AJC > Sports > Hawks > Blog > Archives > 2007 > January > 30
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
It’s a thin line!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It only takes one game to remind you how razor thin that line between success and failure (can be and is) in the NBA. The Magic (a Hawks’ victim twice in four days) started the season 13-4, but have dropped 18 of their past 28 games. Scary stuff. (I dare any of you Hawks fans to tell me you wouldn’t take a 23-22 record for the for your team.)
Lose two straight to the Hawks and your whole organization is under fire.
You better believe that whatever good vibrations were emanating from Mickey’s city in November and early December, have since disappeared.
Who’s to blame? They’re picking over everyone’s bones down there, from Magic GM Otis Smith and coach Brian Hill to Atlanta’s own Dwight Howard, who was booed (are those people nuts?) during a home loss to the Hawks last Friday when he missed five free throws down the stretch.
Oddly enough, the Hawks can’t seem to escape our wrath this season, despite being winners of three of their past four games and compiling a 7-7 mark in the first month of ’07. Some people think we’re too harsh here, that we spend so much time roasting people for what’s wrong that we overlook the obvious signs of progress. Maybe. I disagree. I think that, for the most part, we’re as fair and balanced as people can be in a forum like this. There is no censorship (within reason) around these parts. If someone wants to shower a 16-27 team with praise, go ahead. But the critics have earned their right to throw daggers, too (a 3-13 December record justifies the ranting).
But I’m reminded repeatedly that winning and losing is always relative. In Boston last week, the papers didn’t roast the Celtics the morning after the Hawks rallied from an 18-point deficit for a win. Had that happened here, and there been a columnist or two, or three, at the game, it would have gotten ugly. I was expecting raging headlines the next morning calling for the dismantling of the entire operation and the firing of everyone from the coach to the ball boys. But there was nothing of the sort. And rightly so, I imagine, since the folks up there have a much better handle on the situation than someone like myself, who pops in and out of town for a couple days every now and then.
That’s also why I laugh when people criticize the local Atlanta media for being softer than our counterparts in other places (I don’t think we are any more or less critical of the local teams when they’re not doing well).
We can debate the specifics of playing time, in-game decisions, past drafts, free agent signings and just about everything else until we’re all blue in the face. But the one thing that can’t be argued is that winning makes it all look better and losing makes it all look horrendous. (Breaking news this is not, I know).
The only problem with that ebb and flow approach is that the fundamental issues (for any team and specifically the Hawks) stay the same, win or lose. The Hawks aren’t any better this morning at the point or in the paint than they were before Monday’s win over Orlando.
That razor thing line stays the same, too. It’s not going anywhere, never has and hopefully it never will. It’s what makes sports (watching, for fans and the media) the gloriously intriguing, heartbreaking, rewarding and outstanding multi-billion dollar foolishness that none of us can live without.
Win and everyone loves you. Lose and they want your head.
