 |
| Atlanta Hawks' Demarre Carroll draws a foul from Washington Wizards' Bradley Beal on his way to the basket during Game 6 of an NBA basketball second-round playoff series, Friday, May 15, 2015, in Washington. The Hawks won 94-91 and advanced to the Eastern Conference finals. (Curtis Compton, Atlanta Journal-Constitution) |
Of all the known quantities headed to the NBA's final four, the Atlanta Hawks are the team in no clear category.
Atlanta is the biggest remaining unknown.
We think we know the Hawks.
They are the team with no star. We dock them for that. They are the team with no go-to guy in the clutch. We dock them for that. They are the team that plays like a team, which we say we like, but then say those kinds of teams have no chance to win.
And yet, here they are.
It's time we get to know them. I mean, really get to know them, and embrace what they have done and what they may still have yet to do — four wins from being in the NBA Finals.
They are the latest challengers to the "star system" way of doing things in the NBA.
This is good for a league that has been forever slow to come around to the realization that there is more than one way of doing things. The San Antonio Spurs started us down this road, winning last year's NBA title with the kind of free-flowing, team basketball that had everyone from coast to coast exalting the beauty of it all and exclaiming that this was the way the game was meant to be played.
Well, the Hawks are Spurs light.
They are a better barometer for the litmus test of whether this crazy strategy actually has a future. There are no Hall of Famers on the squad — the Spurs have three, and a coach, who will find themselves in Springfield, Mass., someday.
These Hawks don't have any of that. They have four all-stars, which is a good start. Three players with regular-season player efficiency ratings in the top 39 help as well. And none of those three is DeMarre Carroll, who in the playoffs leads the team in points (17.1) and 3-point percentage (.439), is second in field-goal percentage (.524) and is third in rebounds (6.8).
By contrast, the Nuggets' highest-rated player was Ty Lawson, who checked in at No. 60.
And speaking of 60, that's the number of wins the Hawks had this season, second only to the Golden State Warriors. There aren't a ton of style points associated with the Hawks, save for the occasional 3-point barrage. There are just wins. The wins are what matter most.
And so we all watch, and wait, to see if this becomes the latest example of a team built in this fashion that is able to break through.
No one in the NBA copies it until you win a title.
And sometimes even if you do (see the Detroit Pistons, circa 2004), you are dismissed as the exception to the rule.
Except, this would be 2-for-2 in consecutive seasons for team ball winning big. That would have to embolden especially smaller-market teams to know winning on that level isn't an exclusive club reserved for big-name players.
We'll see.
Because the biggest name player of them all stands in Atlanta's immediate path: LeBron James.
He knows this space. This is his world, annually — playoff games contested into late May and early June. The Hawks, who haven't been to the conference finals since 1970, are the upstarts.
LeBron, however, is also no stranger to losing to well-constructed teams. His Miami Heat was thoroughly whipped in last year's Finals by San Antonio. The Hawks, in fact, beat Cleveland in three of four games during the regular season. Those wins were all over the place — one against the old-look Cavs, one with James sitting out the game and one against the new-look Cavs.
Not that the regular season means much.
But a Hawks win in this series would. It would be another piece of validation to the belief that you can win big without the superstar. It would give other general managers the courage to put teams together differently, if they so choose. It would give more fans in more cities a sense that, yes, their team could make a run too.
Those things would make the NBA a better place.
Source : denverpost.com
No comments: