2006-07 Good Call Hawks

The 2005-06 Good Call Hawks wildly exceeded expectations to finish the season with a 45-33 record to make the playoffs. Further, they were able to knock off the Cavs in the first round only to lose to the Pistons in the second round. The question is whether the 2006-07 team can build on that success.

Once again, the depth chart is as follows:

PG - Chris Paul, Chris Duhon, JJ Barea
SG - Joe Johnson, Monta Ellis
SF - Andre Igoudala, Matt Barnes, Trevor Ariza
PF - Josh Smith, Paul Millsap, Leon Powe
C - Chris Wilcox, Zaza Pachulia, Chuck Hayes

Al Harrington, last year's starting PF was traded to make way for Josh Smith. Further, Chris Wilcox was brought in to be the starting C, and Matt Barnes was brought in for wing depth. With fine tuning of the roster, the Good Call Hawks improve again to a record of 52-30 record, good for the 2 seed and the SE division crown. By comparison, the real Hawks went 30-52 and against missed the playoffs.

Due to the Hawks entering into the playoff seeding, the Nets slide down to the 7 seed and face the Good Call Hawks in the first round. Both teams split their first two home games for a 2-2 tie heading back to Atlanta, but the Hawks take the last two games to win the series 4-2. The Hawks take Game 6 on the road by a score of 106-102. As was the forte for the Hawks during the regular season, they received a balanced scoring effort with 5 players in double figures, led by Chris Wilcox's 21-11 double-double.

In the second round, the Hawks again play LeBron's Cavaliers. Due to the Hawks' superior record, the Cavs were bumped down to the 3 seed in the East, so the Hawks have home court advantage in this series. Like the first round, the teams each split their first two home games for a 2-2 heading into game 5. However, in a repeat of the first round, the Good Call Hawks go on to win the next to games to take the series 4-2. In game 6 won 109-100 led by Joe Johnson's 23 points on 9/14 shooting. Further the Cavs had 20 turnovers, 11 more than the Hawks, 13 of which were from Hawks steals.

The eastern conference finals is a rematch from the second round last year with the 1 seed Pistons meeting the 2 seed Hawks. The Hawks were obviously revved up for the rematch because they get a 4 game sweep to send the Hawks to the NBA finals for the first time since they moved to Atlanta. The vaunted Pistons defense was no match for the balanced scoring from the Good Call Hawks, who scored 112, 109, 102, and 92 points respectively. In Game 4 before a raucous Atlanta crowd, the Hawks jumped out to a 30-16 lead in the first quarter that the Pistons were never able to overcome.

Finally faced the Spurs in the finals. Game 1 win - 114-95 with six players in double figures. Game 2 win 114-100 with 11 players at least 5 points. Game 3 loss - 97-88. 20 TOs from hawks and Duncan goes for 20-20-6 ast. Game 4 loss 97-95 behind another 20 point game from Duncan. Game 5 loss with Duncan going for 38 while Joe and Chris combine for 5-25. Game 6 win 106-104 with 6 Hawks in double digits. Game 7 loss 106-94. Tied after 3 quarters but the experienced Spurs took over down the stretch.

2006 Good Call Offseason

Once again, let's start with the actual transactions done by Billy Knight and determine whether to keep those transactions:

July 12 - Hawks sign free agent PG Speedy Claxton - This signing was an absolute disaster and completely unnecessary with the guard depth on this team. Moving on...

August 22 - Hawks acquire 2007 first round draft pick from Indiana for Al Harrington and John Edwards - Technically John Edwards is no longer on the team, but I don't think he was a vital cog to this trade since he was waived by the Pacers in the preseason. With Josh Smith getting better and the drafting of Millsap and Powe, flipping Harrington for what will end up as the 11th pick is a great deal for the Good Call Hawks.

August 30 - Hawks sign free agent C Lorenzen Wright - I'm definitely not a fan of this signing, but there is a small problem with the center position for the Good Call Hawks since Przybilla is also a free agent. In the 2006 offseason, he signed a 5 year $32 million contract, which I have no intention of matching due to his injuries problems.

So, I need another center. Ideally, I'd like to upgrade from Zaza, but there aren't many decent centers that end up as free agents. There are some decents options in the restricted free agent market with Yao Ming and Nene, but Yao wasn't leaving Houston and Nene was overpaid for all his injuries. Nazr Mohammed also signed a 5 year deal for $31 million, which I am not eager to match. Finally, we have Chris Wilcox at 3 years and $19.5 million. While less years and some decent production, I'm reluctant to lock up that money when I have Monta, Josh, and Iggy all coming up for extensions in 2008. However, the remaining options are the proverbial pu-pu platter: Lorenzen Wright - 2 year $6 million, Jarron Collins - 3 year $7 million, or Francisco elson - 2 year $6 million. So I think we go a little undersized and pick up Chris Wilcox.

This gives the team 11 players for $37,881,839, which is about $15 million under the salary cap. So let's see if there are any players to fill out the roster that are free agents. First, we'll pick up JJ Barea for some guard depth since he was an undrafted free agent. Then we'll beat Golden State to the punch for Matt Barnes for some additional wing depth. This gives us 14 players for$39,730,097, which is over $13 million from the salary cap. Here is the final depth chart:

PG: Chris Paul, Chris Duhon, JJ Barea

SG: Joe Johnson, Monta ellis

SF: Andre Iguodala, Matt Barnes, Trevor Ariza

PF: Josh Smith, Paul Millsap, Leon Powe

C: Chris Wilcox, Zaza Pachulia, Chuck Hayes

2006 NBA Draft

With the 45-33 record from the 2005-06 season, the Hawks ended up with the 18th and 48th picks in the draft.

The 18th pick presents the first pick since taking over as the GM of the Good Call Hawks where I will pass on the best player available. The best player would be Rajon Rondo with this pick. However, with Paul and Duhon already on the roster on rookie contracts, Rondo would just be ridiculous depth. Normally I'm fine with that idea, but knowing the personality of Rondo and the fact that he would never be able to get in front of Paul on the depth chart, it would probably be a problem. Duhon has the Coach K training from Duke, so he'll take his bench role in stride. Meanwhile, we'd have a moody Rondo messing with team chemistry. Plus, in the rules of this scenario, I don't have the option to simply trade Rondo down the line. Finally, the team really needs some talent down low to take it to the next level.

So with the 18th pick, the Good Call Hawks take Paul Millsap. He can fill the same role that he did with the Jazz by providing some bench toughness, rebounding, and some scoring. Plus, this will be perfect for the later trade of Al Harrington.

The next pick is the 48th, and we're once again picking from bit players. The only decent player left that was drafted is Leon Powe. If you go to the undrafted players, you can include Louis Amundson and Barea as options. Once again, we have the problem of a logjam at the two guard positions with Johnson, ellis, Paul, and Duhon. While I would prefer to pick up a center prospect at this point, there's not really any options. Therefore, I'm going to go with Powe. He was a quality backup starting in his first year. He's a bit redundant after taking Millsap, but the Hawks can go small with the second unit and play both together against certain teams.

Next post is the 2006 offseason.

2005-06 Good Call Hawks

POUYA DIANAT / PDIANAT@AJC.COM

Sorry for the brief hiatus. I was on vacation last week, but let's get back to the Good Call Hawks. After the 2005 NBA draft and the following offseason, here is the final roster going into the 2005-06 campaign:

PG - Chris Paul, Chris Duhon

SG - Joe Johnson, Tony Delk, Monta ellis
SF - Andre Iguodala, Trevor Ariza, Damien Wilkins
PF - Al Harrington, Josh Smith
C - Zaza Pachulia, Joel Przybilla, Chuck Hayes

We're only two drafts into this exercise, and there is already little resemblance to the actual Hawks team. The SF position is just as deep, but with completely different players. The only position that is exactly the same is the PF position. Well I say exactly the same, but we're moving Josh over to PF early knowing that he can't shoot enough to stay on the wing. In comparing to the actual 05-06 Hawks team, there is an upgrade at SF, a major upgrade at PG, and better depth at C. Long-term, Monta will be a terrific 6th man, but now he's just a guard fresh out of high school.

While there wasn't much change in record for the 04-05 Good Call Hawks, this season sees a significant jump. Instead of going 26-56, tied for last in the Southeast division, the Good Call Hawks blow through the eastern conference in the simulation and end up with a 45-37 record, good for the 5th seed.

This pits the Good Call Hawks against another rising team in the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round of the playoffs. The home team wins the first four games leaving the series tied at 2-2. The Good Call Hawks finally break serve in the 5th game, pulling out a thrilling victory in Cleveland before finishing off the Cavs in the 6th game to take the series 4-2.

The Good Call Hawks then take on the reigning champions in the Detroit Pistons, who have the best record in the league. While the young Good Call Hawks put up a fight, the Pistons eventually take the series 4-2.

So instead of going 26-56 and ending up back in the lottery again, the Good Call Hawks have a 19 win improvement and actually push last year's champions in the second round. Not back for only two offseasons.

The next post will try to keep the momentum going with the 2006 NBA Draft.

2005 Offseason

Turenne/Cunningham/NBAE/Getty Images

Once again, if you don't know why I'm going through the moves made by the Hawks in 2005, please refer to this article.

So now that we've gone through the draft, it's now time to try and fill out our depth chart. Now that we've gone through two drafts making the best picks, it's probably best of check out the depth chart to make sure the moves made the rest of the year make sense with the roster.

PG - Chris Paul, Chris Duhon

SG - Tony Delk, Monta ellis
SF - Boris Diaw, Andre Iguodala, Trevor Ariza, Damien Wilkins
PF - Al Harrington, Josh Smith
C - Joel Przybilla, Chuck Hayes

With that information, the next question is whether the remaining moves during the Hawks offseason make any sense.

August 11 - Hawks Sign Free Agent C Zaza Pachulia. As you might guess, there aren't many quality big men that are available through free agency. The only other decent option is Chris Anderson, but he was suspended from basketball from 2006 to 2008. Plus I think everyone in Atlanta loves Zaza, so I'm keeping him.

August 19 - Hawks Trade Boris Diaw And Two First Round Picks To Phoenix For Joe Johnson. While this trade was criticized because Phoenix did not seem to have any intent of matching the offer made by the Hawks, I can't change the deal per the rules of this exercise. Thus, we are only analyzing the deal as it was made. Diaw has had some decent years, but has also shown up out of shape over and over again. The 2006 first round pick was the Lakers pick, so you could bet that it wasn't going to be in the lottery. Plus, with the ability to draft with hindsight, the other pick hopefully won't be in the lottery either. Finally, looking at the roster above, Joe would fill the SG position nicely, and open up Iggy at SF. Therefore, I'm deciding to do the Joe Johnson deal again.

August 30 - Hawks Re-Sign Tyronn Lue. This would be a pure depth signing since we now have Paul and Duhon. With Woody as the coach, I would not even give him the option of not playing Paul, so I'm going to pass on resigning Lue.

Next post we got to find out how this most recent round of decision making turns out.

2005 NBA Draft

Now we are to the moment that most Hawks fans shake their heads about. The Hawks, already with tons of wing depth and in desperate need for a point guard to take the place of Lue, stand ready to make the second pick.

In real time the potential of freshman sensation Marvin Williams was a real temptation. However, with hindsight, the real question is Chris Paul or the other Williams - Deron. There is a real temptation to consider Bynum as well considering the lack of quality big men on the Good Call Hawks (and in the league in general), but he had too many lost seasons to injury and is still trying to get out from the shadow of Kobe. So we are back to Paul or Williams. While some fans in Utah might have made the argument for D-Will in years past, those diehards are cursing his name for forcing his way out of Utah. Instead, the argument has pretty much sorted itself out through the years. There is still the chance that Paul's knee will simply give out soon, but his peak production and absolute control of his team leads the Good Call Hawks to take him with the 2nd pick.

There's not much of an argument for the 31st pick either. Lou Williams is a good bench scorer, and Gortat is putting up some good numbers since finally getting some playing time, but the choice here is Monta Ellis. You can't rely on him to be your main scorer, but I think he would be incredible in the 6th man role where, if he's on, he joins the crunch time team as another dangerous scorer. Plus, with Iggy on the wing as well, you can move Monta to the weaker wing scorer if need be.

Finally, the Hawks have the 59th pick in the draft. There's not much in the last two picks of the real 2005 NBA draft, so we'll move on to the undrafted players. The cream of this crop is Kelenna Azubuike and Chuck Hayes. While Azubuike is tempting with his three point range, I think the clear choice is Chuck Hayes. Not only is he still in the league, but he gives the Good Call Hawks a bench player who can play some mean 1-on-1 defense on a post scorer, freeing up either Smoove or Przybilla to roam the lane and block some shots.

So, in recap, we have Chris Paul, Monta Ellis, and Chuck Hayes taken by the Good Call Hawks. Next post takes a look at the 2005 offseason moves, including the infamous Joe Johnson trade.

2004-05 Good Call Hawks

Now that we've gone through all the roster transactions, let's take a look at the roster for the 04-05 Good Call Hawks and find out the results of the season. First the depth chart I will use for the season:

PG - Tyronn Lue, Chris Duhon
SG - Tony Delk, Andre Iguodala
SF - Boris Diaw, Trevor Ariza, Damien Wilkins
PF - Antoine Walker, Al Harrington, Josh Smith
C - Joel Przybilla, Pedrag Drobnjak

The first impression in seeing this roster is awe that the team won any games. The center position is rough, and so is the SG position. Since Jon Barry got traded for Lue pretty early in the season, I will just use him for the whole time. Since Walker was with the team about half the year, I used him for about half the games simulated. There was not too much of a dropoff since the PF minutes simply went to Harrington.

Despite the fact that the only changes were changing out some of the rookie picks, the simulation produced a slight increase in wins. In reality the Hawks record in the 04-05 season was 13-69. The Good Call Hawks went 17-65, which is still the worst record in the NBA. So there is an incremental change, but nothing severe.

However, with another offseason and a chance to change the Marvin Williams pick, there is hope on the horizon.

2004 Offseason and Trades

If you're confused as to why I'm discussing the moves made by the Hawks in 2004, please refer to this article.

Now that the draft is over, it's time to take a look at the roster and see what other moves were made in the offseason. First, let's take a look at the other transactions that were done in 2004.

July 15 Hawks acquire Al Harrington from the Indiana Pacers in exchange for Stephen Jackson. This was a sign and trade transaction. Assuming that Stephen Jackson probably did not want to play for a rebuilding team, and assuming that no other star would want to sign with a rebuilding team, I'm simply going to approve this transaction. Harrington had some good moments with the team.

August 4 - Hawks acquire Antoine Walker and Tony Delk from Dallas in exchange for Jason Terry, Alan Henderson and a future first round pick. I am not a fan of either Delk or Walker. However, I think Terry was getting tired of Atlanta at this point. Plus Terry is a great 6th man, but he was never the go-to guy. On the Mavs team last year, he was the second best scorer, but not the second best player. Trading him for a first so you can take a gamble in the first round with a rebuilding team I think was ultimately the right decision, especially when you factor in the later trade with Antoine Walker, despite the fact he was a good guy.

December 23 - Hawks Acquire Tyronn Lue From Rockets In Exchange For Jon Barry. This trade gets a shrug of the shoulders from me. I'll ok it only because I hate Jon Barry as a commentator. Plus this team needs a PG of some caliber, and no, Boris Diaw does not count.

February 24 - Hawks Acquire Gary Payton, Tom Gugliotta, Michael Stewart and a Future First Round Pick From Boston In Exchange For Antoine Walker. The Hawks immediately bought out Payton so this was essentially Antoine Walker for a first round pick, to which I reply, "YES PLEASE!" I don't even care that this pick was not in the lottery. So, to be fair to Billy Knight, the Hawks received two first rounders for Jason Terry, which isn't a bad haul.

Finally, let's take a look at the free agent signings for the Hawks. Considering the full-on rebuilding mode the Hawks are in during the 2004 offseason, it is safe to say that the Hawks are not attracting any marquee free agents. However, there is one change I would make. Both Jason Collier and Joel Przybilla were free agents the summer of 2004, and were both on the Hawks roster the year before. Due to the tragic events surrounding Collier, I'm making the decision to resign Przybilla and not Collier.

Next post I'm looking at the new roster for the 2004-05 Atlanta Hawks and discussing the results of said roster.

2004 NBA Draft

As I stated in my last post, the beginning of this journey I am calling the Good Call Hawks is the 2004 NBA Draft. Let me remind you of what is going on with the Hawks. The Atlanta Spirit just announced the closing of the purchase of the Hawks on March 31st. The Hawks ended the season with a 28-54 record, good for 12th in the east, and was led by the trio of Jason Terry, Stephen Jackson, and Shareef Abdur-Rahim until Abdur-Rahim was traded to the Blazers for one day of Rasheed Wallace. Meanwhile the Pistons soundly beat the Lakers in the finals 4-1.

At the draft, the Hawks have a pleathora of picks that are intended to be used as the backbone of the rebuilding team. The Hawks have the 6th, 17th, 35th, 38th, and 43rd picks in the draft. While the smart thing to do would be to trade up for the 1st pick to snag Dwight Howard, that is not an option due to the rules of the game.

The 6th pick presents a tough choice, even with hindsight, but the choice to not take Childress is quite easy. Instead the choice is between Deng, Iguodala, and Al Jefferson. While I would normally lean toward the big man, I'm not a huge fan of Jefferson. He keeps ending up on poor teams, and I don't think it's a coincidence. That leaves Deng and Iguodala, who are actually quite similar. While Deng's offensive game is a little more polished, neither are able to carry the offense. Deng is a better shooter, but Iggy is a better defender so I am going to take Iggy with this pick.

The next pick is the 17th, which also presents a tough choice. The options are Josh Smith, Kevin Martin, Anderson Varejao, or Jameer Nelson. I think Nelson is off the table pretty quick compared to the other players. Also, I think I would pass on Martin for the same reasons outlined with Jefferson. While he can pour in the points, it never seems to translate into wins. That leaves Smoove vs. Varejao. While Smoove tends to drive everyone crazy with his shot selection, I think he presents a much more versatile option than Varejao. Plus, I think a better team and more disciplined players surrounding Smoove will push him to be more disciplined himself.

The next three picks are a little easier because there is not much talent left. The only two players left that have had any success by any standard are Chris Duhon and Trevor Ariza, so they will be taken with the 35th and 38th picks respectively. For the 43rd pick, since there really is no other decent alternative, I'm going to take the undrafted Damien Wilkins. For a rebuilding team coming off a 28-54 year, I think getting a Wilkins back invovled with the club will at least put some fans in couple of seats.

So wrapping up, that's Iggy, Smoove, Duhon, Ariza and Wilkins.

The Good Call Hawks

Scott Cunningham/NBAE/Getty Image

www.whatifsports.com is an absolutely incredible site. The website allows you to put together any players from any era on the same team and have them play against other dream teams, or against any regular team. For instance, you can have the '95-'96 Bulls play the '85-'86 Celtics to see who would win in a 7-game series.

Someone told me about the website about two years ago, and it killed my productivity at work. Luckily my work put up a firewall that does not allow me to visit the site anymore, but I have gone back to it recently. First, let me say that I love pretending that I am a GM for a team. I buy Madden merely to play around in Franchise mode. So I will be using the whatifsports website to perform an entertaining experiment.

I will be stepping into a time machine and traveling back to June 24, 2004, the date of the 2004 NBA Draft, and assuming the role of GM for the Atlanta Hawks. The reason I chose the 2004 draft is that it was the first draft after Billy Knight started the full-on tanking of the Atlanta Hawks in order to get some high draft choices. From there, I will assume the role of GM and control the destiny of the Atlanta Hawks with the full knowledge of the future of every NBA player.

A few rules to try and make this as realistic as possible, avoid pure speculation, and a few time-saving tweaks. I know that every move I change would have a domino effect on every other team, but to ensure that I make it to work every day, I'm not going to change every team accordingly. This will mean that players will play against themselves. For instance, I would take Andre Igoudala over Josh Childress with the 6th pick of the 2004 NBA draft. That means anytime the Good Call Hawks play the Sixers, it will be Iggy vs. Iggy.

Also, I'm not going to go through the schedule and simulate every game in order. To simplify, I'm just going to simulate a home and road game against every team. This will give a 58 game sample size. From there, I will figure out how many wins that equals in a 82 games season. This will probably skew the Hawks win total a little low most years since the West was much better than the east, and the Hawks play more games against the east, but I'm willing to live with that.

As for trades, I will only either approve or veto the trades made by the Hawks. For instance, I will probably approve the Joe Johnson trade, but veto the Anthony Johnson trade from the '06-'07 trade. Similarly, if I no longer have the players from the Hawks that were traded, I will say it is vetoed unless the missing player was inconsequential. I'm not going to step into pure speculation and try to swing trades that never occurred. There are too many factors to try and consider and there is no telling if the other GM would pull the trigger.

As for free agents, I'm going to make a rule that I can't change the length or size of the contract. For instance, come 2010, I have to either take or leave Joe Johnson's contract. I'm not going to speculate that he would be willing to take less money due to his new teammates. Also, I'm not going to just give the Hawks every good free agent. If the signing makes sense for both sides and I think the player would take the deal, fine. However, I will veto free agent signings that make no sense (i.e. Speedy Claxton).

I don't know about you, but I'm excited! Monday is the 2004 offseason!

Downside of NBA League Pass

http://espn.go.com/nba/player/_/id/6534/ivan-johnson

You have to listen to the home announcers for every game. I just finished watching the Hawks-Spurs game last night and the Spurs announcers were more like cheerleaders. I could feel my blood pressure rising.

Plus Sean Elliott clearly had not researched the Hawks this year. In critiquing Ivan Johnson's pick-and-roll defense, Elliott was making several valid points about how he shows for too long leaving the defense vulnerable to a quick pass to the big men. In making those points, however, Elliott attempted to contrast the age and experience of Tiago Splitter with the youth and inexperience of Ivan Johnson. This seemed odd since the two players are the same age (27). It became even worse when he kept saying that Ivan was fresh out of college while Splitter had international experience despite the fact that Ivan last played in college in 2007 and not only played in the D-League, but placed 3rd in the MVP voting last year.

Sean, it ruins your perfectly good critique when you don't have the right facts. It's like going to a great concert and having the fire alarm go off.

Hawks Schedule: Will they drop off?

http://idcf.tumblr.com/

One of my favorite articles on Peachtree Hoops is the weekly round-up of power rankings. Some commenters like to search for any slight against the Hawks to rage against the national media, but I like to get a quick glimpse of what other sports writers think of the Hawks. The consensus this past week was that most people were surprised the Hawks did not immediately fall apart without Horford, but that they will fall back in their record as the season goes on.

Normally, this would be a perfectly valid analysis that has been true for Atlanta for the last 4-5 years. This year, however, there are a couple of factors that clearly play out in Atlanta's favor in the regular season. The first is that the Hawks actually have a decent amount of depth that will serve them well in the condensed season. Teams cannot afford to play their starters almost 40 minutes a night and expect them to not break down. With the veteran additions to the bench, Drew has done a commendable job of keeping everyone fresh. He still leans on Joe a little too much for my liking, but his 36.2 minutes per game is below his average from 2003-2010 when he was regularly flirting with 40 minutes per game.

The second reason the Hawks' record will not fall back too much is the fact that they have fewer games against the West this year. The West is a bruising collection of good team after good team after good team. There are two divisions right now with only one team with a losing record. The Timberwolves are the worst team in the Northwest Division and they are 8-10. The East, on the other hand, is top heavy. There are six teams with at least 12 wins, and everyone else has 7 or less wins right now. By my count, the Hawks have 25 games remaining against teams that are .500 and under. While I don't think the Hawks will maintain their 10-0 record against these teams (especially since Boston and the Knicks are included), I also don't think it is unreasonable to expect a 17-8 record in those 25 games. The remaining 22 games are against teams above .500. Right now, the Hawks are 3-6 against those teams. Even if they maintain that pace, they will go 7-15.

This would leave the Hawks at the end of the season with a record of 37-29. Thus, if nothing goes horribly wrong or horribly right, the Hawks will compete for home court advantage in the first round. I wouldn't call that dropping off at all.

Atlanta's Fast Break

Photo: Jeffrey Phelps / AP

For years everyone has commented on the fact that Atlanta has the wing and post players to run a very effective fast break. Josh and Al (even with a torn pec muscle) can outrun 99% of the 4s and 5s in the league. Marvin can get out and run, and Joe should know how to run the break from his days in Phoenix.

However, the Hawks never had anyone to start the break. Bibby was too old and slow and Joe does everything in smoothly (aka in slow motion). This combined with the fact that both Woody and Drew preach grinding out every possession resulted in the following pace rankings from the 2006-2007 on: 21st, 19th, 24th, 27th, and 27th. Now that Teague has finally been given the reigns as the starting PG, you can start to see the Hawks starting to want to run a little bit more. The problem is this: they have no clue how to run an effective fast break.

Last night Marvin was dribbling down the court after a steal with two defenders in front of him. Josh was actually sprinting down the court on the right wing (instead of his usual trot), because the defender on the right wing was Brandon Jennings. I'm sure every Hawks fan was thinking this would be an easy lob. Instead, Marvin puts his head down and tries to bull his way to the basket. He luckily got the foul call, but instead of an easy lob and dunk he has to get his points from the free throw line. This is but one of many examples of how the Hawks are missing out on easy points night after night. I'm not saying the Hawks should become the Nuggets of the East, but there is no reason they should be squandering so many chances for easy points.

Even worse, every time a play like Marvin's happens, it discourages Josh from running the court and encourages him to try and run the break. Ideally, Josh should be looking to get the ball to Teague as quickly as possible and then sprinting down a wing looking for a lob. Additionally, Teague needs to stop waiting for everyone and just take off. So many times he could simply run past the plodding big men of the other team and get an easy layup. There were several times last night when Teague slowly dribbled the ball up the court, allowing Bogut time to get entrenched in the lane, before trying to drive the lane.

As much as I think Brandon Jennings shoots too much, Teague could take a lesson from Jennings' second half performance. He was in attack mode after every missed Hawks shot. At that point he could either dish for the assist, hit the layup because our big men were being slow, or circle around and dribble the ball back out. The more Teague attacks, the more the rest of the team is going to run with him. This is especially true if he sets up some lobs for Josh.

Everyone loves lobs...

How my Fanhood has been Saved

Between NBA League Pass and DVR, I have been able to rededicate myself to the Hawks this season. I have not had time to consistently sit down and watch an entire games for many a year. Part of this comes from having a wife who does not watch sports, and the other part comes from moving to Jacksonville. Plus, as I get older I simply do not have 2 1/2 hours I can use for a basketball on a consistent basis. Thus, I was forced to look at box scores and highlights on nba.com.

Now, however, the magic of the DVR can compress the average NBA game into a viewing experience of a little over an hour. Less if you fast-forward through free throws. Further, I finally sprung for NBA League Pass instead of only watching the nationally televised games and the games against the Magic and the Heat. This means that I now have lots of opinions about the Hawks and no one in Jacksonville to talk to them about, and, thus, the rebirth of my outlet for said opinions.

I know you're as excited as I am. And by you, I mean the people reading this. And by the people reading this, I mean me.