Grantland's Zach Lowe checks in with a nice Hawks post-mortem. Lowe quotes coach Mike Budenholzer saying he wants to bring back "darn close to" the same group, looks at the how the Hawks missed a lot of open shots during the playoffs (an issue I also examined) and details why it will be difficult for the Hawks to re-sign both Paul Millsap and DeMarre Carroll.
Lowe also explores the narrative of superstar vs. team, a debate in which the Hawks unwittingly became symbols. The historical evidence is overwhelming that a top 10 player (at least) is necessary to win an NBA championship: when either the Warriors or Cavs win the title, they will become the 60th champion of the 65 since 1950 to have at least one player voted first- or second-team All-NBA.
Lowe offers a philosophical take on why superstar-or-bust is bad for the league:
"If we got one of the top five or eight players in the world, that would be awesome," Kyle Korver told Grantland during a sit-down this week in New York. "But it's not our job to think like that. We don't have LeBron, so we have to keep trying to figure out ways to beat him."
And that, right there, is why the Hawks accidentally stood for something — even if that something was in no way revolutionary. Basketball diehards — fans, media, team employees — pour their life into this league. If all that matters is having one of the 10 best players, then what are we all doing? What's the point of running through 82 games in Charlotte and Orlando when you could just hold a tournament between the teams featuring LeBron, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, Stephen Curry, James Harden, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, and whoever else you might put in their class?
"Are you just supposed to accept you're not gonna win the championship just because you don't have one of the best players in the world on your team?" Korver asks. "Why are we even playing, then?"
That's not just a rhetorical question for the Hawks. The NBA just lived through a season in which three big-market teams (Sixers, Knicks, Lakers) plunged down the standings to increase their odds of drafting a star. This is why Rockets GM Daryl Morey took the rare step of publicly suggesting it would be good for the league if the Hawks made the Finals. The NBA badly needs the middle way to work. A league is not healthy if it consists of only three types of teams: contenders with superstars, teams losing on purpose to get superstars, and a bunch of cute little hamster-jogging-in-wheel teams killing time before venturing onto one of the other two paths.
Well, the NBA does basically consist of those three kinds of teams and the league is plenty healthy. It's pretty much always been that way; it's just that some teams have become more transparent about tanking for the chance to draft a superstar. I don't see what can or should be done about it.
At any given time there is only going to be a small handful of NBA players who can carry their team to a championship. Lowe puts the current number at two, James and Kevin Durant, with Anthony Davis as a future possibility. Even if you expand the list to include the likes of Curry, Harden and Paul, the list is short. There are always many more teams than there are superstar players.
If the league wanted to change that it could contract and spread its talent around to fewer teams. Of course that would never happen because players want more jobs and there is a seemingly never-ending supply of billionaires willing to pony up for a franchise.
The owners could try to win concessions in the next labor agreement that make it more difficult for teams to re-sign their own free agents, which theoretically would mean superstars hit the free market more often. They could couple this with salary-cap rules that make it hard for teams to add good players around the superstars.
But owners are more concerned with rules that make it easier for them to keep their own free agents. That's what they pushed for the in the last CBA agreement and James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh still teamed up in Miami with an assortment of vets making below-market salaries. You can create disincentives but the players still make the choice and their union already is gearing up for a tough fight in the next CBA negotiations now that owners cannot credibly claim they are losing money.
Korver and Lowe are right that the Hawks should rage against the notion that they and other superstar-less teams should just accept they can’t win a championship. But there’s nothing wrong with the middle way, as Lowe calls it, not working. The Cavs and Warriors will generate sky-high television ratings in the Finals because, despite their protestations that they prefer "team ball," people want to see superstars.
Meanwhile the Hawks and other teams without elite players will either tank in an attempt to get a superstar of their own or regroup and chase the superstars again next season. That's the way it's always been and it's the way it should be.
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