Who Deserves the Credit for the Atlanta Hawks' Success?

When sports teams win in spite of injuries to their star players, praise rightfully falls to one party or another.

In Chicago, Tom Thibodeau has fairly been lauded for keeping the Bulls atop the Eastern Conference. In Houston, Goran Dragic deserves a pat on the back for his admirable work in Kyle Lowry's stead.

But in Atlanta, where the Hawks have managed to put together an impressive 23-17 record without Al Horford, no one has really stepped forward to claim the well-deserved goodwill. Horford was and is Atlanta's best all-around player, and yet the bricks have managed to stay together despite the mortar's torn left pectoral muscle. 

The crowning of a Hawks hero is hardly a clean matter, though. Other singular parties are surely deserving of credit in cases like those of the Bulls and Rockets, those instances featured an easily identifiable element as the preventative mechanism of outright catastrophe.

Atlanta's situation is a bit different; plenty have helped (or "stepped up," if you're partial to that trope), but none more so than all the others. It really has been a communal effort, and though the Hawks roster is a strange bunch to say the least, they've rallied to collectively make life without Horford completely manageable. 

With that, let's take a look at the diffusion of resiliency in Atlanta—the crew of individuals responsible for the fact that the Hawks have largely, and incomprehensibly, remained as effective as ever.

JOE JOHNSON

Over his career arc, Joe Johnson has gone from unappreciated supporting part, to overextended star, to iso-centric scapegoat, to overpaid centerpiece all the way back to being unappreciated again.

Johnson still is, in many ways, the player that drew the basketball world's backlash with his isolation habits, but efficiency's vogue has unnecessarily (and unfairly) made Johnson into a bit of a villain. He still takes difficult shots seemingly for the sake of taking difficult shots, but in spite of his vices he's still a productive and valuable player.

At some point, we have to take that caveat in his performance for what it truly is, and allow Johnson's strengths to again take center stage.

There's simply no way that the Hawks would even have a manageable offense if not for Johnson. Rarely is it a good thing to point to the league's 21st-ranked offense as an item of triumph, but with Atlanta and Johnson, that's the only logical course.

The Hawks are uniquely limited when it comes to shot creators; with Josh Smith better as an off-ball threat, Jeff Teague a bit too erratic to bring an offense to a steady beat and Kirk Hinrich in over his head, Johnson is largely the best option that the Hawks have.

In Horford's absence, Atlanta has—in a sense—reverted to the bizarre wasteland of wings that marked Mike Woodson's early tenure.

Johnson may have lost a bit of his charm after years of slowly grinding the life out of possessions, but sometimes his solo shot creation really does maximize Atlanta's offense, considering the very limited faculties at the Hawks' disposal.

That fact that the Hawks rank in the league's bottom third in points scored per possession isn't at all surprising, nor is it an indictment of Johnson. Things could very easily be so much worse, and Johnson's game is a fitting life preserver.

JOSH SMITH

No single player has improved his play more in Horford's absence than Josh Smith, and not due to some hidden incompatibility between the two.

Instead, Smith has merely drifted closer to the player that the Hawks desperately need him to be—an unseemly mutation of the Ryan Anderson type, reliant on others to max out his scoring, but still fully capable of offering a transcendent impact.

For Anderson, the threat of his three-point shooting alone works wonders for Orlando's offense. But in Smith, the Hawks have a more versatile all-around player, albeit one with less specific on-court real estate. I'm not sure that Smith really has a space on the floor to call his own (as Anderson has the three-point arc), but that hasn't seemed to matter.

By thriving through versatility in the mess of Atlanta's offense, Smith has brought the closest facsimile to Horford's adhesion that he could possibly muster.

Smith still takes head-scratchingly bad three-point attempts, and his defensive prowess is occasionally offset by foul trouble, goaltends and block-chasing. But he has facilitated the functioning of the Hawks' offense overall, and been their most effective player on both ends of the court.

Smith's basketball instincts may consistently whisper destructive thoughts into his ear, but he's done an excellent job of quieting those compulsions and playing good, measured basketball that's not at all devoid of its innate Josh Smith-ness.

He's still the same intriguing player he's always been, but merely succumbs to fewer inanities.

ZAZA PACHULIA

Positionally speaking, Zaza Pachulia has literally replaced Horford, even though their playing styles hold few similarities. Still, the fact that Atlanta had a player in waiting capable of playing a bigger role has served them well, even if Pachulia's greatest contributions (defensive mobility, aggressive box-out and out-of-position rebounding, drawing fouls) aren't the most easily appreciated. 

Pachulia has played some remarkable individual games, but he's also done wonders for the Hawks' defensive process. Few teams have such skilled defenders in reserve that they could lose such a crucial player without any deficit.

Although Horford's versatility on that end was of monumental importance, Pachulia has been able to anchor Atlanta's D with his aggressive hedges against pick and rolls, physical (and preemptive) work in the post and solid defensive rebounding. 

LARRY DREW

Some of Larry Drew's individual coaching decisions are curious at best, but in a case like this one the head coach can't be completely without credit. Even if Drew isn't among the league's most masterful strategists or smoothest locker room chemists, his team has managed to maintain its defensive effectiveness and stay consistent enough on offense to give itself a chance.

That kind of orchestration does warrant some praise, so long as we don't go overboard. This isn't a Chicagoan case where a star-less roster is saved by the brilliance of its system, but Drew gets the benefit of the doubt in terms of keeping the Hawks together, as a means of keeping them afloat.