Three weeks on the job, Rick Sund still speaks of the Hawks in the third person ("they") as often as in the first ("we"). During a 75-minute conversation, he even refers to this as "the city of Seattle."

Wincing, he catches himself. "City of Atlanta," he says. "Sorry."

No apology is required. On the contrary, the new general manager brings precisely what the Hawks have lacked —- the ability to cast an outsider's cold eye on what has been an insulated rebuilding process.

Given the events of spring, we in Seattle —- sorry, Atlanta —- aren't sure what to make of the Hawks. They barely made the playoffs, but once there they played the champs-to-be better than either the Pistons or the Lakers. Does that mean the Hawks are (deep breath) further along than those proud organizations?

"No," Sund says. "We're not further along."

This is no criticism of Billy Knight. Indeed, Sund has only praise for his predecessor, saying, "Billy and [Mike Woodson, the coach] have done a good job the last four years. They improved their record every year. ... And they protected their players."

Sund likens the Hawks to the expansion Dallas Mavericks, whom he served as director of personnel. The Mavs won 17 games in their inaugural season, then 28, then 38, then 43. The Hawks under Knight and Woodson won 13 games, then 26, then 30, then 37. There are those —- this writer, for example —- who believed the Hawks should have been better sooner. Sund does not.

"I'm still an outsider," he says. "When you're inside, you always want a quicker pace —- your frustration level's a little different. Outside looking in, the Hawks really were where they should have been. People say, 'They should have won 45 games.' They weren't capable of 45 wins, in my opinion. They were in Year 4 of a rebuilding process in which the focus was youth, and with it comes inexperience."

Then this: "A reasonable goal would have been to sneak into the playoffs in the eighth spot or the seventh, and they did. And then, probably a reasonable goal would have been to see if they could win a game. The fact they competed real well at home [against Boston] was a plus. And the fact they didn't win on the road —- there's not a basketball person who would say that was surprising."

Sund delineates the five stages of an NBA player's development: 1. Peer acceptance; 2. Playing time; 3. Being paid commensurate to one's peers; 4. Personal achievement; and 5. Wanting to win a championship. "It's not surprising the Celtics won because they have five or six guys in Phase 5 who'd already achieved Phase 4."

As for the Hawks, Sund believes, "We've got a lot of players in those various early stages, and we've got to massage those and manage those. ... It looked to me that when the playoffs started, they dropped those phases. It looked to me that for the first time ... there was a focus, and that focus is what helped them to get to a second and third win. Because the talent was the same.

"Now the trick is, as you go forward, to maintain that focus to get to your next goal, which is: We want to get back to the playoffs and improve on our record."

With the Hawks holding no picks in next week's draft, Sund's immediate emphasis is on keeping free agents Josh Smith and Josh Childress. "Our intent is to sign both," he says. "We want to try to keep this eight-man core [he includes Acie Law and Zaza Pachulia] together."

Three weeks on the job and still living in a hotel, Sund knows his mission isn't to uproot but to tweak and tuck. "The real 'tell' sign on this organization is this upcoming season," Sund says. "The blood, sweat and tears that Billy Knight and the owners and Woodson [invested] is going to [show] this year."

That doesn't mean the new GM expects the Hawks to win the championship next June. "We're not there yet," Sund says. "But we're pointed in the right direction."

mbradley@ajc.com