-3 against them.

[Dejay]

And that was as good a eulogy to this season as I've seen so far. Great read of our team without all of the complaints of what they're not...

[AHF]

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It invites us to ignore the pleasures of beautifully workmanlike squads that don’t soar so much as simply function, as if functioning isn’t difficult and worthy of our awe.

I smell a new marketing campaign!

Hawks basketball: "We don't soar, we simply function."  Awe inspiring!

[macdaddy]

1 minute ago, AHF said:

I smell a new marketing campaign!

Hawks basketball: "We don't soar, we simply function."  Awe inspiring!

Or  "Hawks: come see us function!"............err, on second thought no.

[Sothron]

This article shows why the NBA should be given an asterisk with the label "team sport" because you simply do not win as a team. You win with superstars and players accepting lesser roles. A true team like Atlanta has been under Bud will never win a title but deserves credit for being a true team.

If this was another sport our team would probably be a champion or in the conversation for one.

[macdaddy]

2 minutes ago, Sothron said:

This article shows why the NBA should be given an asterisk with the label "team sport" because you simply do not win as a team. You win with superstars and players accepting lesser roles. A true team like Atlanta has been under Bud will never win a title but deserves credit for being a true team.

If this was another sport our team would probably be a champion or in the conversation for one.

Well I consider the Spurs to be a true team.   They just have superior talent to the Hawks.     Stars can be part of a true team and win with the right attitude.  

I agree with the article though.   We've really maxed our potential given the players we've had the last 2 years.     So the coaching is there for sure.   In game decision making on part of the coach may need some work.