By Hammad Khalid & Robert Galerstein
If someone over the summer predicted the Atlanta Hawks would be a legitimate contender for the NBA title in 2015, most Atlanta fans probably wouldn’t have gotten their hopes up for fear of disappointment. But after watching the Hawks outclass many of the NBA’s top teams over the past two months, it is getting increasingly difficult to deny the Hawks’ chances at winning it all.
As of today, the Hawks have defeated most of the best teams in the league, sweeping games against the Eastern Conference with wins over the Toronto Raptors, Chicago Bulls, and Detroit Pistons over MLK weekend. The Hawks never trailed against the Chicago Bulls (many analysts’ pick to win the East) and maintained a double-digit lead for most of the game, suppressing a late fourth-quarter surge by Derrick Rose. The Hawks managed to dismantle all three teams directly behind them in the Eastern Conference standings, starting with a huge win over division rival Washington Wizards by 31 (in what Kyle Korver called the team’s best game of the year) followed by the team’s first win this season over the Toronto Raptors, beating them by a handy 21 points.
Atlanta’s win streak is now at a league-leading 13 games, coming one short of the longest streak in franchise history. While the Hawks’ overall record is still second in the NBA to the Golden State Warriors, Atlanta currently has the most wins in the league (34, five more than any team in their conference) and has won 27 of their last 29 games. Against opponents with winning records, the Hawks are even more impressive, holding a league-best 18-3 record, with an impressive 10-2 record against the seemingly superior Western Conference. Many NBA analysts put together weekly “power rankings” evaluating the strength of every team in the NBA. This week, the Atlanta Hawks were ranked as the top team in basketball by ESPN, NBA.com, CBS Sports, Yahoo Sports, ProBasketballTalk.com, and SB Nation.
In today’s player-dominant NBA, where superstar alliances and free agent trades can drastically alter a team’s playoff chances within the course of a season, Atlanta’s success with a team devoid of superstars seems especially surprising. In fact, this notion has led some to draw comparisons between this year’s Hawks and last year’s champions, the San Antonio Spurs, as many commentators have playfully referred to Atlanta as the “Spurs of the East.” The parallels are easy to draw, as both teams emphasize team-play and generate most of their points from assists. These similarities might have a rather obvious explanation: Hawks head coach Mike Budenholzer was an assistant coach under Gregg Popovich’s Spurs from 1996 – 2013, and general manager Danny Ferry is a former vice president of basketball operations for the Spurs.
Atlanta has defied this player-focused environment by distributing its scoring and minutes evenly across its entire rotation. In fact, the Hawks don’t have a single player ranking in the top 30 in scoring or minutes per game. Budenholzer appears to be taking a page out of Popovich’s playbook that helped win the Spurs the 2014 NBA championship – preserving starters in the regular season to make a deep run in the playoffs.
Although the Hawks do not have a superstar, the team is loaded with individual talent. Al Horford recently won Eastern Conference player of the week, gaining the accolade for the second time this season. Jeff Teague has also won the award, and Paul Millsap is currently poised to make the All-Star team for the second straight year. Kyle Korver leads the league in three-point shooting by a resounding margin, and could become the first player in NBA history to shoot 50 percent from the field and beyond the arch and 90 percent from the free throw line.
But perhaps the most significant key to the Hawks’ success is their ability to play truly unselfish, team basketball on both ends of the floor. The Hawks are second in the league in assists per game, and an incredible 74.4 percent of their starting lineup’s field goals are assisted. During their 5-0 run this past week, the Hawks topped 30 assists four times. Per game, Atlanta is first in the league in points allowed (96.3), second in assists (26), and seventh in points scored (103.1).
This defensive-minded ideology is central to Budenholzer’s coaching philosophy and something that was missing last year. The coaching staff does a terrific job putting together team-specific defensive game plans that stymie opponents’ major sources of offense. Coach Bud is expected to coach the Eastern Conference at the All-Star game, and is well-poised to win Coach of the Year if Atlanta continues its performance. After leading his team to a 14-2 record in December, being named the December Eastern Conference Coach of the Month, and maintaining an undefeated record in January, Atlanta players and fans are ecstatic to have found such a great talent.
Perhaps what is most impressive is that Budenholzer has managed to create a NBA power-house already four wins away from last year’s season total while having to deal with extreme controversy and distraction within the organization. The Atlanta Hawks three-part ownership has constantly vied for influence over the team’s decisions, creating a variety of problems (and even lawsuits) between one another for rejecting trades.
To add to this continuous state of flux, two major controversies occurred this past summer when Atlanta was attempting to chase free agents. The tumultuous summer began when an audio recording captured Hawks General Manager Danny Ferry describing free agent Luol Deng as having “a little African in him.” Ferry has since been indefinitely suspended. A subsequent investigation led to Bruce Levenson, majority-owner of the Atlanta Hawks, reporting his own email to the NBA in July that contained “inappropriate and racist remarks” about Atlanta’s fan base.
Shortly after the email went public, Levenson announced he would sell his portion of the team. Four months later, the AJC reported that all three ownership groups would sell their shares, putting 100 percent of the Atlanta Hawks organization up for sale. Although it is still difficult to see a silver lining in this state of affairs, a cohesive new group of owners will at least improve their existing situation. The fact that the coaching staff and the team have drastically improved and maintained a consistent goal of winning a championship in the midst of this media storm makes the Hawks season all the more impressive.
For the most part, denizens of Atlanta have become acclimated to relatively lackluster performances when it comes to professional sports. Atlanta fans are not only accustomed to disappointment, they are used to sufficient regular season success to set expectations that have never been fulfilled. Across the city’s three (and once four) professional sports teams, Atlanta has only won one championship with the Atlanta Braves in 1995. The Atlanta Falcons, with one unsuccessful Super Bowl appearance in 1999, developed consistency with consecutive winning seasons for the first time in franchise history from 2008 to 2012 but were unable to secure another Super Bowl appearance. The former Atlanta Thrashers are hardly worth mentioning, only qualifying once for the Stanley Cup playoffs but swept in the first round and later relocated to Winnipeg, Canada.
The Hawks have not had much historical success either, as even the famous team Hawks team featuring Domonique Wilkins, Doc Rivers, and Spud Webb never made it to the Eastern Conference Finals. Although the Hawks have made the playoffs for the past seven seasons, they have struggled to make it past the second round. It is still too early to make any assumptions about the remainder of the Hawks’ season and their title chances, but results thus far look very promising and give Atlanta sports fans something to be excited about. The Hawks have thrilled many with their superb play so far, but there is no doubt that they would surprise countless more sports fans from Atlanta and others across the world by bringing home Atlanta’s first NBA title. While the Braves and Falcons are investing big money in new stadiums and appear to be far from accomplishing the feat of a national championship, Atlanta fans can focus all of their cathartic energy on the Hawks.
