New Eastern Conference No. 1 Seed Atlanta Hawks Could Be Here to Stay
For all the talk about conference disparity in today’s NBA, you can’t accuse the East of being boring. Bad, perhaps—possibly even historically so. But not boring.
The New Year begins with yet another coup for the lowly Eastern throne, this one orchestrated by the plucky, pass-happy Atlanta Hawks.
To the well-trained eye, Atlanta’s brand of ball—as precise a poetry as you’re liable to find this side of the Mississippi River—isn’t so much different from the ones the San Antonio Spurs guerilla marketed to championship results last season.
Atlanta has a long way to go before mastering The Spurs Way. As a genuine conference contender, however, these Hawks might well be here to stay.
It would certainly be a long time coming: According to Basketball-Reference.com, the last time Atlanta held sole possession of first place in the East was December 27, 1997. That streak ended, as so many a usurper's feat did during that era, by the scorching hot hand of one Michael Jeffrey Jordan, per SB Nation's Tom Ziller.
For a team tethered to one of the country’s largest media markets, the Hawks have seldom risen above the level of fringe contender. Their last finals appearance, in fact, was also their last conference finals showing, as the then-St. Louis Hawks way back in in 1961. In the 65 years since their initial founding as the Tri-City Blackhawks, the team has never once won more than 60 games in a single season.
Even during the heyday of Dominique Wilkins, arguably the franchise’s greatest-ever talent, Atlanta was seen as a second-tier team forever doomed to the shadows cast by the Boston Celtics, Detroit Pistons, Chicago Bulls and other perennial Eastern powers.
Following the departures of Joe Johnson and Josh Smith (the former by way of a 2012 trade, the latter in free agency the next summer), Atlanta once again looked ripe for the rebuild—a middling organization destined for a middling future.
Enter Mike Budenholzer, the longtime Gregg Popovich disciple hired by the Hawks on May 28, 2013. Since assuming the reins, Budenholzer has overseen one of the most unlikely turnarounds in recent NBA history, in the process helping transform Atlanta’s attack from stagnant, isolation-heavy hero ball into a paragon of unselfishness and, more important still, efficiency.
All the while, Atlanta, writes Bleacher Report’s Adam Fromal, has unwittingly adopted another of the Spurs’ trademark traits: the bittersweet feeling of being both universally respected and—somehow, by virtue of some colder calculus—reflexively ignored:
"San Antonio has had to deal with perceived disrespect toward its individual players and a tough go at All-Star bids in recent years, simply because it's the collection of players that makes the team so special. Granted, the Spurs have three Hall of Famers on the roster, but the Hawks are working toward getting to that San Antonio level. No one is claiming they're actually there quite yet.
Nonetheless, that system is one of many reasons to feel good about Atlanta's ability to sustain success well into the future. The Spurs have kept their core, their coach and their system together for years, and they've been able to compete at a high level season after season, enduring changes in the construction of their roster. Now, the Hawks are poised to do the same thing.
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The stats-savvy fan might point to the Hawks’ league-leading assist rate (19.5) as Exhibit A in the case for classification as Spurs East—and, as a consequence, the most damning charge against the Mike Woodson-Joe Johnson regime. But the team has registered in the top 10 in each of the last five seasons. A sign, perhaps, that what the Hawks needed all along was less a systemic overhaul than a series of carefully directed tweaks.
Budenholzer’s Spursian influence has been key, of course. But Atlanta’s ascendance is as much about fit as it is philosophy, of having the right players at the right time and in the right positions.
"I think that we have a system established here and we have a group of guys that understand the concept of teamwork and doing things as a team," All-Star big man Al Horford recently told CBS Sports’ Ken Berger. "When you have a group of guys like that, it makes everything easier."
Like the Spurs, the Hawks wield one of the most potent starting fives in the league (Jeff Teague, Kyle Korver, DeMarre Carroll, Paul Milsap and Horford), a unit that’s registering an offensive rating of 109.5, a net rating of 7.1 and a scintillating 22.3 assist ration, per NBA.com (subscription required).
It’s a quintet whose roles are as clearly defined as the leadership is diffuse. If you squint just a bit, you might even see the outlines of familiar games wielded by familiar faces:
In Jeff Teague’s potent paint probing, a picture of Tony Parker; In Kyle Korver’s peerlessly pure jumper, the flashes of a Finals-fantastic Danny Green; In DeMarre Carroll’s five-tool tenacity, a fascinating facsimile of Kawhi Leonard; In Millsap and Horford, a one-two frontcourt punch to rival Tim Duncan and Tiago Splitter’s synchronized savvy.
Unlike the famously bench-strong Spurs, however, Atlanta—ranked 20th in raw reserve production—has yet to cultivate consistent depth.
Largest looming of all has been the loss of Lou Williams, the longtime bench-scorer extraordinaire whom the Hawks dealt to the Toronto Raptors for salary purposes this past summer, only to watch the flame-throwing guard author one of the league’s most convincing early-season Sixth Man of the Year performances.
Not that Atlanta is devoid of depth entirely: Mike Scott has proven a second-round steal, Kent Bazemore provides instant two-way energy, while Dennis Schroder—the raw-but-upside-laden point guard taken 17th overall in the 2013 draft—continues to be an intermittent revelation.
From top to bottom, the Hawks are still very much a work in progress. Albeit one even Popovich is quick to praise as pointed in the right direction.
"[Budenholzer’s] got a great group of guys who fit," Popovich told Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News (subscription required) back in November. "It's not about having the most talent in the world. You need a certain amount of talent, but all the pieces have to fit."
Far be it from anyone to assume Atlanta’s grasp on the East’s No. 1 seed will permanently hold. Just ask the Washington Wizards and Toronto Raptors how safe that place is. Or any one of the five Finals-caliber frogs currently leaping one another out West, for that matter.
Still, there’s something about these Hawks—indebted as they are to San Antonio’s sense of basketball gestalt—that seems somehow sustainable.
Like the Spurs before them, Atlanta has staked its claim as a team beholden as much to process as individual players and as tethered as any team in the league to a steadfast philosophy: Just because the template can't be matched, doesn't mean it's not worth mimicking.
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