Hawks general manager Rick Sund’s “core” philosophy will be put to the test when the team opens the playoffs Saturday night at Orlando.
Sund stuck with the current group of players because he said he believes the relatively young team could grow into an Eastern Conference contender. In the weeks following their historically lopsided playoffs series loss to Orlando last spring, Sund said the roster needed tinkering instead of a major overhaul.
So the Hawks added players around the fringes of a roster and kept Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, Al Horford and Jamal Crawford at its core. Sund promoted assistant Larry Drew to succeed Mike Woodson as coach.
The Hawks qualified for the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season, but have regressed by nearly every other measure.
They slipped from 53 victories last season to 44, ending a streak of five consecutive seasons of improved records. They fell from No. 3 in the East to No. 5 while suffering more losses of 30-plus points than any team with a winning record in NBA history.
Sund’s contract ends after the season, and Hawks ownership hasn’t said whether the team will seek to retain him. Co-owner Michael Gearon Jr. declined comment through a team spokesman.
Since last summer Sund, the owners, Drew, and the players have said they expect more from this team. Woodson’s dismissal showed the postseason is the ultimate measure.
“In the back of your mind, yeah, you know what the expectations are,” Drew said Thursday. “You don’t allow that to affect you. You’ve got a job to do. All I can do is go out and get this team prepared to the best of my ability, get them into that playoff mentality, that playoff mode, and [to] play the best they can possibly play. The players basically have to do the same thing.”
Sund’s policy is not to evaluate the team publicly during the season. After he traded for Kirk Hinrich in February, Sund said it was up to the players to respond to the challenge of improving the team’s results.
After last season Sund endorsed re-signing Johnson to a maximum contract worth $123.7 million over six seasons. Johnson is having his least productive and efficient season (though injuries were a factor) for the Hawks, and his contract limits the team’s financial flexibility in the future.
In hiring Drew, Sund cited his familiarity with players and his plans for improving their production. The Hawks were worse on offense and defense and showed signs of fraying chemistry.
Sund resisted Crawford’s trade demands after rebuffing his request for a contract extension last summer. Crawford had a career season after Sund traded for him in 2009, but his production and impact have declined this season.
Those recent decisions followed other moves by Sund that embraced continuity instead of change.
In 2008 Sund matched a five-year, $58 million offer sheet Smith signed with Memphis. In 2009 the Hawks re-signed forward Marvin Williams for five years (with one year a player option) and $38 million and Mike Bibby for three years and $18 million.
Williams is now a part-time starter, and Bibby’s defensive deficiencies prompted the Hawks to trade him to Washington in February. The Hawks traded away promising rookie Jordan Crawford, a 2011 first-round pick and a veteran rotation forward Mo Evans for the 30-year-old Hinrich.
The Hawks now get a chance to validate Sund’s decisions to keep the core of the team intact.
“It’s time for us to show why they kept everybody together and what kind of nucleus we have,” Smith said. “We have got to prove to management they made a good choice to keep everybody together and not bust the team up.”
