AJC > Sports > Hawks > Blog > Archives > 2005 > November > 30
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Players need to look in mirror
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’m not sure who makes me more sick this morning (and it’s early, at Houston’s Bush Airport) — the lunkhead who invented 6:30 a.m. flights, or the dope who decided that scheduling NBA games on back-to-back nights in different cities was a good idea.
But I’m grinding anyway, hustling from H-Town to A-Town to see if your Hawks are going to come together or come apart now that they know they won’t finish the first month of the season winless.
I thought the success of last week’s nearly three-game winning rush would make them want to continue the positive vibe they had cultivated. But there were alarming signs of discontent after the loss to the Rockets. I don’t know that these guys trust each other enough on the floor to play for each other rather than for their own individual pursuits. If that’s the case, the Hawks have a very diabolical mix on their hands. And it’s not one or two people that need to look in the mirror. It’s every single one of these guys. They have to ask themselves what they’re in this thing for, because right now it ain’t the playoffs or anything close to it.
Granted, it’s still early and this daily analysis of a team toe-deep into an 82-game season is a bit premature — I feel like we’re all stuck in some creepy basketball version of the Dr. Phil Show, harping on the obvious day after day with no real relief. But the fact is, the foundation of this particular team is being laid right now. And if they’re going to surpass last season’s dismal 13-game win total, they have to figure out who they are right now. They have to make a decision as a team and decide if they’re going to do things the right way or the other way.
