No matter what they do, the Atlanta Hawks always manage to be the most mediocre team in all the professional sports.
If you think another sporting franchise has them beat for the most mid team in the past decade, the stats don’t lie. As of March 2, the team was 67-67 in their last 134 games, 174-174 in their last 348 games and 210-210 in their last 420 games. If that isn’t the definition of middle of the road, I don’t know what is. Luckily for Hawks fans, the team has been making strides to develop a new identity after its embarrassing play over the past few seasons.
As of March 26, the team sits as the 5 seed, which is still nothing to write home about, but they’ve managed to win 9 of their last 10 games on the back of some great all-around performances by some key players. Since trading away former franchise cornerstone and longtime point guard Trae Young, the team has looked levels better than before, with better floor spacing, more diversity in their scoring and an improved defence. Yet somehow after all of this, they still sit smack dab in the middle of the Eastern Conference, peering in at a playoff spot.
The team was the ninth seed just over a week ago; they won nine games in a row and were still the ninth seed. Seriously? Let’s look at how the Hawks have pulled off their usual stunt, and how they have the potential to make it over the hump this year.
It might just be a curse at this point, but in reality, the Hawks set themselves up for the trap of mediocrity almost too easily. Entering this season, the team was already in turmoil, with Young’s departure seeming inevitable after years of disappointment and underachievement. For the first half of the season, nobody on the team could get any sort of rhythm together except for Jalen Johnson and Nickeil Alexander-Walker. Young was injured, and the team was still trying to mesh around Johnson as the main ball handler. When the trade deadline rolled around, the team was sitting well under the .500 mark, looking like another play-in appearance was bound to happen. It wasn’t until they traded Young to the Wizards and Kristaps Porzingis to the Warriors that they received Jonathan Kuminga from Golden State. For years, Kuminga was being held hostage by a Warriors team that never truly gave him the opportunity he desired as an athletic wing with loads of offensive potential. The Congolese youngster was on the trade block for what seemed like years, and when the move was finally made, fans league-wide were hoping he would flourish in Atlanta.
That he did… sort of.
In his first game with the Hawks, he dropped 27 points and seven rebounds in a win over the Wizards. He followed that with a few good performances in which he played over 25 minutes a night but then played only 18 and 19 minutes in games against Brooklyn and Orlando. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the season plays out for Kuminga, but if he continues this production slide, Warriors fans will be eager to say “I told you so.”
As for Atlanta’s all-star, Johnson has been having one of the most exciting breakout seasons in recent years. A 6’8” wing who averages 23 points, 8.1 assists and 10.4 rebounds per game, Johnson became one of the league’s premier playmakers out of nowhere. Once just a flashy dunker, the former Duke standout has taken leaps and bounds to reach this point, and it’s proven vital to his team’s success. By no means has he shown signs of leading his team to playoff success, but if the Hawks can add an All-NBA level player beside him, the sky’s the limit.
However, nobody wants to play for the Hawks.
As a player, if you look at the Hawks as a potential free agency option, there just aren’t many positives. They aren’t a big market, they haven’t won anything and they haven’t found a way to build around their superstars.
Although players like Alexander-Walker have been a bright spot for the team this year, they need a bona fide all-star if they want any chance of competing outside of the play-in. Whether that’s by the draft or by developing somebody on their current roster, the Hawks have minimal opportunity to improve unless they make big changes.