The Hawks’ new owners wanted to retain the same organization, more or less, and the same team, more or less. The hope was that continuity would yield the same-if-not-better results. Sad to say, it’s already possible to view last season’s 60 wins as a distant memory.
The 2014-2015 Hawks finished with the NBA’s second-best record. A set of post-Fourth power rankings by Bleacher Report rates the 2015-2016 Hawks as the league’s 14th-best team. As premature and inexact as that might be, it reflects the latest bit of conventional wisdom. (Which can, as we know, change with the wind.)
In January, this appeared a team of such precisely matching parts that no superstar was required or even wanted, a team that could ride its system and savvy to the NBA finals. In light of an underwhelming postseason — even as we concede that the Hawks just went further than they’d gone since moving to Atlanta — colder eyes are being cast.
Rather than flout the gotta-have-a-superstar truism, the Hawks underscored it. They were swept by the Cavaliers and LeBron James, the Polaris of stars. Now, barely a week after free agency commenced, the Hawks’ exquisite balance has been thrown out of plumb.
DeMarre Carroll isn’t a star. The Toronto Raptors, who will pay him $60 million over four years, will learn that soon enough. Even if the salary cap could have been finagled to meet that price, the Hawks weren’t wrong, dollar-wise, to let him go.
Still, the way the Hawks were constructed, Carroll could be made to appear a star. Any of these starters could. We saw in the unbeaten January how devastating and downright lovely that could be. We saw in the playoffs the flaw in that design.
Postseason opponents committed to stopping Kyle Korver, believing him the key to pace-and-space. Even before Matthew Dellavedova hurtled into Korver’s leg, the great shooter’s playoff misery had undercut everything. With all parts working, the Hawks’ whole was mighty. With even one of the parts diminished, the whole didn’t amount to a whole lot.
With Carroll leaving, one part must be replaced. The Hawks paid max money to keep Paul Millsap, who’s statistically a better player than Carroll, but small forward could prove a more difficult position to restock. As it stands, the options are Thabo Sefolosha, who’s coming off a broken leg and who isn’t as good as Carroll, and Tim Hardaway Jr., who made 39 percent of his shots as a Knick last season and defended even worse.
Hardaway was the product of a draft that saw the Hawks enter with the No. 15 pick and wind up with the guy who’d been the 24th player taken in 2013. Granted, Hardaway has proved he can play, if not always well, in the NBA. Bobby Portis, on whom the Hawks passed twice, has not. But was Hardaway really the best the Hawks could do?
This draft was conducted without Danny Ferry, the general manager who built the 60-win team but who wasn’t seen by incoming ownership as integral. It was overseen by Mike Budenholzer and Wes Wilcox, both hired by Ferry. For a team banking on continuity, that’s a lot of changing, and so we ask:
Are Budenholzer and Wilcox capable of remaking a roster in Ferry’s image? Is Carroll only the first brick to fall? Will Korver, who’s 34 and coming off two surgeries, be as good again? Will Millsap, who’s 30? Will Al Horford leave when his contract lapses next summer? (The trade for Tiago Splitter offers a better backup than Pero Antic and cover in case Horford exits, but a starting front line of Splitter, Horford and Millsap is impractical. Nobody sees Millsap as a small forward.)
Back to Bleacher Report’s rankings. Five Eastern teams are listed ahead of the Hawks: Cleveland, duh, but Miami and Milwaukee and Chicago, too. There’s also Washington, which added Kelly Oubre — officially drafted by the Hawks before the trading began — to go with John Wall, Bradley Beal and Otto Porter Jr., the oldest of whom is 24. Back in January, conventional wisdom held the Hawks as a team in its glorious prime. We wonder today if that prime has come and gone.
