Team-first approach brings Hawks back to college days

The Hawks are 32-8 (through Friday) and lead the Eastern Conference by five games. They have the second-best record in the NBA thanks to a stretch of 25 wins in the past 27 games. That’s a .926 winning percentage since Nov. 28. The team’s management and coaching staff have assembled and directed a modest roster that is turning heads around the NBA and the city. The season is nearly at the halfway point and the Hawks show no signs of slowing down, having already posted win streaks of 11, nine and five games in the past two months. They had one five-game streak all of last season.

They have done it without a superstar player. No Hawk even ranks in the top 10 in the latest NBA All-Star balloting. But they have taken the team-first concept to a new level in the second season under coach Mike Budenholzer.

“It takes a while to develop that culture, and you have to bring the right guys in to play that kind of style,” Kyle Korver said. “(Team basketball is) not necessarily taught that much at younger ages. You’ve got to find the pieces that fit. We’ve found a couple. We are a little over a year together. We still have a long ways to go, but we like what is happening right now.”

Winning sure is enjoyable. Korver said he is having more fun than in any of his previous 11 years in the NBA. He and several other players have likened the current atmosphere and approach to their college days.

“This is amazing, man,” DeMarre Carroll said. “The last time I won this many consecutive games in a row was my senior year in college (at Missouri), when we went to the (NCAA’s) Elite Eight. That’s what it feels like right now. It feels like I’m in college and it’s my senior year all over again.”

Korver has known success in the NBA. He has been to the playoffs eight times, including the past two seasons with the Hawks. He also made playoff runs with the 76ers, Jazz and Bulls. In each of his two seasons with Chicago, the Bulls finished with the best record in the Eastern Conference. They advanced to the conference finals in 2010-11. But this season feels different.

“I’ve said it a couple of times. It feels more like a college team in a lot of ways because everybody as bought in,” Korver said. “In the NBA, there is the business side and, like everybody, it’s on people’s minds. I feel like everybody here has bought in. Everybody eventually wants to get paid and all those things but I feel like we’ve bought into the culture more than any other team I’ve been on.”

Al Horford, who won two national championships at Florida, also said the current state of the Hawks takes him back eight years ago to the days with the Gators.

The Hawks don’t have a player among the league’s top 30 scorers. However, all five starters average in double figures and rank between 31st and 94th. Jeff Teague (17.5, T-31), Paul Millsap (16.9, T-36), Horford (14.8, 61), Korver (13.0, 78) and Carroll (11.9, 94) are content to share the scoring. Aided by a valuable bench, the Hawks are the seventh-highest scoring (103.1) in the league and keep piling up wins.

Budenholzer has directed the team-first approach, developed over 19 seasons and four NBA titles with the Spurs.

“I think our group is enjoying competing with each other, enjoying playing with each other,” Budenholzer said. “I think you see it on both ends of the court. Whatever that means, the togetherness and all those things that every team and every coach thinks is important, hopefully our group is finding all of that, can continue it and get even better.”