SMYRNA - As much as I love LA and all the spots visited during the Western Conference road trip the past 10 days, I can’t say I’m sad to be back on Georgia soil.

Don’t know if I can say the same for the Hawks, who move from the anonymity of the hotel lobby, the mall and the restaurants they’ll visit maybe once or twice a year back to the scrutiny of the hometown fans.

Feeling the heat from afar is quite a bit different from feeling it up close and personal. And there is no question the heat is one the Hawks right now. People want to know what’s going to be done about this slide.

We’ll no doubt learn more over the next 48 hours. If changes come it shouldn’t surprise anyone. If not, again, why would any of be surprised, this is largely the same crew that started the 2005-06 season together.

The only real surprise to me is that they’ve been allowed to travel this far without any seismic changes other than the addition of draft picks. But I think it would be wise for us all to be braced for whatever does or does not happen, because either way, it’s going to be a hot topic around here.

On to one other bit of news that seems to have landed your boy Blog-Z in hot water with the good folks at the in NBA-land. It seems my story announcing Joe Johnson’s selection to the Eastern Conference All-Star team was a bit out of line.

Well, I’d apologize if the league would do the same about crappy refereeing, the crappy seating arrangement for beat writers at various arenas and 7:30 start times. Since they’re probably not going to budge, I’m not either. Didn’t meant to get anyone in trouble. But if a locker room full of guys are congratulating their teammate on making the All-Star team, any beat writer worth his laptop is going to break that story if he can.

Even more perplexing to me is this sentiment that JJ somehow isn’t worthy this year of an All-Star nod (I’ve seen it here and elsewhere). Even one of his fellow All-Stars has already weighed in on the subject.

Rather than celebrating his own selection, Boston’s Paul Pierce took a few digs at JJ’s selection.

According to the Boston Globe Pierce’s reaction to the news was, “Joe Johnson?”

“I felt like (Allen) probably should have been over Joe Johnson,” Pierce told the Globe. “That’s just my opinion though. They don’t have a good record. They are not a .500 team. If that’s the case, I think you should be on a .500 team or better. No knock on Joe Johnson. He’s definitely an All-Star. He’s definitely put numbers and he is definitely a great talent in the NBA. But I think it also should do a lot with what you do as a team.”

Pierce went on to suggest that because the Celtics are leading the Eastern Conference they deserve multiple All-Stars, as the Pistons did a couple years back when four of their five starters made the team.

“I thought Ray should have been there also based on record and what we were doing team-wise,” Pierce said. “I remember two years ago when the Pistons had four guys and they have a similar record to what we have now.”

I won’t dip down to the level of the haters and knock his argument for Allen (who by the way has posted the lowest field goal percentage and scoring average since his rookie year), mostly because I know the transition he’s had to make joining two other All-Stars as the third option.

Ray Allen is the real deal. Everyone knows that. And anyone trying to knock his effort, performance and game-day prowess would be nuts (remember, I’m the one who praised his work ethic here after spying him in the gym three hours before tip of the Hawks-Celtics game early in the season getting his shots up with no one else around).

All these cats belong. But for Pierce to suggest that JJ doesn’t deserve his spot on the team this year because the Hawks aren’t .500 or better is hypocritical, seeing as how he earned All-Star nods twice on sub. 500 teams in his career - the Celtics were 36-46 during the 2003-04 season and 33-49 during the 2005-06 season.

If there was a debate about whether he belonged on the All-Star team those years, I don’t remember it. And if I’d have been in one of those verbal scraps, I’d have argued for Pierce (no matter his team’s record) over the third best player on the team with a monster record.

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