ATLANTA — For years, the Atlanta Hawks have been one of the NBA’s forgotten franchises.
Sure, the Hawks have had plenty of success over the years — they rank fourth all-time in playoff appearances with 43, trailing only the Lakers, Celtics and 76ers, and fifth all-time in wins behind those three teams and the Knicks. But since arriving in Atlanta, the Hawks have not reached a conference final, and have lacked drawing power on a local and national level since trading Dominique Wilkins 20 years ago.
At least, that was the case until this season. The Hawks — winners of 17 straight games entering Friday night’s showdown with the Trail Blazers at home — have taken the NBA by storm.
“We’re a confident bunch, and we believe in one another,” point guard Jeff Teague said this week. “We do what we do, what we’re capable of every night, there’s a chance we can win every game.”
With their 113-102 victory over the Nets on Wednesday, the Hawks opened up a seven-game lead over Toronto for first place in the East, cruising toward having home-court advantage at least until the NBA Finals.
The Hawks (38-8) have racked up the longest winning streak in Atlanta sports history, going from a team with a preseason over/under around 41 wins to being on pace to eclipse 60 wins for the first time in the franchise’s 66-year history.
They have matched their win total from last season, when they finished 38-44, but if you thought that might mean something to the NBA’s hottest team, think again.
“I didn’t even know that,” Teague said. “I promise you we don’t think about it.”
“Obviously not,” Paul Millsap said after thinking for a moment. “Not at all. Not at all.”
“Hadn’t thought one bit about it,” coach Mike Budenholzer said. “I think we all probably are just move on and take each game and each year. We’re poor historians. We don’t look back too often, or very much.”
It’s easy to see why the Hawks might not be paying too much attention to the past: The present is simply too much fun.
Since their last loss — a blowout at home against the Bucks the day after Christmas — the Hawks have laid waste to the entire league. They rank third in the league in offensive and defensive efficiency over that span, outscoring their opponents by 13.3 points per 100 possessions — a number that trails only the league-leading Warriors.
And they’ve done it with a style that’s enjoyable to watch, an up-tempo offense keyed by a deadly perimeter attack where virtually every player can knock down a 3-pointer. No one is better than sharpshooter Kyle Korver, who is shooting 51.6 percent overall, 53.1 percent from 3-point range and 92.3 percent from the foul line. It would have to be considered one of the greatest — if not the greatest — single-season shooting performance of all time if he can keep it up.
“They’re a great team,” Nets coach Lionel Hollins said. “They’re smart defensively, but they’re very smart offensively.
“They move the ball, they share the ball, and even though you hear about Korver a lot, Korver is averaging 13 points a game, and so their team is a well-balanced team. They shoot the 3 ball and they have 2-guards that are extremely quick and can get in the paint and make plays, and they do, and they play off of that.”
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this Hawks team is how it has come together over the past couple seasons, beginning with newly hired general manager Danny Ferry’s decision to ship Joe Johnson to the Nets for a package of expiring contracts and picks, then letting Josh Smith walk in free agency a year later.
The Hawks spent several years being a good but not great team in the East, playing competitively and losing in one of the first two rounds of the playoffs year after year with a core of Johnson, Smith and Al Horford.
So Ferry opted to go another route, chasing after — and failing to get — superstars such as Dwight Howard, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony. Spurned by the top players, the Hawks chose to fill in the gaps in their team with a variety of players, signing Paul Millsap (two years, $19 million), Korver (four years, $24 million), Thabo Sefolosha (three years, $12 million), DeMarre Carroll (two years, $5 million), Kent Bazemore (two years, $4 million) and Pero Antic (two years, $2.45 million) as free agents and sprinkling in draft picks such as Dennis Schroder and Mike Scott. Suddenly they’ve turned into a team that can attack you in a variety of ways — and never in the same way twice in a row.
The Hawks were third in the East last year when Horford was lost for the season with a torn pectoral muscle. They pushed the Pacers to seven games in the first round of the playoffs — success that gave the Hawks faith they could be dangerous once they got Horford back.
“We feel like, even with how we finished last year and adding Al, we feel like we can be a team that competes with anybody every night and do the things it takes to have success on a nightly basis,” Budenholzer said. “I think we really liked our group coming into the season.”
But the Hawks’ varied offense leaves one major question as they get closer to the playoffs: When the game is on the line, can Atlanta score without a traditional “go-to guy” to get a basket by himself late in games?
Naturally, Budenholzer, who spent 18 seasons working as an assistant under Spurs mastermind Gregg Popovich, has a different take.
“I think offensively, and really in everything we do, we kind of do it as a group,” Budenholzer said. “What some people may consider something that isn’t a strength, we think is. Every night, it’s somebody different. At the end of games, it can be somebody different. Hopefully that makes us maybe harder to prepare for, harder to guard.”
Budenholzer has been a revelation in Atlanta, bringing a distinctly Spurs-like quality to the Hawks. Budenholzer also developed a connection in San Antonio with Ferry, who played for and was an executive with the Spurs for several years.
After spending the past two years putting these Hawks together, Ferry embroiled himself in controversy this past summer when he read off a racist comment from a scouting report to describe free agent forward Luol Deng, while speaking on a conference call with the team’s ownership group.
The Hawks already were dealing with discovery of a racist email sent by owner Bruce Levenson in 2012 that led to the team being put up for sale. Ferry eventually asked for — and was granted — an immediate, indefinite leave of absence from his duties.
That leaves Atlanta in an awkward situation. The man who would be the clear front-runner for executive of the year is away from the team, indefinitely.
“Well, we’ve always done everything collectively, and as a group, and Danny’s input and Danny’s thoughts were important,” Budenholzer said. “I think the great thing was he valued the group and how we all felt, and hopefully collectively we could make good decisions.”
In the wake of both controversies, the Hawks have made pushes to try to be more accepting and welcoming to the community, which always has struggled to support the team and show up for its games. This included having Atlanta rapper T.I. perform at the team’s home opener and holding a “Tinder Night” during a recent game at Philips Arena.
In addition, the Hawks are one of the NBA’s most creative teams when it comes to social media, their Twitter account among the most entertaining in the league. Each time the team wins, the Hawks add an extra “W” to their handle on the social media service. That’s the problem with this streak: HaWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWs doesn’t actually fit.
But none of that is very important unless the team is winning games — and in an entertaining way. Now the Hawks regularly are selling out their home games. Budenholzer and three All-Stars — Teague, Millsap and Horford — are headed to New York next month, with Korver a contender to be added as an injury replacement. They are gaining a lot of cred around the NBA.
The only thing left for the Hawks to do is prove they can win in the postseason.
Durant over Cousins was the biggest All-Star problem
The coaches got the vast majority of the reserves for next month’s All-Star Game correct, with one or two exceptions. The biggest complaint in the wake of the announcement Thursday night was the omission of Kings big man DeMarcus Cousins from the Western Conference team, and that was resolved Friday when he was named as an injury replacement for Lakers guard Kobe Bryant.
Many thought the problem was including Tim Duncan instead of Cousins, in particular. But the bigger issue with the initial roster, on a performance basis, was reigning MVP Kevin Durant.
Yes, Durant remains arguably the best player in the league, and he’s been sensational — 25.6 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.1 assists per game — since coming back from injury. But Durant has played in just 21 of Oklahoma City’s 46 games. No matter how good a player is, appearing in less than half of your team’s games shouldn’t be enough to be an All-Star.
Durant had his chance to make the team as a starter, and didn’t get enough votes. The coaches erred in giving him a second chance as a reserve, especially at the expense of Cousins, who stood to be the first player ever to not be selected to the All-Star Game when averaging at least 23.8 points, 12.3 rebounds and a 25.2 player efficiency rating (his current stats). At least that injustice was corrected the next day.
Thunder struck with long playoff odds
Speaking of Durant, it’s looking more and more difficult for the Thunder to storm into the playoffs in the Western Conference, as many expected they would once getting Durant and Russell Westbrook back healthy and playing together.
With Durant sitting out with a toe injury as the Thunder suffered a horrible loss at the hands of the Knicks on Wednesday at the Garden, Oklahoma City is 23-23. That’s only good for 10th in the West, 3.5 games behind the Suns in eighth and a game behind the Pelicans in ninth.
After losing plenty of winnable games in the early portion of the season because Westbrook and Durant were out, the Thunder now have to try to make up that ground with a second-half schedule loaded with strong Western Conference opponents, including three games each left against the Grizzlies and Mavericks and two against the Clippers, Blazers and Spurs.
The Thunder’s saving grace could be those two games against the Suns, though both come in Phoenix. Oklahoma City won each of the first two games at home, and a win in either game in Phoenix would allow them to control the tie-breaker.
Here are the stakes: Missing the playoffs would mean coach Scott Brooks’ job would be in serious jeopardy and Durant, just 12 months away from free agency, would have a new reason to weigh leaving.
Jacque Vaughn needs escape act to avoid Magic ax
Magic coach Jacque Vaughn’s job security has come under pretty intense scrutiny following a rout at the hands of the Bucks at home Thursday night, which pushed the team’s losing streak to seven games.
Vaughn said Friday he’s trying to stick to doing his job, but it appears his time in Orlando is drawing to a close.
Orlando has spent the past three years accumulating a lot of young talent, and it’s hard to see why the Magic (15-34) aren’t closer to the thick of the chase for the final two playoff spots in the Eastern Conference.
Making a change with Vaughn might be enough to vault the 13th-place Magic back into the race — they are only 5.5 games out of the No. 8 spot — and that may be reason enough.