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Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2009 > February > 07
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Despite clunker, Hawks on right course
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rick Sund arrived in town three weeks after the Hawks took the Celtics to a Game 7 and proceeded to tamp down any lingering euphoria. This was not yet a powerhouse, he said, and the new general manager set this modest goal: “To get back to the playoffs and improve on our record.”
Sund’s team played its 50th game Saturday night, and it was, sad to say, what the new GM calls “a clunker — you’re going to have three of those a year, and you hope no more.”
Let’s hope. The Hawks were beaten by 24 points at home by a terrible Clippers team. But one game, wretched as it was, cannot eclipse what has become a bright, shiny season. The Hawks still hold the fourth-best record in the Eastern Conference and are on pace to go 48-34, which would represent a clear upgrade from the eighth-place finish and the 37-45 record of last season.
And the GM is beginning, ever so warily, to believe. “We’ve had so many injuries, and we’ve handled it,” Sund said. (For the record, he spoke Saturday morning.) “That’s a real endorsement of this team.”
True, the Hawks are only 8-11 since New Year’s Day, but circumstances have grown exceedingly extenuating. Their starting five has been intact for only 20 of the 50 games. Al Horford missed a dozen games in January with a bruised knee. Marvin Williams missed two with a concussion, and Joe Johnson missed two this week with the flu. And then, just as Johnson returned, Mike Bibby sat out Saturday’s game with a sprained foot.
And still the Hawks have risen from fifth in the East to fourth over the past month. Said Mike Woodson, the coach: “Our guys just keep fighting … I don’t know if I’m surprised, but I’m excited.”
It wasn’t so long ago that folks doubted if they’d raise even a whimper this winter. ESPN.com pegged them to go 32-50, and Sports Illustrated rated them 11th-best in the 15-team conference. Said Sund: “We’ve proved to be a little better than I thought we’d be,” he said, “and I’m a pretty even-keeled guy … I was thinking something like 42-40, or 46 or 47 wins … A lot of people in the league didn’t think that was reasonable.”
At the rate they’re traveling, the Hawks will better last season’s record by 11 games. That sort of upgrade usually coincides with a major personnel infusion, but all the Hawks did was swap subs Flip Murray and Mo Evans for the Grecian earner Josh Childress. This would suggest that, at long last, the young core has ripened.
“We’ve grown from the time I inherited five years ago,” Woodson said. “I doubt we do anything at the [Feb. 19] trade deadline — I don’t know. But I’m very happy with where we are. If we stay status quo … hey, that’s OK.”
(Those were also pregame comments. Afterward Woodson said: “We just didn’t compete — that’s the first time I’ve seen that happen this year at home.”)
Last February the Hawks remade themselves by trading for Bibby. This season began amid speculation that the point guard, who’s due to become a free agent, would himself be exported. There’s no chance of that happening now. You saw what happened without him Saturday, didn’t you?
If the Hawks made even a minor move these next 10 days, it will constitute an upset. Sund seems content to wait until summer, when he’ll work to keep Bibby, to re-up Williams, perhaps even to make a mid-level move using the rights to Childress. “The real game plan is to see this [season] through and then evaluate our club,” Sund said. “That seems to make the most sense.”
And it does. Truth to tell, there’s no player available who’s apt to lift these Hawks past Boston or Cleveland this spring. But, just as this season has been better than the last, the next one should be better still.
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