AJC > Sports > Hawks > Blog > Archives > 2007 > April > 15
Sunday, April 15, 2007
May (22) Day!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
MILWAUKEE - Let me get this straight, we have to sit around until May 22nd to find out of the Hawks have any reason at all to care about the June 28 NBA draft (well, I knew that but I wanted to write it for dramatic purposes)?
We all might as well hibernate until then, because there’s nothing anyone can do but wait for the (ping-pong) balls to drop and determine the fate of the Hawks. I suppose we’ve all know since that 3-13 December funk that we’d be here today, sitting and waiting for someone, something else to decide the next step for this hapless crew.
Sure, the optimistic portion of our crew (however many of those rebels haven’t relocated underground) dreamed a little dream when the boys from Hawksville won four straight after Joe Johnson went down with that calf injury. But we should have known better.
We should have known better than to expect this thing to turn out any other way. The Pacers’ playoff hopes went up in flames Sunday afternoon in a loss to New Jersey. And now the Hawks are reduced to hoping that the ping-pong balls bounce right not once, but twice next month.
Whatever the slight chance there is of the Pacers moving down the draft lottery, there remains a chance. And that’s bad news for a Hawks team that’s in desperate need of signs of hope these days (if you didn’t see the Hawks’ loss to Cleveland the other night, you’re one of the lucky ones, because it was arguably the ugliest game I’ve witnessed in years).
And for anyone wondering about this team as the season winds down (whether it’s the lingering personnel issues that have to be decided, Mike Woodson’s status or what have you, I’ll spend the next few days hashing this stuff out in print and on ajc.com, but feel free to discuss it here as we wait for the playoffs) know that whatever news there is can be found here first.
Another thing about those playoffs …
The playoff field is set in the Eastern Conference, with Orlando sealing their big with a Sunday win over the Celtics; has anyone ever tanked a season as blatantly as Danny Ainge’s crew?
The order in the East isn’t terribly important. The only teams with a chance to come out of the East and challenge for the Larry O’Brien trophy are Detroit, Miami and Chicago (I want to believe the hype with the Raptors, but I’m just not ready to drink the Canadian Kool-Aid just yet). So long as any two of those three teams makes it to the conference finals, the potential intrigue for a fantastic Finals matchup remains.
