Archive for the ‘Hawks/NBA’ Category

Bobby Petrino once was a Bird. Now he's just a birdbrain. (AJC photo by Curtis Compton)

This hasn’t been the easiest time to care about sports around here. The Braves collapsed in September, made no moves of note over the winter and started the new season 0-4. The Falcons didn’t score a point on offense in their playoff loss, made no ripple in free agency and don’t have a Round 1 pick in the draft. The Georgia Bulldogs lost the SEC championship game by 32 points, blew the Outback Bowl and have seen much of their defensive backfield arrested and/or suspended.

And here’s where we cast our eyes toward yonder horizon and espy …

A silver lining.

Our sporting fortunes might not be all that exciting at the moment, but we’ve gotten past the point (at least for the moment) where they’re utterly stupid. For utterly stupid, we must turn elsewhere in the South.

• An SEC head coach wrecked his motorcycle with his girlfriend aboard, and he did it, appropriately enough, on April Fool’s …

Continue reading Take heart, Atlanta: We no longer lead any league in stupidity! »

Will these Kentucky Wildcats be the first and second picks of the 2012 NBA draft? Probably. (AJC photo by Curtis Compton)

It’s a lousy rule. John Calipari says so. Even David Stern, whose rule it is, says so. It’s such a lousy rule that everybody insists it needs to be changed. Question is, to what?

The NCAA title was just taken by Kentucky, which is coached by Calipari, who has come to specialize in one-and-done players. (He has had at least one in each of the past four seasons and could have three this time.) Mark Emmert, the NCAA president, told USA Today last month that he had no quarrel with Calipari’s recruiting of one-and-done players, saying the coach was “operating inside the rules.” But this rule isn’t the NCAA’s.

The NBA implemented the rule in 2005 because the image-conscious league was tiring of seeing its scouts trolling for draftees in high school gyms. From 2001 through 2004, three of the players taken No. 1 overall were high schoolers. It wasn’t that such guys …

Continue reading What to do about one-and-done? Go back to none-and-done »

Josh Smith asserts his presence, which was large. (AP photo)

Having lived in this city 28 years to the day, I can say only one thing for certain: Whenever you think you’ve figured out the Atlanta Hawks, you’d better keep quiet.

Because they are, just for grins, apt to go out and prove you wrong.

Here we thought the secret of basketball was to gather a passel of good players and put them on the floor. On Saturday, the Hawks who didn’t play – Al Horford, Joe Johnson, Willie Green, Jason Collins and finally Tracy McGrady, lost to a sore knee this night – might well been a match for the Hawks who did.

But the Hawks who did play? They gave it a real go, which is something we haven’t always been able to say about this team when matched against an opponent of worth. With enough excuses to last them into 2013 – they were undermanned; they were tired after playing Friday night; they were about to embark on another extended road swing – they offered up one of the better …

Continue reading A tremendous effort? A rousing victory? For the Hawks? Yes! »

Been there, done that. Been there a lot, done it way too often. (AJC photo by Curtis Compton)

Take a bow, A-T-L. After an agonizing near-miss last year — we finished second to Seattle — we made it this time. We’re now No. 1 in Forbes magazine’s listing of America’s Most Miserable Sports Cities. Time for another ticker-tape parade down Peachtree!

Here’s the rationale of Tom Van Riper, who compiled the rankings:

Since last spring, the NHL Thrashers left town for Winnipeg, baseball’s Braves blew a near-lock playoff spot on the final day of the season and the NBA Hawks and NFL Falcons got bounced out of the postseason early yet again. That was enough to push Atlanta, always among the top finishers in Forbes’ annual ranking of America’s Most Miserable Sports Cities, back to the top spot for the first time since 2008.

And what can we say in rebuttal? All of the above is, alas, true.

The Forbes “methodology,” to invoke Van Riper’s word, concerns “misery as defined by …

Continue reading Atlanta as the most miserable sports city? Guilty as charged »

Zaza Pachulia pushes Dwight Howard out of his comfort zone. (AJC photo by Curtis Compton)

Before Thursday’s game, Larry Drew was asked to characterize the first half of what has been, even by the Hawks’ schizo standards, a strange season. “Given what the schedule was and our situation with injuries,” the coach said, “I have to be pleased overall.”

And you know what? He’s right. Sort of.

The Hawks hit the All-Star break third in the Southeast Division and sixth in the Eastern Conference, and if , before this truncated season began, you’d where this team might rank, third and sixth would have seemed reasonable responses. But, these being the Hawks, they didn’t track a path anyone would have predicted.

They started hot, saw Al Hoford lost to injury and somehow got hotter. On the morning of Feb. 2, no Eastern team had fewer losses than the Hawks. Then, as if on cue, this plucky bunch lost all semblance of pluck.

The Hawks reported for work Thursday having lost eight of their past …

Continue reading The Hawks end a sour stretch with a rather sweet victory »

You could read this post. Or you could just admire Curtis Compton's photo, which says it all.

Michael Gearon Jr., one of the Hawks’ many charming owners, believes that print media folks in this town have failed to appreciate the splendor that is his remarkable organization. And I must confess that the achievements of this special team sometimes have had a numbing effect on this jaded correspondent. So here’s where I pay homage and bestow overdue superlatives.

• The Hawks are the greatest team ever to have drafted so badly. In my glass-half-empty moments, I wonder, “Why aren’t the Hawks any better?” With age and perspective, however, I realize I should have seen said glass as more than half-full. Positively brimming, truth to tell.

From 2004 through 2007, the Hawks had five lottery picks. They whiffed on four. They took Josh Childress instead of Luol Deng/Andre Iguodala in 2004; Marvin Williams instead of Chris Paul/Deron Williams in 2005; Shelden Williams instead of Brandon …

Continue reading An appreciation of the greatness that is the Atlanta Hawks »

It was a no-go night for All-Star Joe. (AP photo)

Even by the Hawks’ careening standards, this has been a turbulent season.  With shifts in conventional wisdom attached, we offer a recap:

• Opened by winning four of their first five games, including a victory over the Heat in Miami. And folks thought: “Hmmm.”

• Blew a 19-point lead and lost in Chicago. Lost in triple overtime here to the Heat without LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. And folks thought: “Same old Hawks.”

• Won the next three games but saw Al Horford injured — and subsequently ruled out at least for the remainder of the regular season — in a loss at Indiana. And folks thought: “Stick a fork in ‘em.”

• Won nine of the next 11 without the man considered their most indispensable player. And folks thought: “Hmmm.”

• Came home for a four-game stand and lost the first three games by a total of 39 points. And folks thought: “Same old Hawks.”

• Went to Orlando and won. And folks thought: “Nice win, but didn’t …

Continue reading The Heat showed up; the Hawks (and their fans) left early »

Eli celebrates the greatest month a 9-7 team ever had. (AP photo)

Every season ends with music blaring, confetti falling, a trophy awarded. It’s “One Shining Moment,” a pinnacle attained, a champion crowned. But more and more, we’re seeing trophies taken by teams that aren’t quite the epitome of excellence. We’ve entered the era of the accidental champ.

We consider the most recent winners in the six major American sports:

Connecticut, the 2010-11 NCAA basketball titlist: The Huskies finished in the bottom half of the Big East, which numbers 16 teams. They were 9-9 in regular-season conference play and entered the Big East tournament as the ninth seed. They won five games in that event, six in the NCAA tournament. They won more than half as many games (11) in the two postseason events as in the regular season (21).

Boston Bruins, the 2010-11 NHL titlist: They finished the regular season with 103 points, seventh-most in the league. They had the fewest points of any of the six …

Continue reading From Cardinals to Giants, it’s the era of the accidental champ »

Joe Johnson gets that hemmed-in feeling against the Grizz. (AJC photo by Hyosub Shin)

The Atlanta Hawks, as we know, are a strange crew. They lost Jamal Crawford, their fourth-best player, to free agency. They lost Al Horford, considered their one indispensable man, to a torn pectoral. Yet they entered Thursday’s game against Memphis tied with Chicago, Miami and Philadelphia for the fewest losses in the NBA East.

They were 7-4 with Horford; they’d gone 9-2 without him. You might be wondering just how. If you watched the Hawks lose to Memphis by 19 points after trailing by 30 Thursday night, you’re wondering still.

“We got out-toughed,” said coach Larry Drew. “That’s something I hadn’t seen in a while.”

Speaking before the game, Drew had said: “When you lose one of your big guys, one of two things will happen. Guys will start to feel sorry for themselves, or guys will elevate their play.”

For three weeks without Horford, the Hawks had elevated like Pogo Joe Caldwell, once a …

Continue reading The Hawks were rolling, but on this night they rolled over »

Yay, me! (AJC photo by Ben Gray; whiteboard stylings by Ms. Mandi Albright.)

This year ends in a way few years have ended for this famously erring prognosticator. It ends with me getting to say, “Know what? I actually got some stuff right.”

For once, the annual Accountability Scoreboard isn’t a tale of woe. I picked Georgia to go 10-2 and win the SEC East, which it did. I picked Georgia Tech to finish its regular season 8-4, which it did. I picked LSU to win the SEC, which it did, and finish as the BCS titlist, which it well might. I picked Auburn, which won the last BCS title, to lose five games, and sure enough …

I picked the Hawks to beat the Magic in Round 1, which indeed occurred. Heck, I even picked VCU to crash the Final Four. (OK, now I’m embellishing.)

About the only thing I got close to right in 2010 was picking the Falcons to go 12-4 and win the NFC South. (They actually went 13-3.) This time I was right, sort of, in the grand scheme — I picked the 2011 team to grab …

Continue reading It’s a miracle! Mr. Wrong actually got some things right in 2011 »