This summer, the Hawks committed $140 million to Dwight Howard and Kent Bazemore. Principal owner Tony Ressler is not about to second-guess those sizeable contracts, though they have been the subject of much fan angst during an up-and-down season and even now during the Hawks’ playoff run.
The Hawks evened their best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinals playoff series against the Wizards, 2-2, after victories at home Saturday and Monday. Game 5 is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday in Washington.
The Hawks signed Howard to a three-year, $70.5 million deal in July. There is no doubt that the addition of Howard has improved the team’s defense and rebounding. However, the statistics prove that the offense runs better without Howard on the floor. In fact, he has sat several times down the stretch of games.
The Hawks signed Bazemore to a four-year, $70 million deal. He started the season in the starting lineup but after returning from a late-season knee injury has come off the bench.
Ressler addressed the signings of Howard and Bazemore in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week.
“The NBA is all about second-guessing,” Ressler said. “I know this, we play a lot better when those guys play well. Yes, I think there are some players you play and think you’ll have, in my opinion at least, years to make them fit in exactly as you hoped. We are doing our best. Me to talk about specific contracts and to say this was a perfect one and his was not a perfect one, listen at the end of the day I’m going to argue that if you look at our payroll this year, I think we did OK. We had a $98 million payroll. We won 43 games. We are in the middle of the playoffs. We are really competitive.”
“I think in a lot of ways we are a better team, not in every way, not in victories, in a lot of ways we are a better team. I think in a lot of ways we are a better team with Baze and Dwight. Again, I happen to think pointing to a player or a contract in this process, you can say that’s too much, that’s too little. I think you have to look at the 15 contracts and say how are we doing? I think we are doing OK.”
Both Howard and Bazemore played big roles in the Hawks’ 111-101 victory Monday with their best games of the series. Howard had a double-double, with 16 points and 15 rebounds. Bazemore had 16 points, seven assists and four rebounds.
Even with the Hawks down 0-2 in the series, Ressler boldly said he believed the currently constructed team is better than those of either of the past two seasons. That would be the 60-win team that advance to the conference finals before Ressler purchased the franchise and last year’s version that won 48 games and advanced to the second round. Both postseason runs ended in sweeps by the Cavaliers.
Ressler pointed to young players such as Dennis Schroder, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Taurean Prince in addition to Howard and Bazemore for his reason for optimism.
“I think these are really, really good players that we didn’t have or didn’t have in this capacity,” Ressler said. “Paul (Millsap), we already knew was a great player. These guys are all getting better. Dennis, Timmy, Taurean, Baze, they are all getting better as players, in my opinion. So, yeah, we thought at the beginning of this season and at the beginning of these playoffs we thought we were a better team.”
Ressler’s faith in the current roster is not to suggest that he believes there is no room for improvement. He admitted to a level of frustration in trying to build a championship-caliber team with the decreased regular-season win total in his two years as owner. However, he looks to a young core of players surrounded by a group of veterans that has the franchise in contention with a 10th consecutive playoff appearance.
“I’m two years in, we are trying to run this franchise with a commitment to the present and the future,” Ressler said. “I think you have to run a franchise in this way. Things like age, things like payroll, things like long-term contracts, things like the NBA moving to be faster and younger, all of these are part of the decision-making process.”
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