This blog has moved! Yes, already!
As of Thursday, Feb. 12, this little blog has relocated to a new home on AJC.com. It’s the same newspaper, the same Web site and the same writer (feel free to groan) — there’s just a new URL.
New features: Bigger type, more graphics, comments that load 10 times faster and a larger and more recent photo that makes me look pretty doggone old. I think you’ll like it (the blog, not the photo). But I am, as we know too well, often wrong.
Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2008 > June
June 2008
Predictions spot Falcons 1-15 position
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’ve all assumed the season ahead won’t be kind — both ESPN and Sports Illustrated have tabbed the Falcons the NFL’s worst team — but there’s a difference between unkind and utterly wretched. That’s why the Sporting News Pro Football yearbook arrives with such a thud. This august publication picks the Falcons to go 1-15.
I believe I can speak for everyone in Atlanta when I say, “Ouch, babe.”
In the history of the NFL, no team has lost more than 15 games in a season. (The league adopted a 16-game schedule in 1978.) Only eight teams have ever finished 1-15, and none of those, surprisingly enough, was based here. As lousy as the Falcons have historically been, they’ve never been 1-15. Not in the worst of their start-up days (1-12-1 in Season 2). Not at the nadir of Marion Campbell’s second tour (3-13 in 1989). Not in June Jones’ farewell (3-13 in 1996).
Heck, they weren’t 1-15 last season, in which they deployed three different starting quarterbacks (none of whom was Michael Vick) and worked under two different head coaches. They wound up 4-12, which was pretty awful but is four times better than 1-15.
So think about that. Remember how bad 2007 was, and then imagine 2008 yielding one, two, three more losses. Bartender, make that a double!
The good news, if there can be anything good about such a dire outlook, is that the absolute worst doesn’t usually arrive as predicted. (If it did, my mom would have been Danny Sheridan.) Remember how Georgia Tech fans were afraid their team mightn’t win a game in 2003? The Jackets actually went 7-5.
More good news: Mike Smith doesn’t read Sporting News.
“We kind of draw our own expectations,” said Smith, the Falcons’ new coach. “Ours are a lot higher.”
Asked if you wouldn’t have to be truly horrid to lose 15 times in a salary-capped league, Smith said: “There could be some extenuating circumstances. But this is such a competitive league year-in and year-out. The best thing is that we’ve got 16 opportunities.”
And that’s the point. As excruciatingly extenuating as circumstances were, the 2007 Falcons won four games and lost five more by a touchdown or less. The belief here is that Smith’s back-to-basics approach — run the ball, stop the run — will make for a slew of 17-14 games, and surely the Falcons can win more than once. Can’t they?
Smith again: “We have our expectations of what we are as a football team, and we want to control how we’re going to prepare, how we’re going to study, how we’re going to condition … We want to be taskmasters. We want to focus on the task at hand.”
As goals go, that beats the heck out of saying, “Let’s prove those guys wrong by winning at least two!”
The belief here is that these Falcons will win more than one (or two). Of their 16 games, only four will be against teams that finished 2007 with winning records. Smith’s defense should keep matters close enough often enough for this team to go 5-11, and who would have thought that picking a team to lose 11 times would qualify someone as a raving optimist?
From 1-15, though, there’s a lot of room on the upside and next to none on the bottom. “There’s only one record that’s worse,” Smith said, and let’s not venture there.
No NFL team has ever gone 0-16. Please don’t let this be the first.
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Billy Knight’s gone, but the memory lingers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the same way the Swedes celebrate Midsummer’s Day by dancing around a maypole, we Atlantans had developed our own June ritual: Every year we’d watch the NBA draft and think unkind thoughts about Billy Knight. Even last summer, when Knight plucked a plum in Al Horford, boos could be heard at Philips Arena.
Thus did the 2008 draft arrive with a jolt, we locals discovering that our festive routine had been rendered inoperable. Knight no longer works here, and the Hawks had no part in these doings. That said, the 2008 draft did carry one clear reminder of Blunt Billy.
Only three years ago, conventional wisdom held that a team shouldn’t use a lofty pick on a little man. Conventional wisdom, as it invariably does, has changed. Owing to the imprints Chris Paul and Deron Williams have left on their franchises — and surely owing to the nationwide scorn heaped on Knight for not drafting either — this draft saw six guards taken in the first 11 picks.
For only the third time in three decades, a guard went No. 1 overall. (Allen Iverson was taken first in 1996, Earvin Johnson No. 1 in 1979.) For this observer, there was no issue about Derrick Rose: He was clearly the class of this draft, a point guard on the order of Williams if not quite Paul. Michael Beasley will be a very good pro; Rose will be a great one.
How big a deal have point guards become? Big enough that Seattle overreached with the No. 4 pick to try and secure one. Russell Westbrook is a terrific floor-runner and defender, but he played point only sparingly at UCLA. And Charlotte, which already has Raymond Felton, took the 5-foot-11 D.J. Augustin of Texas at No. 9. Blunt Billy took forever to find one point guard, but Michael Jordan and Larry Brown are loading up on them.
A word here about Knight’s successor: Rick Sund, the Hawks’ new general manager, and this observer are of similar minds about two players. We both consider Kevin Love of UCLA truly intriguing — not quick but tough and smart and skilled — and Sund, when interviewed two weeks ago, predicted Love, who was being projected as the ninth or 10th pick, would go much higher. He went to Memphis at No. 5.
And we both like Joe Alexander, who was taken by Milwaukee at No. 8. He went ahead of Brook Lopez of Stanford and Jerryd Bayless, each of whom was projected higher. (FYI, I saw West Virginia against Bayless and Arizona in the NCAA tournament, and Alexander was the best player on the floor.)
Being in agreement with yours truly might or might not be a great recommendation — for the record, I also thought Shawn Bradley was a tantalizing prospect, and 18 years ago I deemed Rumeal Robinson a splendid pick — but it plays well in this space. I look forward to next season, when Sund will have picks of his own. We all can look forward to the next few days, when the Hawks will troll the list of the undrafted.
Sund has already rehearsed his pitch. “If [an undrafted free agent] goes to another team,” he said, “they’ve got a first-round pick and a second-round pick [to compete against.]” Here the path is clear for the right rookie to come in and serve as the 10th man.
After four consecutive Junes bearing lottery selections, we Atlantans went cold turkey this time. Without Blunt Billy to kick around, we had to spend Thursday night nitpicking other people’s picks. I never thought I’d say this, but it was more fun the other way.
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Cox won’t let Braves fall apart
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Even when the Braves don’t seem to have much going for them, they have one thing nobody else has. They have Bobby Cox.
This team has had every reason to fall apart, but it hasn’t yet and surely won’t. That’s due to a manager who does nothing high-profile except get thrown out of games but who runs the smoothest operation in the major leagues.
Every year we say, “This could be Cox’s best job,” and every year there’s cause. This time he’s working without 60 percent of his rotation, without both his set-up man and his closer, without two-thirds of his starting outfield (and with the other one-third in a monumental funk) … and still the Braves are within 4 1/2 games of first place with 82 games remaining.
Most teams so egregiously beset would have seized the easy excuse. Cox doesn’t accept excuses. He treats all his men like real men, and they act accordingly.
You might have read that Jerry Manuel, the Mets’ latest manager, referred to Jose Reyes as “she” and, seeking to make some sort of joke, said he’d pull a knife on his shortstop. You might have read that Astros pitcher Shawn Chacon, upset over being relegated to the bullpen, seized general manager Ed Wade by the throat and threw him to the ground. What goes unnoticed by far too many is such stuff doesn’t happen here. (John Rocker was the exception who proved the rule.) All that happens here is that a ballclub keeps plugging away.
Those folks who’ve never ventured into a clubhouse can’t really begin to appreciate the respect every Brave has for the manager. Even if they’ve read the ritual quotes - “If you can’t play for Bobby, you can’t play for anybody” - a dozen times, they still can’t grasp the depth of feeling.
Having been around since Day 1 of Cox’s second stint as Braves manager, I can testify that these aren’t empty words. These guys mean what they say, and they prove it by performing professionally at times when standards might easily slip.
Most other teams so egregiously beset wouldn’t believe they still could and should finish first. The Braves believe because they know Cox believes in them. That mightn’t sound like a big deal to those on the periphery, but inside this clubhouse it’s the biggest deal possible.
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Hawks GM will play waiting game on draft night
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Say this for Billy Knight: He spared us the usual summer angst. The Hawks don’t have a pick in Thursday’s NBA draft, and given that Knight took the wrong guy with his first choice four Junes running — he got it right last year with Al Horford — this can be seen as a parting act of mercy.
Rick Sund doesn’t use those words. But Knight’s successor is more cheerful than most incoming general managers would be over a total absence of picks. “If there was ever a year for the Hawks to pay their debt to Phoenix [the No. 1 pick packaged for Joe Johnson], it’s this year,” Sund says. “It’s post-lottery for the first time [since 1999], and we’re in a situation where you probably don’t need another 18, 19 or 20-year-old kid on a team where we’ve got eight or nine under 25.”
Sund will be in his office Thursday night, standing by in case Mitch Kupchak calls and offers Kobe Bryant for Speedy Claxton. (“You’ve got to be prepared in case something falls in your lap,” Sund says.) He does not, however, expect the Hawks to trade for a pick in this draft. Five players — Josh Smith, Josh Childress, Salim Stoudamire, Mario West and Jeremy Richardson — are free agents and cannot be dealt.
“You’ve got five players out of the equation, and of the other five or six, two of them are Al Horford and Joe Johnson — you’re not going to trade those,” Sund says. “You don’t say you can never make a deal — nobody’s untouchable — [but] it’s very unlikely.”
And that’s OK. For the first time this millennium, the Hawks are good enough to win. (That’s provided Smith and Childress are re-signed, which seems probable no matter how much they’re offered elsewhere.) There are no longer any glaring holes on the roster, a truth Sund underscores by saying, “There’s a pretty good chance we’re going to have three spots — nine, 10 and 11 — open, and we’ve got to be able to say, ‘Who out there as No. 61, 62, 63 [the best undrafted players] would look at the Hawks as a good place to come?’ “
Most new GMs arrive with a mandate to change. Not Sund. Ridiculed though he was, Knight nonetheless built a core capable of pushing the Boston Celtics to a Game 7, which was more than Joe Dumars and Kupchak could do. Knight’s failing was that he didn’t usually take the right guy; his strength was that, with the exception of Shelden Williams, he didn’t pick any duds.
And here’s one last little Knight note: Had the Hawks held this No. 1 pick, they’d have the 15th choice overall. NBAdraft.net projects that Phoenix will use the No. 15 pick on D.J. Augustin, the 5-foot-11 point guard from Texas. Knight, as we know, hated little guards. (All together now: He could have had Chris Paul!)
For the Hawks, this draft night should pass uneventfully. Sund and Co. will be waiting for Round 2 to end to find out who’s still available. Given that the Hawks most need help underneath — David Andersen, the Australian center who plays for Moscow CSKA and whose rights are held by the Hawks, probably isn’t a real possibility this summer — they figure to be assessing the likes of David Padgett of Louisville and maybe James Mays of Clemson.
No, those names don’t carry the sizzle of Horford or Smith or Marvin Williams, but that’s no longer the issue. The Hawks don’t need sizzle anymore. They need only the proper seasoning.
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New GM: Hawks pointed in right direction
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Three weeks on the job, Rick Sund still speaks of the Hawks in the third person (“they”) as often as in the first (“we”). During a 75-minute conversation, he even refers to this as “the city of Seattle.”
Wincing, he catches himself. “City of Atlanta,” he says. “Sorry.”
No apology is required. On the contrary, the new general manager brings precisely what the Hawks have lacked — the ability to cast an outsider’s cold eye on what has been an insulated rebuilding process.
Given the events of spring, we in Seattle — sorry, Atlanta — aren’t sure what to make of the Hawks. They barely made the playoffs, but once there they played the champs-to-be better than either the Pistons or the Lakers. Does that mean the Hawks are (deep breath) further along than those proud organizations?
“No,” Sund says. “We’re not further along.”
This isn’t a criticism of Billy Knight. Indeed, Sund has only praise for his predecessor, saying, “Billy and [Mike Woodson, the coach] have done a good job the last four years. They improved their record every year … and they protected their players.”
Sund likens the Hawks to the expansion Dallas Mavericks, whom he served as director of personnel. The Mavs won 17 games in their inaugural season, then 28, then 38, then 43. The Hawks under Knight and Woodson won 13 games, then 26, then 30, then 37. There are those — this writer, for example — who believed the Hawks should have been better sooner. Sund does not.
“I’m still an outsider,” he says. “When you’re inside, you always want a quicker pace — your frustration level’s a little different. Outside looking in, the Hawks really were where they should have been. People say, ‘They should have won 45 games.’ They weren’t capable of 45 wins, in my opinion. They were in Year 4 of a rebuilding process in which the focus was youth, and with it comes inexperience.”
Then this: “A reasonable goal would have been to sneak into the playoffs in the eighth spot or the seventh, and they did. And then, probably a reasonable goal would have been to see if they could win a game. The fact they competed real well at home [against Boston] was a plus. And the fact they didn’t win on the road — there’s not a basketball person who would say that was surprising.”
Sund delineates the five stages of an NBA player’s development: 1. Peer acceptance; 2. Playing time; 3. Being paid commensurate to one’s peers, 4. Personal achievement, and 5. Wanting to win a championship. “It’s not surprising the Celtics won because they have five or six guys in Phase 5 who’d already achieved Phase 4.”
As for the Hawks, Sund believes, “We’ve got a lot of players in those various early stages, and we’ve got to massage those and manage those. … It looked to me that when the playoffs started, they dropped those phases. It looked to me that for the first time … there was a focus, and that focus is what helped them to get to a second and third win. Because the talent was the same.
“Now the trick is, as you go forward, to maintain that focus to get to your next goal, which is: We want to get back to the playoffs and improve on our record.”
With the Hawks holding no picks in next week’s draft, Sund’s immediate emphasis is on keeping free agents Josh Smith and Josh Childress. “Our intent is to sign both,” he says. “We want to try to keep this eight-man core [he includes Acie Law and Zaza Pachulia] together.”
Three weeks on the job and still living in a hotel, Sund knows his mission isn’t to uproot but to tweak and tuck. “The real ‘tell’ sign on this organization is this upcoming season,” Sund says. “The blood, sweat and tears that Billy Knight and the owners and Woodson [invested] is going to [show] this year.”
That doesn’t mean the new GM expects the Hawks to win the championship next June. “We’re not there yet,” Sund says. “But we’re pointed in the right direction.”
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What’s with the venom against Frenchy?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Francoeur is having a rough year. His batting average is .252, which isn’t good, and his on-base percentage is .300, which is bad. He has 10 hits - against 10 strikeouts and only two walks - in his past 10 games. Since hitting a walk-off homer against Arizona on May 24, he has eight RBIs in 96 at-bats.
As tepid as those numbers are, they don’t quite explain the rancor directed Francoeur’s way. In Sunday’s sports section he received three mentions (none flattering) in The Vent. If e-mails to a certain writer (namely, me) are any measure, the suggestions go like this: Bat Frenchy eighth; bench Frenchy; send Frenchy to the minors until he learns the strike zone.
This isn’t the first time such an outcry has been raised. He started slowly the year after his dramatic rookie season of 2005, and he was booed at Turner Field on April 10, 2006.
Pause for emphasis: On April 10!
Speaking on April 12, 2006, Francoeur said: “We play Houston on Oct. 1 at 1 p.m. At 4:30 that day, I think everything will be right where it needs to be.”
After starting the season 2-for-33, Francoeur wound up hitting .260 with 29 homers and 103 RBIs. Last year he drove in 105 runs and batted .293. He might not be Albert Pujols, but Francoeur has proved he’s a big-league player. He’s struggling now, but the belief here, as it would be with any big-leaguer, is that he’ll eventually rise to his established level.
It’s understandable fans would be anxious, especially at a time when the entire team is listing. What’s curious is how quickly we Atlantans seem to turn on the guy from Gwinnett. Has almost a decade of his derring-do, first at Parkview and now as a Brave, bred such contempt? Have we tired of the famous Frenchy? Have we forgotten that, for all his notoriety, he’s only 24?
If that’s the case, then I don’t feel sorry for Jeff Francoeur. I feel sorry for us.
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NCAA championship will end on Tobacco Road
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Officially, the next men’s NCAA basketball national champion will be crowned near midnight on April 6, 2009. Realistically, the title was won shortly before 5 p.m. Monday, when North Carolina announced that three players — Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green — had removed their names from the NBA draft.
National championships have essentially been decided on Signing Day before — by choosing UCLA over Michigan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar vouchsafed three consecutive titles to Westwood — but this marks the first time Draft Deadline Day has left such a massive imprint. Yes, Kansas just benefited hugely from Brandon Rush choosing to stay in school another year, but Rush was one guy coming off knee surgery.
This is three guys.
This is the equivalent of signing the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class, only in this case you already know all three guys can really play and will fit your system.
This is the difference between Carolina finishing second to Duke in the ACC and maybe becoming the first undefeated national champ since Indiana in 1976.
The scrambling to find a preseason No. 1 just ceased. Carolina will be a unanimous choice. Louisville and Connecticut go from looking strong to paling by comparison. The Heels would have remained a force because of Tyler Hansbrough, and now the nation’s best player has the nation’s best supporting cast.
Along Tobacco Road, ACC watchers speak — sometimes glowingly, sometimes grudgingly — of “Carolina Luck.” Whether it’s a heralded recruit or an epic comeback or a fortuitous bit of officiating, the Heels have long seemed to get exactly what they need precisely when they need it. On Monday, that luck turned utterly outrageous. Three guys declare and not one leaves? Are you serious?
(Granted, Carolina did lose four non-seniors in one famous draft swoop — but only after winning the 2005 NCAA title. And Hansbrough arrived that fall.)
UCLA would have given the Heels a real run next winter had Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute stayed on campus, but they left. (Josh Shipp did remove his name, for what that’s worth.) Memphis could have been good enough to blow another title had Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts hung around, but neither did. (Though Robert Dozier of Lithonia removed his name Monday.)
Paul Hewitt has seen four Georgia Tech players — Chris Bosh, Jarrett Jack, Javaris Crittenton and Thaddeus Young — declare for the NBA, and not one has recanted. “Once a guy gets caught up in [the process], it’s tough to turn back,” Hewitt said Tuesday. “They’re living the NBA lifestyle, putting on the gear, getting per diem.”
This was Hewitt’s reaction to the Heels’ non-exodus. “If you look at next year’s draft,” he said, “it’s a smart move on their part.”
Does he ever wonder why no Jacket has done a similar about-face? “We all work at different institutions. There’s a history of guys going pro at Georgia Tech. It’s been that way forever.”
Here’s another slice of reality: Tech must play Carolina in Chapel Hill next season, and the 2009 ACC tournament will be staged in the Georgia Dome. Asked if the Heels might be fairly decent when next he encounters them, Hewitt gave a little laugh. “Yeah,” he said. “They might be.”
Preseason Top 25
1. North Carolina: An even bigger favorite than Florida was in its second title run.
2. Louisville: Retained swingman Earl Clark and welcome forward Samardo Samuels.
3. Connecticut: Point guard A.J. Price must recover from a knee injury suffered in March.
4. Purdue: Baby Boilers nearly won the Big Ten last season and should do it this time.
5. Tennessee: Kept Tyler Smith, the best all-around Vol, and signed Scotty Hopson.
6. Pittsburgh: Toughness and defense galore, but is there enough finesse?
7. UCLA: Darren Collison didn’t leave, and another gifted recruiting class arrives
8. Texas:Lost one guard (D.J. Augustin) but retained another (A.J. Abrams).
9. Duke: Skilled on the perimeter but soft in the middle; same as it ever was.
10. Oklahoma: Power forward Blake Griffin is projected as the No. 1 pick in 2009.
11. Notre Dame 12. Gonzaga 13. Davidson 14. Memphis 15. Michigan State 16. Arizona 17. Florida 18. Arizona State 19. Wake Forest 20. Georgetown 21. Ohio State 22. Southern Cal 23. Minnesota 24. Ole Miss 25. Kansas.
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There’s still life in these Braves
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Braves are engaged in a holding action. They sat 6-1/2 games behind the division leader on Father’s Day. If they’re that close or closer on July 14, Day 1 of the All-Star break, they’ll have cause to believe they can still win the NL East. Or, failing that, the wild card.
But July 14 is a ways away. Speaking the day after John Smoltz had surgery and Tom Glavine went back on the disabled list and Jair Jurrjens sprained his ankle on the clubhouse steps, Frank Wren stressed the need to get some notion as to “how long guys are going to be out.” He has a better idea today.
Smoltz is gone for the year but maybe not forever. Glavine is gone until — Wren’s prognosis — “sometime around the All-Star break or thereafter.” Jurrjens seems OK. Mike Gonzalez has yielded one earned run in four rehab appearances with Richmond. Rafael Soriano is now officially the bullpen equivalent of Mike Hampton. And Charlie Morton is 1-0 in the big leagues.
Because the rotation has been in enforced flux since March, we on the periphery keep expecting Wren to swing a deal for an established arm. (Greg Maddux is the most popular name.) Speaking on a teleconference Friday, the general manager said something fairly instructive: “Starting pitching really hasn’t been our problem. It’s more a lack of hitting.”
That’s true. Even a cobbled-together rotation — Tim Hudson and Jurrjens and Jorge Campillo and Jo-Jo Reyes and now Morton — has given the Braves enough chances to win. They just haven’t availed themselves. They’ve hit for average (still second-best in the National League) but to increasingly lesser effect (seventh in RBIs). This can partly be traced to the absences of Mark Kotsay and Matt Diaz, but more has to do with the tepid yields of Mark Teixeira and Jeff Francoeur.
Yes, Teixeira leads the Braves with 48 RBIs, but that places him only 10th among National League hitters. Given that he bats behind the major-league leader in average and on-base percentage, Teixeira ought to be fashioning a massive season. (Akin to 2005, when he hit 43 homers and drove in 144 runs with Texas.) And he has, it should be said, perked up this past month. But he’s still hitting .276, nearly 10 percentage points off his career average. He’s better than this.
As for Francoeur: As a rookie in 2005 he hit .300 with 14 homers and 45 RBIs in 70 games; through 68 games this season he’s hitting .256 with eight homers and 38 RBIs. He’s better than this, or should be.
As dire as these past two weeks have been, there’s still life in these Braves. The first two games in Anaheim showed as much. If Chipper Jones can stay healthy; if Teixeira and Francoeur can deliver at a higher rate; if this crazy-quilt rotation can keep clicking off quality starts; if Gonzalez can return before the bullpen collapses from the strain … then this team should be close enough a month from now for Wren to provide some sort of bolstering acquisition.
For now, though, it’s wait and see. With uncertainty rampant, there’s no sense making a big move yet. Why trade for veteran help if, four weeks hence, you find yourselves 10 games back and newly inclined to deal Teixeira before Scott Boras tells him to leave?
But this much we know: The organizational mind-set is to never give up on anything. John Schuerholz didn’t, and Wren seems similarly inclined. The Braves traded for Bob Wickman in July 2006 and Teixeira last summer; each time they were in third place, and each time they finished third, but not for lack of trying.
If this team can stand its ground until the break, it will feel really good about its chances. And at some point the plague of injuries has to abate. Doesn’t it?
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Former Hawks rule basketball universe
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Even at their apex, the Hawks of old had to fight perception. During their titanic 1988 playoff series against Boston, assistant coach Brendan Suhr told Jack McCallum of Sports Illustrated: “We all know what people think of when they think of the Hawks. They think of a jivin’, high-fivin’, low-IQ team.”
Twenty years later, one of those Hawks (Doc Rivers) is a coach on the cusp of a championship. Randy Wittman, Rivers’ backcourt partner from 1983 through 1988, coaches the Minnesota Timberwolves. Tree Rollins, a distinguished Hawk from 1977 through 1988, coaches the WNBA’s Washington Mystics. And Reggie Theus, imported as a presumed upgrade to Wittman in the summer of ‘88, coaches the Sacramento Kings.
For a team supposedly short on brainpower, that’s an auspicious array of alums. Said Rollins, who played under Hubie Brown, Kevin Loughery and Mike Fratello as a Hawk: “You had to have a high basketball IQ to execute the things we ran.”
Said Fratello, the NBA’s coach of the year in 1985-86 and now the famed Czar of TNT’s Telestrator: “We were not low-IQ. We were sometimes impatient, but that was because we were young. With the number of things we put in, we couldn’t have done it with a low-IQ team.”
Something you didn’t know: Even in an era where 95 percent of contemporary basketball seems based in the pick-and-roll, coaches and their players still reference the Hawks of yore. “Most teams still run what they call a ‘Hawk Set’ or a ‘Hawk Cut,’ ” Rollins said. “It’s something they got from our old ‘5’ set.”
In separate conversations, Rollins and Fratello offered an oral diagram: The center (or the power forward, depending on personnel) sets a high screen for the point guard, who’s moving left to right. Fratello, in full Telestrator mode, noted that the screener’s “chest angle” is of paramount importance. “He almost has to be facing the sideline, and he has to look back over his left shoulder to see the guard. … We always ran it to the right side of the court.”
The 2-guard posts his man low on the right side. The power forward (or center, again depending) “sets a pin for the 3-man,” Rollins said, and the 3-man for the Hawks of the middle and late ’80s was Jacques Dominique Wilkins. The “5” play could have culminated with one of several men taking the shot — the high screen stepping backward and receiving a pass; the point guard driving; the 2-guard posting up or fading to the sideline — but usually it wound up with No. 21 in the left corner. “And then we got out of Dominique’s way,” said Rollins, laughing.
If you’re so inclined, you could find this play in the still-available paperback, “Hubie On Basketball — Book 1.” Fratello, who was Brown’s assistant when the book was being readied for publication, recalled that there was never a Book 2: “I did 109 diagrams by hand, and finally Hubie came in and said, ‘That’s it — we’re done. This is too much work.’”
Twenty years later, we see that there was more to those Hawks than we would have guessed. Even Cliff Levingston, author of the infamous (and unscripted) running lefty hook at the deflating end of Game 6 against the Celtics, has served as head coach of the St. Louis Flight of the ABA and the Dodge City Legend, the Gary Steelheads and the Oklahoma Cavalry of the USBL.
“I have a lot of pride in those people,” said Fratello, a proud godfather of professional coaching. “I couldn’t be happier for them.”
Said Rollins: “I see these guys all the time, and we always talk basketball. I saw Maurice Cheeks [briefly a Hawk in 1992 and now coach of the Philadelphia 76ers] in the airport the other day, and I got a play for my point guard.”
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Keeping Woodson is another mistake by Hawks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By moving to keep Mike Woodson, the Hawks have opted to err on the side of continuity. Still to be determined is what exactly will continue. Is it the rush of good will from beating Boston three times in seven days, or is it the flailing that resulted in a conspicuously gifted team slipping into the playoffs at 37-45?
If it’s the former, then this is a reasonable decision. The Hawks under Woodson played hard and well and even cleverly in those epic victories. But should three playoff games override a body of work that has now run to 106 regular-season wins against 222 losses?
There’s a case to be made for retaining this coach after four losing seasons, and he made it before Game 5 in Boston: “We’ve improved every year,” Woodson said. The belief here, however, is that the Hawks didn’t improve as much or as soon as they should have. The belief is that a team with a new general manager could have benefited from a new coach.
As has been clear for some time, ownership believed otherwise. Michael Gearon Jr., the Atlanta Spirit’s principal basketball voice, said three days after the Hawks played their last game that Woodson “deserves an opportunity to see what he can do with this team,” and the hope among all of us who care about basketball is that we haven’t already seen it.
Offering an incumbent two more contractual years isn’t so much an endorsement as a deferral. (Three years would have been a validation; one year would have been tantamount to repudiation.) The length of the extension suggests Rick Sund isn’t sold on Woodson but isn’t entrenched enough to defy the owners who rebuffed his predecessor’s attempts to depose this coach.
Said Woodson, speaking Thursday of upper management: “They’ve made that clear [that his services are desired] by bringing me back.”
The issue with Woodson isn’t so much tactics — his X’s and O’s are no less OK than most coaches’ — as temperament. So often did the Hawks give what both he and his players deemed substandard efforts that you wonder if a more upbeat personality wouldn’t be seen as an upgrade. He has had spats with Josh Smith, who’s about to become a free agent, and Zaza Pachulia, who regressed this regular season, and there’s no guarantee these players will pay more attention next time.
Still, it’s worth noting that Woodson expressed his gratitude Thursday. “I appreciate my players voting for me to be their coach,” he said, and then: “You might not know this, but I love coaching and I love my players.”
That’s nice to hear, and it will be even nicer if the Hawks use the Boston series as the springboard it could and should be. If they play the way they did in Games 3, 4 and 6 — the road dates were, as we know, rather different — they’ll win enough to make any coach look smart. Those were big-time efforts by a team that could and should blossom with time and seasoning.
But you also wonder if time mightn’t work against Woodson. This is the NBA, where familiarly breeds contempt. The core of this group — Joe Johnson, Marvin Williams and the Joshes — have played for him since 2005, and a far more successful band of Hawks began to tune out Mike Fratello after a similar stretch two decades ago.
We can only hope that the success tasted in Games 3, 4 and 6 will have a transforming effect on all concerned: That Woodson will be less dour and that his players will be more receptive, and that the sour refrain — “We weren’t ready to play” — will, from this day forward, remain unsung. But hope isn’t quite faith, is it?
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Curry’s big, but task is bigger
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Give Georgia State credit. Bill Curry is a Big Name, and for a school that doesn’t yet have an actual football team hiring a Big Name is a Big Deal.
Curry is hugely respected in this city and in 49 of the 50 states. (The one to our immediate west is the dim-witted exception.) He’s an impressive speaker and a passionate advocate, and he’ll raise a boatload of money for his newest cause. We media types will treat Georgia State football differently now that Curry is attached, and that’s another victory for any start-up.
That said …
This is still one monumental task.
A man who hasn’t coached a game since 1996 - and who hasn’t had a winning season since 1989 - is about to steer a program that has never played a game and isn’t sure how many people will care to watch to when it does. Georgia Southern flourished because of the force of Erk Russell’s personality, but that happened in rustic Statesboro. Will the weight of Curry’s charm sway anyone in a city not lacking for diversions?
I keep coming back to basketball. Georgia State made a similarly charismatic hire in Lefty Driesell, who turned the Panthers into a program capable of beating Georgia (twice!) and upsetting Wisconsin in Round 1 of the 2001 NCAA tournament. Alas, the walk-up gym remained unfilled, and Lefty, not two full years after his Panthers went 29-5, called it a day.
By hiring Curry, Georgia State has made the brightest start possible. The road ahead, I’m sorry to say, remains no less steep.
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Don’t expect Braves to panic
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sometimes good plans go bad. Sometimes it’s just not your year. It happens to all teams in all sports, and when it does the usual response is to roll up the corporate sleeves and try even harder next time.
That said, this Braves season has always seemed a last stand. By banking so heavily on aging pitchers and a probable lame duck of a first baseman, there was never any assurance that 2009 would look nearly so promising. This roster, the first of Frank Wren’s construction, was built to win now.
Alas, the Braves awoke Wednesday below .500 for the first time in five weeks, 6 1/2 games out of first place. They have enough time to recover, but they might not have enough players.
Sixteen days ago, this correspondent asserted that the Braves would be in first place by the Fourth of July. The assumption was that the outbreak of infirmity was surely near its end. The Braves have since lost four more players to the disabled list and have seen Chipper Jones miss games and Rafael Soriano reduced to occasional duty and Jair Jurrjens sprain his ankle on the dugout steps.
With all hands on deck, this team appeared the class of the NL East. Alas, it will never have all hands on deck. John Smoltz won’t throw another pitch this season, if ever. Tom Glavine, who hadn’t been on the DL until 2008, was just placed on it again, this time more ominously (sore elbow). And, with Mike Hampton doing his never-ending rehab, we see the flaw in the Braves’ design: A lot of old guys had to pitch awfully well to make this work.
And now the Braves arrive at a critical juncture: Wren will be tempted to make a massive move to save his team, but there wouldn’t seem to be a move to make. Trade Mark Teixeira and it opens a hole in a lineup missing two starting outfielders. (And if you trade Teixeira after only 11 months, weren’t those five prospects sent to Texas for nothing?) So what’s left to try?
“We’re not going to panic and do something we regret,” Wren said Wednesday, and then he allowed that Charlie Morton, the scourge of Class AAA, will be summoned to make a start this weekend. Given that the Braves have taken such pains to protect Morton, who has been in the organization since 2002 but who only became a winner last August, would this be a sign of … panic?
No, Wren said. “We’ve thought for a few weeks that he was ready when the opportunity presented itself. We’re not rushing him. He has earned the right to be in the majors.”
Still, it would be wrong to view Morton as a savior. Just because old pitchers break down isn’t reason to put pressure on younger ones. On the contrary, it’s reason to tread softly. As good as Jurrjens — a splendid Wren acquisition — has been, he has yielded 28 hits and 14 earned runs in his most recent 15 innings. Jurrjens is 22 and has never worked more than 144 innings in a professional season; he’s on pace to log 190.
For too long the Braves failed to develop young starters to replace aging incumbents. Now they have Jurrjens and Morton, who should be winning big five years after Smoltz and Glavine are called to Cooperstown. Nothing that happens, or doesn’t happen, this summer is as important as the cultivation of those young arms.
“The season’s not over,” Wren said. “If you get healthy and get on a roll, you can get close enough to feel like you’re in it. At the same time, you have to balance what’s good for the short term and the long term.”
This might well be the last stand of the Braves as we’ve come to know them, but if cultivated properly a new band of Braves will arise. The worst thing Wren can do is imperil the future for the sake of these next four months. The good news: He seems to realize as much.
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