Shake Mike Bibby's family tree, and it rains all kind of fruit. Better bring a hardhat and a sports almanac.

Down come three NCAA titles, and one NBA ring (father Henry, UCLA and New York Knicks, 1969-73).

Johnny Crawford/AJC (ENLARGE)

Mike Bibby, a Hawk for less than two weeks who has been in Atlanta only six days, says he's ready for the challenge of leading this team. 'I don't mind it all falling on me.'

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A major league no-hitter (uncle Jim Bibby, Texas, 1973).

An NFL wide receiver (Shaun McDonald, a cousin on his mother's side, led Detroit in catches, receiving yards and touchdowns last season).

Even a professional soccer player (Robbie Findley, another cousin, Real Salt Lake of Major League Soccer).

"We got hard workers in the family," says the Hawks newly won point guard, ever the verbal minimalist.

This athletic ethic — along with a penchant for knee-high hosiery, stem to stern body art and passes that seem to travel fiber optically — Bibby brings to his latest post. He is going to need every advantage, built-in or otherwise, to make a difference in this blighted NBA market.

The Hawks' playoff plague is at eight seasons and counting; and what can a single 6-foot-1 man do to stand up against that kind of institutionalized losing? All the muscling up for nine years of driving the NBA lane still has left Bibby south of 200 pounds. With a recent heel injury, he walks around backstage like someone with a scorpion in his shoe.

And he is the one to unify a young team while offloading responsibilities from Joe Johnson's shoulders, justifying every layer of upper management and goosing a weary fan base?

"I don't mind it all falling on me," Bibby said, a Hawk for less than two weeks who has been in Atlanta only six days. He has yet to learn the full scope of this challenge.

Family matters

There's the Mike Bibby they talk about back out west, the quiet sort with a confidence that raises its hand at the crucial moment.

"Off the court, he's kind of a shy guy; he stays to himself a little bit," said Josh Postner, who was Bibby's best friend and workout partner during his two years at Arizona. "But he's got ice water in his veins. He wants and will make the big shots."

Bibby's AAU coach back in Arizona, Art Dye, remembers that first interview his point guard gave while a high school sophomore off at a tournament in Las Vegas. "I kept answering for him, saying, 'Mike thinks that ... whatever," Dye says now. He's 29 and much better at speaking for himself these days, but early indications are that Bibby is not going to set any recording devices on fire.

There is a striking family resemblance here. Henry Bibby may have given his son a fine basketball name, but about everything else came from his mother's side. Virginia Bibby — then a Carmichael — came to the U.S. with her parents and seven siblings from Trinidad. Everyone eventually settled in the Phoenix area, and there the surviving members all remain today, tightly knit.

One of the big stories coming out of the 1997 NCAA tournament while Mike was leading Arizona to a title was the distance between himself and his father. A basketball gypsy who eventually divorced Virginia, Henry had little to do with Mike's upbringing. His mother did all the hard work of ferrying Mike to every basketball appointment. When young Mike wanted to practice trying to dunk — hardly a pivotal part of his game now — he went to his uncle Roger Carmichael. The same uncle who designed many of the tattoos splashed all over Mike (a chain-link cross on one arm, portraits of his mother and grandparents on his back, the names of his three children, a tribute to a late friend, an inspirational homily here and there).

If dad wasn't around, there still was this intricate family web to support him. Of his current standing with Henry, an assistant coach with the Philadelphia 76ers, Mike says:

"He calls me here and there. I talk to him; we've patched things up."

And on leaving his son and two daughters in Phoenix while finishing the season in Atlanta, Mike draws one distinction about his own fathering skills: "They know I have to leave — and they know I'm coming back."

Mum's the word

Part of growing up in the Carmichael sphere of influence was an attitude of quiet strength. Go ahead and play hard, but there is no need to make a big production number out of it.

"Everybody's pretty laid-back. Maybe it's a part of the island thing," said his uncle, Roger.

Take trash talk, for instance, the universal language of the modern athlete. Once asked what was the one thing he'd change about the NBA, Bibby answered he'd get rid of the rampant garbage mouth. Virginia set him straight on that score, pulling him aside one summer day before his junior year in high school and telling him to just shut up and play.

"Ever since then I've been kind of quiet. I used to be bad," Mike said.

Back to the present, he said, "A lot of people say I can't lead the team because they don't see me doing it. Everybody out here is grown men. They are professionals. You'll never see me go at somebody, scream at them, get in their face. I'll pull them aside and talk to them."

So, don't listen for him to talk a game. Just watch him play.

Pressure's on

In rebuilding mode, Sacramento found Bibby expendable with one more year left on a seven-year, $80.5 million deal. He was so popular that ownership took out a full-page newspaper ad thanking him for his contributions. But everyone has critics, and Bibby's felt his production was declining, his defense was iffy and his leadership inconsistent.

But he comes here, and Atlanta is looking to him for its first real galvanizing floor leader since Doc Rivers.

The Hawks are 3-4 since the Feb. 16 trade for Bibby. In his Philips debut against his old team, the Kings Wednesday, he shone (24 points, 12 assists). For awhile there, he even made designated defender Mario West look like Oscar Robertson.

Two nights later at home against New York, the stats did not come as readily (11 points, 10 assists). But still in the last 72 seconds of a close game, Bibby set up one perfect lob at the rim to Josh Smith and hit a decisive mid-range jumper.

"I know he would want to [become the Hawks' leader]. I watch him on the tapes; he's talking, trying to engage the players," said his former coach in Sacramento, Reggie Theus. "That's a part of Mike evolving. He is going to have to evolve to that."

"Seems like every day he has something to tell me that I should do on the court," said Hawks rookie Al Horford. The truest measure of a point guard is how those around him flourish.

Never an All-Star or an NBA finalist, Bibby nonetheless has this reputation for being a big-moment player. That was forged when as a freshman he led Arizona past North Carolina and Kentucky in the Final Four. It's in his blood, just look the lineage of highlight makers.

Truth is, his most famous NBA shot is almost six years old — a game-winner in Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals against the Lakers in 2002. "I'll take another one in a minute," he said.

First, he is going to have to get the Hawks to some place unfamiliar, where one shot might really mean something.