AJC > Sports > Hawks > Blog > Archives > 2006 > October > 26
Thursday, October 26, 2006
A big emotional setback
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Marvin Williams breaking his hand today is as much an emotional setback as it is a physical and logistical one for the Hawks. A jarring injury like this at the end of training camp hurts far more than the one Speedy Claxton suffered five weeks ago, before training camp began. Speedy had training camp to heal while Marvin will have to miss the first month of the season, if not more, before he can get back to business.
It’s beyond bad luck that these things keep happening to the Hawks. I’m starting to wonder if the dooms day crowd that talks about curses and bad karma might be on to something. How else to explain this spate of bad luck?
There is no silver lining here, either. I’ll be the first to admit that. Sure, Shelden Williams moves into a starting role and Josh Smith moves to small forward. One of the training camp invitees might stick around a bit longer (Cedric Bozeman and Matt Freije made the cut by the way, and not Andre Brown or Andreas Glyniadakis), at least to help fill out the playing rotation in Marvin’s absence.
Other than seeing what Shelden or the camper can do early, though, this remains a damaging blow for the Hawks. They certainly won’t be able to play as fast as they would have liked without Marvin and Josh on the floor together for long periods of time. And I expect Marvin to be fine once he heals. Guys suffer injuries all the time and return from them without issue. But the mental blow for this team early will have to be managed. But it changes the way you play not having him for the first month.
To his credit, Marvin’s spirits this afternoon were better than anyone’s. I think the shock of it all will hit him tonight, after he spends the night in Chapel Hill and wakes up tomorrow and realizes that he won’t be able to play in Friday night’s game at the Dean Dome – a game he’s been looking forward to for months.
But at least he’ll recover. I don’t know if I can say the same about the egos of both Brown and Glyniadakis, two guys who had to leave the premises Thursday knowing they played well enough to make this Hawks team. But sometimes, playing well enough (without a guaranteed contract) isn’t good enough to stay employed. It happens all the time in training camps around the league. But I’ve never seen it this bad, where the campers distanced themselves from several incumbents the way these guys did.
That’s just my opinion, of course. Perhaps the people making decisions felt differently (clearly they did). Maybe they saw some things that I did not. Or maybe they know it, too, but were hamstrung by the financial constraints we keep being told are not in place (clearly they, are if a team isn’t willing to eat a minimum contract or two in an effort to get better).
