What Asymmetrical Discipline Might Look Like

The Atlanta Hawks are a below-average offensive team currently in the second round of the NBA playoffs largely due to excellent defense. They are facing a team with two-plus players (LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, JR Smith often enough relative to his role, or Tristan Thompson whenever the Hawks force a miss) capable of individually overcoming a meaningful percentage of good defensive possessions. 

The Hawks were fortunate to be unfortunate to lose Game 1 given how meekly they bent to the will of Cleveland's defensive game plan in the first half (You're really going to let us take all these contested two-point shots in the paint?!) and how the offense drifted away, over the final six-and-a-half minutes, from what had gotten them back in the game. Inattention, or a lack of commitment, to details will condemn the Hawks to a series loss (that is probable anyway, but humor me).

Here are the best ways the Hawks can try to win the series:

• Paul Millsap, Al Horford, or Thabo Sefolosha guards LeBron James on every possession. The Hawks, inferior shooters, have to attempt more three-pointers than the Cavs to have any chance of winning. Suppress Cleveland's three-point volume by encouraging Kevin Love post-ups with 12 seconds or less left on the shot clock. Bonus: If Love is shooting, the Hawks only have one rampant offensive rebounding big man to account for.
• Grabbing 76% of defensive rebounds isn't great, it's average, but average defensive rebounding is a bonus for the Hawks and better than the league did against the Cavs this season. Between personnel and scheme (Millsap and Horford mitigating a paucity of plus perimeter defenders by defending away from the basket and/or challenging shots at the rim) it takes a collective effort to exceed reasonable expectations. Hard, tiring, necessary work. Do it and I'll lead the accolades.
• Similarly, continue to err on the side of recklessness when closing out on three-point shooters. The Hawks, inferior shooters, have to attempt more three-pointers than the Cavs to have any chance of winning. 
• As much as the Hawks struggled to get the ball in the basket against the Celtics, imagine how bad it could have been had Boston demonstrated an ability to execute the commonly accepted rules for guarding Kyle Korver in 2016. Korver got a couple months' worth of open looks off of a single screen. It was remarkable. JR Smith (and Iman Shumpert in reserve) is not going to allow that volume to Atlanta's most consistent offensive player. The response? Back cuts. Between JR Smith's denial and LeBron James' occasional ball-watching, Korver, Kent Bazemore, and Sefolosha will have the opportunity to contribute a handful of high-quality, two-point shots in the halfcourt.
• Make Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love defend the point of attack every halfcourt possession when they're on the floor. The Hawks went away from this the moment Dennis Schroder rested after his 15-point, 3-assist 10:37 stretch across the third- and fourth-quarters. They did not recover.
• I repeat: The Hawks, inferior shooters, have to attempt more three-pointers than the Cavs to have any chance of winning. Schroder and Bazemore had the right idea by launching 10 three-pointers each. Teague, Millsap, and Horford should each do the same at least once in the series.
• Don't throw away any more possessions by having Tim Hardaway, Jr. on the court. You let Iman Shumpert dribble 25 feet from above the break for a layup, you're done for the series. Any of Sefolosha missing open shots, dual-point guard lineups, tired Bazemore or Korver is a better alternative with margins this narrow.
• Related: don't mindlessly use the one-dimensional reserves, either. Mike Scott is capable of helping the offense. Sefolosha and Mike Muscala will help build good defensive possessions. None of the three can overcome their weaknesses in a vacuum. Play them in 5-man units and against 5-man units that will leverage their strengths and mitigate weaknesses.

All of this may well not be enough. If so, I hope the lesson learned is that taking tactical chances at least increased the chances of winning, and similar chances are taken with the roster this summer. Even if Horford re-signs, the window (such as it is) is 12-24 months. Redundant point guards and coaching up guys from unplayable to league-average eighth- or tenth-men is not a talent maximization strategy likely to get you to the finals. 

Competence is a welcome change for the Atlanta Hawks franchise but competence used as a platform for the occasional daring leap could create much more.

DE-FENSE! DE-FENSE!

But first, three paragraphs largely about offense. I am not a complete crack-pot.

For the first 18 minutes of the game, the Hawks had a ridiculous eFG% of 20.5%. For the next 18 minutes of the game, the Hawks had a ridiculous eFG% of 84.2%. For the entirety of the meaningful 36 minutes of the game, the Hawks had a reasonable eFG% of 54.2%. 

There are reasons beyond cold probability that the Hawks shot significantly better for one stretch of the game than another. The Celtics came out playing very good defense from the jump. Amir Johnson and Jonas Jerebko took Marcus Smart's lead, getting physical leverage against Paul Millsap and Al Horford in the post. Smart and Isaiah Thomas defended Kyle Korver as well as they have so far in the series. That the Hawks were not getting the typical looks that allowed them to shoot 51.6% over 82 games contributed to them shooting 20.5% for a quarter-and-a-half last night.

Similarly, it is not entirely coincidental that the Hawks started making shots with unsustainable frequency at roughly the same moment they started turning stops into transition opportunities. A below average offense looked significantly better when it didn't have to face a set defense as often. Analysis! Observation.

The most frustrating thing about watching the Hawks spend much of the last four playoff series missing a higher percentage of shots than they have over the last two regular seasons is, natch, watching the Hawks miss shots. The second most frustrating thing is the tendency to formulate a supernatural explanation for the misses.

It's not impossible that the Hawks have struggled to convert the chances they're pleased to have created in the playoffs due to a collective character or psychological defect, but I contend the defensive performance they put on, possession-by-possession while shooting 20.5%, at home, in front of an increasingly anxious and frustrated audience demonstrates tremendous discipline and commitment. Which conforms with my prejudice to dismiss the character/psychological explanation for missed shots. Funny how that works.

Variance is not confined to shot-making. Though they've been excellent overall, the Hawks have not been perfect defensively for all five games in this series. They looked shockingly unprepared in the first quarter of Game 3. The transition defense* fell apart in the second half of the third quarter of Game 4. Still, the Hawks are holding the Celtics to 95 points per 100 possessions in this series, by bettering their second-best defense in the regular season numbers in three of the four factors.

*The chief culprit in Game 4, Mike Scott, was excellent for the second time this series, in Game 5.

The Hawks entered the playoffs with a 2-3% chance of winning the title, a 7-8% chance of winning the East, because they allowed 5 fewer points per 100 possessions than the league this season. The Hawks entered the playoffs with a 2-3% chance of winning the title, a 7-8% chance of winning the East, because they scored 1.3 points fewer than the league per 100 possessions this season. Offensive struggles, especially comical offensive struggles, tend toward the obvious. That's but half the story.

Chains, Weakest Links, Etc.

Paul Millsap was spectacular, the Hawks were playing their brand of top-drawer defense (excellent first shot defense, some occasional slippage when the opposition grabbed offensive rebounds), and they were in good shape to survive the dreaded joint indecisive performances from Jeff Teague and Dennis Schroder*.

*Upon whom it is now clearly established to be open season.

The Hawks were up 13 points with 6:33 left in the third quarter. Mike Scott entered the game and was a complete disaster defensively for the next 6:33. Marcus Smart's semi-transition layup at 5:33 was due to Scott panicking and forcing Kent Bazemore not to pick up Smart in transition. Scott could not stay in front of Smart on the downhill, natch. Jonas Jerebko's two threes - at 1:23 to cut Atlanta's lead to 8 and at 0:20 to cut Atlanta's lead to 3 - were both directly attributable to Scott losing all contact with Jerebko at the first opportunity. 

Scott wouldn't play again, but it was game-on at that point, enough for the short-term variance of the Celtics making slop (Marcus Smart's two threes, Isaiah Thomas banking in a 15-footer he threw up at roughly 19-foot weight from the top of the key) while the Hawks missed high-percentage shots (Horford missed a jump hook on the block, a wide-open corner 3, plus wide-open, spot-up 15- and 19-footers, Korver missed both his threes) in the fourth quarter. Said variance then made meaningful Teague dribbling out the final 15 seconds of a tie game in regulation, and the Celtics thoroughly outplaying the Hawks in overtime.

For the glass-half full types, perhaps the Hawks combined the Teague/Schroder dual dud and the lack of quality depth potential losses into a single L. For those inclined toward pessimism, the Hawks just dropped a pair of winnable games against a shameless bunch to reduce their chances of winning the series to home-court advantage over a three-game sample size.

Atlanta's Missing 72 Hours

Game 2 was so broadly, quickly, and thoroughly discussed by professional basketball writers on Wednesday that I didn't bother tossing off a regurgitation of themes in this space. The consensus was that Brad Stevens had a couple of remaining options to mitigate the matchup problems caused by the opposition and his own team's poor health: replace Jared Sullinger to improve spacing and play Isaiah Thomas off the ball to get him opportunities to attack a defense in flux. So why did the Hawks look unprepared for these Boston adjustments defensively? What were they preparing to face for the last 72 hours?

In Game 3, the Celtics started Jonas Jerebko for Sullinger and forced Jeff Teague to chase Isaiah Thomas around the court while Evan Turner initiated offense. The Hawks appeared completely unprepared for the former, sagging toward the lane in their established manner then frantically trying to close down the extra four feet to Jerebko beyond the three-point line. 

When you attack the ball, when you help and recover in sync as much as the Hawks do on defense, four feet is a meaningful distance. If you don't close those four feet? You're either giving up an open shot on the first pass or the next defensive rotation has more ground/less time to close out on the recipient of the next pass. In the first quarter, the Celtics moved the ball and the Hawks couldn't move farther and faster. The Celtics made five three-pointers (Jerebko, Turner, and Jae Crowder* each made their only three-pointer of the game in the first 9:12 of the game), 7 of 11 two-pointers, had a free throw rate of 38.1** and grabbed 25% of the (few) possible offensive rebounds.

*Crowder's three to put the Celtics up 29-14 was perhaps the greatest indictment of the Hawks' lack of defensive execution. Paul Millsap helped down to about 8 feet on a Jared Sullinger iso/post-up in the lane that Mike Muscala (about whom, more below) had under control. Millsap's attention encouraged Sullinger to think about the pass and it was an easy one to make. In short, Millsap gave up an open, spot-up three to a 32% career three-point shooter to double a career 39% shooter from 3-10 feet who struggles to score against length (we remember you, Jeff Withey).

**Season average free throw rate for Hawks opponents: 19.4. Boston's free throw rate in Games 1 and 2 combined: 14.2.

I think the Hawks can adjust to the personnel change. In the last three quarters of Game 3, the Celtics only made six threes, their free throw rate was down to 26.2 (though that would have been higher had the Celtics not missed 7 free throws), and they only grabbed 15% of 33 offensive rebound opportunities. On the other hand, the Celtics continued making two-point shots at a high rate (51.2%) over the final three quarters. There was more space in the lane (and more transition opportunities) than in the first two games. That's where Isaiah Thomas playing off the ball causes real concerns.

Jeff Teague has worked hard over the past three seasons to make himself a passable pick-and-roll defender (at least when he gets to work with Millsap or Al Horford). Chasing a faster player off the ball doesn't allow him to draw on any of those skills he's developed and reduces him to his lowly, natural defensive state. It's not a matter of effort. Teague is trying, but he's being asked to do something new and difficult at the part of basketball he's least good at, at the age of nearly 28.

So how do the Hawks counter? I suspect it will be by rotating their better off-the ball defenders: Kent Bazemore, Thabo Sefolosha, even Dennis Schroder (when the Hawks play him with Teague*). The hope would be that extra defensive length could trouble Thomas with late close-outs** and that Evan Turner could easily be tempted into taking a lot of mid-range, dribble-heavy isos when guarded by Teague. The Hawks should be willing for Evan Turner to attempt all the two-point shots he wants.

*The Teague/Schroder combo was +1 in 6:22 in Game 3. Nothing in that sentence is meaningful other than eliminating "That was awful. Never try that again." from Mike Budenholzer's rotation decision-making tree.

**They would have to be controlled closeouts, running guys off the three-point line, as the Hawks did so consistently well this season. Atypically, the Hawks repeatedly, wildly contested not-that-dangerous two-point jump shots in Game 3. Their defensive excellence is predicated on playing aggressively and not fouling. Take either element away and they quickly trend toward mere above-averageness defensively. Their offense can't make up for that consistently.

On the other end of the floor, the Hawks continued to create good looks and continued to struggle to convert them. Non-Korver Hawks made 4-27 three-point attempts (they would be expected to make ~9 of those over a long enough sample, or, Marcus Smart made as many three-pointers in 4 attempts as Bazemore, Teague, Millsap, Horford, and Schroder did in 20 attempts) and did the following from 5:45 to 3:06 of the game (from 98-101 to 100-104):

• 5:45 - Millsap missed dunk (contested by Isaiah Thomas!)
• 5:31 - Teague layup blocked by Evan Turner
• 4:56 - Teague missed runner/layup
• 4:22 - Horford misses six-footer on the block
• 3:49 - Bazemore made layup
• 3:06 - Horford transition layup blocked by Marcus Smart

Process? I'm certain the Hawks think so. Sunday would be a nice time to show their work.

Notes on the benches:

• Dennis Schroder has played very good basketball over the last two games. Mostly defensively in Game 2 and mostly offensively in Game 3. I don't know that the Celtics are on the right side of their risk/reward calculation re: hitting and baiting Schroder. Sure, you might wind him up enough to retaliate or make a few bad decisions with the ball in his hands in the short-term, but if he gets going you've got no one who can stay in front of him and all of a sudden Teague is the second-best point guard the Hawks have that night. Schroder may frustrate the Hawks, but they love him cooking more than you hate him chirping and a good Schroder game elevates whatever marginal teamwork value exists from an adrenalized boost of fraternal feelings about a common opponent.
• Marcus Smart's block on Horford in transition makes his flopping, sloppy execution (MARCUS SMART CANNOT CONCENTRATE LONG ENOUGH TO GUARD KYLE KORVER), and poor shot selection even more frustrating. It would be a shame if Smart never becomes more than a high-energy Josh Smith with a worse offensive game.
• Mike Scott continues to play fine-to-good basketball in this series, though committing a lane violation when Korver is at the line to complete a Crawford to tie the game is a maddening demerit.
• Mike Muscala continues to show why his consistency led to him falling out of the rotation again this season. He offers consistently strong defense and ineffective offense. His spacing and movement on offense is theoretically sound but consistently less productive than you want. He's not a Pero Antic-level defensive savant, so he needs to figure out how to get the ball in the basket without turning it over. (Career 57% TS% and 33% from three though, so maybe the inconsistent minutes are fooling my puny human brain.)
• It's a toss up on who provided emptier minutes between Tim Hardaway, Jr. and Kirk Hinrich. Which is less of a surprise than Budenholzer playing them a combined six minutes in a competitive game when the Hawks last played on Tuesday. If close, road playoff games don't warrant playing your handful of best players 36+ minutes, then what are we all doing here?

Brad Stevens Has Matchup Problems

There are only so many out of bounds plays Brad Stevens will have the opportunity to call. The Celtics have to figure out a way to get stops because they have to get transition opportunities to score with any sort of efficiency. If anyone other than Isaiah Thomas is dribbling, they look like a college offense and even Thomas was, at times, reduced to throwing himself into the nearest defender and hoping for a referee to bail him out. 

The Celtics were probably fortunate to give up only 102 points. You can maybe wave away the totality of sending the Hawks to the free throw line 35 times through references to late-game intentional fouling and referees with very inconsistent views on allowable contact, but the Celtics don't typically play defense without fouling. They have to be aggressive to force turnovers at their preferred rate. And I don't think you can sell any of the favored narratives used to pretend defenses have a significant influence on single-game three-point percentage. The Hawks 27 three-point attempts were generally taken by the players the Hawks want taking three-pointers, they weren't unduly contested, and they didn't overwhelmingly occur late in the shot clock. 

I don't know what Stevens can do differently, given his personnel, to force the Hawks into lower-percentage field goal attempts. Even hoping the Hawks continue to miss shots is extra cold comfort when you've just let the Atlanta Hawks (the Atlanta Hawks!) grab 27% of their misses. That's an indictment of either your execution or your talent. Amir Johnson is, and always has been, a good player but Millsap and Horford are better than he is at everything he's good at. Stevens showed little interest in playing Kelly Olynyk significant minutes. Jonas Jerebko can only hope to out-Mike Scott Mike Scott*. Jared Sullinger? You can't expect a fat guy with a terrible haircut to accomplish anything substantial against Al Horford.

*Mike Scott played as well as you could hope, more than making up for Dennis Schroder's disappointingly passive play to give the Hawks a crucial seventh contributor. Scott also passed Schroder as the Hawk most likely to take a swing at Marcus Smart. Speaking of, I thought Smart, despite being +6 for the game, offers the greatest hope for improvement for the Celtics in Game 2 and beyond simply by not taking six three-pointers again and showing better assignment discipline when asked to guard Korver.

It's widely recognized going small helps the Celtics less against the Hawks than it does against most teams because the Hawks, since Tiago Splitter was lost for the season, already play 5 out all the time. Going small has less positive impact when Jae Crowder appears incapable of keeping Jeff Teague in front of him. Stevens can't even hide Isaiah Thomas on Kent Bazemore if Bazemore moves without the ball because Thomas will get caught ball-watching. 

All the Celtics guards and wings (with the exception of the now, sadly absent, Avery Bradley) are drawn to the ball, leaving them susceptible to quick, constant, and sound ball and player movement. Which is understandable, given that I started this by talking about how they have to create transition opportunities to score consistently. Such is the stress of being a good team confronting a challenge directed squarely at what you believe makes you good. 

To their credit, there's almost no chance that any doubt the Hawks create for the Celtics will adversely effect Boston's level of effort. Which forces the Hawks to apply relentless pressure to make the Celtics crack the only place they will, the only place that matters: the scoreboard.

Put It Back Together

Through a combination of poor play, poor coaching, and poor health, the 60-win Hawks broke in the Eastern Conference Finals. A dreadful Game 4 performance doesn't mean they shattered into an infinite number of pieces, never to be reassembled. Gallows humor was the healthiest response to the events of Game 4, but that single debacle shouldn't overshadow that the Hawks threw away a chance to win Game 1 due to their curious first-half defensive gameplan and (another playoff game defined by) a second-half medley of missed open shots. Poor game management, on the floor and from the bench, cost the Hawks Game 3 in both regulation and overtime. It was a bad week, but not one that guaranteed playoff elimination, much less one that proved or disproved much about a wildly successful regular season.

Basketball philosophy will always tie this version of the Hawks to the Spurs, but their road to an NBA championship will look much more like the Mavericks: win 50 games a year, every year for a decade, and cash in one of your chances. It will take a minor miracle for these Hawks to acquire a player the caliber of Tim Duncan or David Robinson, but it's not impossible (a healthy) Al Horford could approximate the value of early-30s Dirk Nowitzki. Surround him with affordable, productive veterans, turn at least one role player into a difference-maker through context and performance, and you've got a chance. The Hawks weren't far off this season, and the difference may simply have been the cumulative impact of injuries and wounds.

Because of all the wasted resources during the Atlanta Spirit Group's ownership -- trading away first-round picks, making bad draft picks, losing good first-round picks without compensation -- maintaining a 50-win team with an annual chance to win a title will require the basketball side to make consistent good decisions, and that those good decisions work out. The Hawks aren't in as good a place as they are today without the two trades Danny Ferry made on July 11, 2012. They were massively important deals, but they weren't a solution. They solved one problem and created opportunity, but they did not add assets.

The Hawks (once putting a permanent GM in place) will surely explore all trade* and free agency options this summer. Starting the 2015-16 season with three starters 29 or older, coming off career years (that each ended in injury), and paying the trio twice as much for the privilege isn't utopian, but it may be the best case, short-term scenario. Worrying about standing pat with a wildly successful starting five is, admittedly, a strongly pessimistic point of view. Even if it's an unnecessarily pessimistic concern, those five will require significant improvement of roster spots 8-15 to get better. 

*Considering the most enticing (non-Horford) package the Hawks would want to put together would consist of Teague or Schroder, plus Mike Scott, maybe and/or Bazemore, and Austin Daye's unguaranteed deal, they're unlikely to be involved in a blockbuster, but will surely look to shed some cheap, young, dead weight for a contributor or additional assets.

Likely having reached the limit of the value to be derived from creating wide-open threes for competent shooters (which appears to be making 35% of their 3PTAs in the regular season, possibly much less in the playoffs), the Hawks would be well served to acquire good shooters. The problem being that everybody wants good shooters and the Hawks are probably too good already to be helped by adding any one-dimensional shooters. A one-dimensional shooter isn't a significant improvement over Antic, Bazemore, or Scott. The Hawks need a wing shooter who can also defend, a big man who can shoot and defend, or or a big man who can shoot and rebound, a big man who can defend and rebound.

Theorizing out of the way, how could this work? Assume the Hawks re-sign Millsap and Carroll (which both sides want and there's probably a decent-sized band of years and money which makes everybody happy in both cases and both will likely have trade value in future years), Mike Muscala slides into Pero Antic's role, Pero re-signs to fill Elton Brand's savvy veteran who plays 500 minutes role, the Hawks draft a young wing* or playmaking four** in the first round, draft Alan Williams in the second round, plus an international prospect if they keep a second, second-round pick.

*Without having done my research, Sam Dekker, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, RJ Hunter, and Kelly Oubre are all viable candidates and the Hawks may have their pick of the lot.

**Same caveat: Kevon Looney's the only real candidate in this category who will potentially be available at 15, I think.

That gives a no-trades, free agency loss-less version of the Hawks an asset roster of:

PGs: Teague, Schroder, Mack
Wings: Korver, Carroll, Sefolosha, #15 pick, Bazemore
Bigs: Millsap, Horford, Muscala, Antic, Williams, Scott
Non-guaranteed contract for non-player: Daye
Draft rights: Walter Tavares*, Lamar Patterson
All their own draft picks
Extra future draft picks: Brooklyn's 2017 second-round pick, Miami's 2017 or 2018 second-round pick**, a top-14 protected first-round pick from Minnesota (2018-2020) OR Minnesota's 2020 and 2021 second-round picks

*I don't think Tavares comes over next season if the Hawks keep Millsap, while also trying to integrate Muscala and a first-round pick into the rotation. Then again, the Eastern Conference champion didn't get above .500 for good until mid-January so maybe next season the Hawks punt November and half of December instead of the end of March and the first half of April.

**Pick is protected from 31-40 in 2017, unprotected in 2018.

There's probably enough there at the margins to consolidate a few pieces into a real contributor that's superfluous to or under-appreciated by another team, while also creating player development opportunities. The flip side is that there's probably nothing there that will have multiple teams picking up the phone to instigate a bidding war, though the Hawks will surely listen to any team willing to overpay for anyone or anything, even Horford.

Even if the Hawks lack a clear path forward in terms of personnel decisions, the organization has a very clear idea* of how they will achieve success. However, that clarity is no guarantee of success. There's no way to plan so well as to eliminate injuries, fully control developmental curves (for players, coaches, and the front office), or always overcome the other team's desire and ability to beat you in a seven-game series.

*And make no mistake: that idea begins with acquiring a superstar before, failing that, working its way down to something that resembles the 2014-15 Hawks.

It's difficult, in the wake of a clear vision of exactly how the Hawks reach the NBA Finals, a vision subsequently proven profoundly out of touch with actual events, to embrace the uncertainty of the offseason, with its countless actors, seen and unseen, conflicting agendas, and strange bedfellows. Whatever anticipatory comfort one finds takes the form of trusting in the Hawks knowing what they want to be and the entire organization's ability to learn from their mistakes and shortcomings.

A Distant Voice Previews the 2015 Eastern Conference Finals

The 60-win Atlanta Hawks are underdogs in this series.
   
This makes some kind of sense. David Griffin made the gold-standard GM move this summer by signing LeBron James as a free agent. He made a big, bold offseason trade to add Kevin Love. He made two good in-season trades in a three-day period* to add JR Smith and Iman Shumpert and a first-round pick while simultaneously shedding Dion Waiters**, then acquire Timofey Mozgov to fill an Anderson Varejao-shaped void for the OKC first-round pick they got for Waiters and another future, protected first-rounder. 

The Cavaliers are good. They have the ten-time reigning best player in basketball, they’ve consistently been in the news for positive and/or interesting transactions, and they’re much better on offense than defense.
 
*Coming six and eight days, respectively, after Cleveland’s second loss to the Hawks this season.

**WOAT
 
The 2014-15 Hawks came into being in the summers of 2012 and 2013. They have done nothing interesting off the court (which, sadly, isn’t the same as saying they’ve had nothing interesting off the court done unto them) since. They balance an obviously above-average offense with an atypical above-average defense. The Hawks lack* a franchise player, and they lack direct, or indirect, franchise success.

*NOTE: Does not apply to Al Horford during the 2015 Eastern Conference Semifinals.  

What’s different about the Hawks this year? They’re healthier, mostly, and that enabled them to trust the processes they put in place. Feel that excitement. No? Try this...

The Atlanta Hawks are going to win the Eastern Conference Finals in 5 games.

So. Hmm. How?
   
Short version: the Cavaliers are a poor defensive team that doesn’t match up well with the Hawks.
   
Long version: Lacking the best player in the series (clearly), the Hawks will counter with the second- through sixth-best players. While David Blatt et al. face the unenviable task of identifying Cleveland’s best five-man unit for this series on the fly, Mike Budenholzer knows. More importantly, he has slooooowly demonstrated a willingness to deploy his five-best players for long minutes.  

Cleveland has a choice: prop up their subpar point-of-attack defense with a heavy dose of the Thompson/Mozgov duo (added benefit on the other end of the floor: many offensive rebounds) to protect the paint, or play a single big in order to spread the floor on offense to punish the Hawks for helping each other as much on defense as they do on offense, and reap the whirlwind on the defensive end.  

Neither option is ideal for Cleveland because neither option offers a satisfactory answer to the question, “Who does Kyrie Irving attempt to guard?” Does he defend the Atlanta point guard, leaving Cleveland vulnerable to the pick-and-rolls that bedeviled the last three times the teams met during the regular season? Does he attempt to hide on DeMarre Carroll, which doesn’t really seem a recipe for limiting Atlanta’s open three-point attempts or layups, and may create the only scenario wherein Mike Budenholzer encourages offensive rebounding?  

The Cavs' issues cascade from there: JR Smith* or Shumpert forced to chase Korver for 38 minutes, multiple Cavs forced to cross-match in defensive transition, every potentially devastating instance of LeBron helping on D carrying a risk that could be exploited by one pass from the pass-happiest team in the league.

*Smith has serious defensive scapegoat potential in this series, even if he does little wrong, if Korver starts making 47% of his 3PTAs again.
 
Beyond that, as long as Irving is limited by injury, the Cavaliers become easier for the Hawks to guard. Basically, the Hawks should defend LeBron James the way they defended John Wall in Games 5 and 6:

• Let him create for himself (jumpshots encouraged)
• Do not help off shooters in the corners
• Live with everyone but Kyrie Irving taking above-the-break threes
• Do help late at the rim

Well, actually: LeBron James is much better than John Wall and the rest of what's left of the Cavs is arguably better than Wall's supporting cast.

Well, actually redux: the latter difference is not as great as the defensive difference between the two teams. That’s where the Hawks have to punish Cleveland.  

However, Cleveland’s defensive limitations pose a risk to the Hawks in this series. Unlike their matchup against the Bizarro Playoff Wizards, the Hawks will have to turn the math of two- and three-point shots into their favor this series. Cleveland will likely be willing to give up pick-and-roll created layups rather than pick-and-roll created threes. The Hawks need to make the same trade when LeBron creates in isolation.  

Furthermore, a willingness to let LeBron James attempt to single-handedly outscore the Hawks might, in one fell swoop, help mitigate Thabo Sefolosha’s absence, help keep DeMarre Carroll out of potentially devastating foul trouble, and limit the available energy for James to be an effective help defender. 

These Hawks will never be as good as they were from November 28th to January 30th this season* but that Hawks team is not their opponent. Nor is the Cavs team that didn't get above .500 for good until January 16th, or the Cavs team that went on its own 32-7 run (with 21 double-digit wins). What's left of the Hawks just has to be better than what's left of the Cavs for four of the next seven games.

*And nothing should diminish the unadulterated joy 33-2 brought so many right-thinking people. Not even whatever the Warriors might do to the Hawks in the NBA Finals.

It's Been Pleasant

For the first time in five years, I'm not going to write about the Atlanta Hawks' first game of the regular season. For the first time in five years, I have no specific plans to write about the Atlanta Hawks at all.

First of all, I appreciate the irony of stepping away from the keyboard at the precise moment the franchise made a decision I've been advocating since 2008, just as the Hawks presume to be interesting and new in ways they haven't been over much of the last five seasons.

I'm here because the Kansas City Kings left town when I was 8 years old. As a result of that, I channeled my basketball interest into the college game. I have many great memories because of college basketball but, as a fan and writer, it turned out to be an aesthetic and intellectual dead end.

Secondly, I deeply appreciate everyone who took the time to read anything I wrote about the Hawks.

When I began writing about the Hawks, I didn't have a lot of things in my life that satisfied me. I didn't have anything that provided me a useful and interesting outlet. Writing about the Hawks, interacting with Hawks fans, and entering the genuinely pleasant community of the NBA blogosphere was (this is in retrospect, not something I consciously understood or appreciated at the time) profoundly important in my life.

So I'm also here because Atlanta Hawks fans were passionate and generous with their time and attention to one who adopted their team. Whether you agreed or disagreed with me, whether you let me know of said agreement or disagreement, the semi-public platform I created was an important and valuable part of my life for five years.

What comes next are the thank yous I probably should have expressed more often in the moment. Feel free to read the following, skim it for you name, or skip to the end, as applicable.

I'm here because, after one season of blogging about the Hawks here, Matt Bernhardt invited me to start a Hawks blog at SB Nation. Without that encouragement and opportunity, there's a very good chance I would drifted in yet another different direction after that first season.

I'm here because of the example Henry Abbott set at TrueHoop and the investment of his time, energy and talent in establishing the TrueHoop Network.

I'm here because Kevin Arnovitz called me, told me that Henry Abbott was starting a network of NBA blogs under the TrueHoop banner, and asked if I'd like to write about the Hawks for them. The call surprised and flattered because of my admiration for Kevin, first through his writing at ClipperBlog, even moreso as I've gotten to know him over the years.

I'm here because, on that first phone call, Kevin told me they were getting Kurt Helin and Mike Kurylo for the TrueHoop Network. Both fine writers and, if it hadn't been for Kurt and Mike taking me up on my offer to contribute at CourtsideTimes.net, I might never had made the transition to writing about the NBA.

I'm here because of the people who have made up the TrueHoop Network, because of the colleagues I saw once a year (if that), because of those I've never met in person, all of whom remain comfortably simpatico. There are tens of people I now know with whom I fondly remember sharing a drink, a conversation, and laughs and look forward to doing so again at some unspecified moment in the future. I'm not so foolish as to start a list and leave off one of the many, many friends I've made through the TrueHoop Network. Thank you all.

I'm here because the NBA editors at ESPN.com are really super, generous with both their time and assignments. There is no doubt the opportunities I received there, from being a part of the TrueHoop Network, added legitimacy to the time I spent writing about basketball. Same goes for Bradford Doolittle and Kevin Pelton inviting me to share a little corner of the Atlanta Hawks section of three editions of the Basketball Prospectus annual.

The longtime and old-time Hawks bloggers deserve their own paragraph. A special thank you to Drew and Larry and CoCo and Jason and Kris for the conversations and arguments we've shared, as well as the unexpected delights the Hawks have provided us over the last five years amidst the somewhat more predictable* disappointments. Hawks blogs are as strong as they've ever been, in my opinion, and I look forward to getting to know better the emerging writers. I think this is the spot where I should say I'll still be on Twitter, pitching woe and delight in unequal measure as the Hawks play.

*The Hawks will win 47 games this season. Josh Smith will not be traded, but Devin Harris will.

I'm here because Buddy Grizzard, James Goeders, and Mark Phelps stepped up and recapped a bunch of games this season. Without their efforts, Hoopinion probably would not have survived the lockout.

I'm here because a part of me -- not the best part, mind you -- draws energy from critics, willful mis-readers, and those troubled by my conscious rejection of certainty. One doesn't follow this path for five years because of the money. One follows this path due to some need for attention.

I'm here because Alison Weldon has been tremendously patient regarding the amount of time I've spent watching, thinking, and writing about the Atlanta Hawks over the last five years.

I'm going because I'm marrying Alison and because I found a real job. These two things are related, and wonderfully so. Miraculously, really, when it comes to the former. Both of those developments are an outgrowth of the work I've done here. Hoopinion has served as a way station between an old, uncertain self and one embracing adult life, for better and worse. Mostly better. It is bittersweet that, as my life has developed in these wonderful ways, it crowds out the time necessary to give this effort, which I also love, the attention it deserves.

I don't think I'm going because I'm running low on valuable things to say about the Hawks, but I've been spectacularly, hilariously wrong before and better to leave the party early than for your host to find you passed out on the bathroom floor. Or so I've heard.

Regarding that, if anyone reading this is on the fence about starting out in this, or a similar arena, especially anyone young, my advice is to write. Make yourself do the work. The rewards will often seem ephemeral, at best. Then, looking back, they appear vast. And unending.

If you bet it hit rim, proceed to the window and collect your money.

Thanks for reading, everybody. It's time for me to go. 

ESPN.com: Doolittle: East win projections

Friend of the blog Bradford Doolittle published the Basketball Prospectus win projections for the Eastern Conference yesterday (Insider). Therein, the current state 2012-13 Atlanta Hawks projected to win the second-most games in the Eastern Conference. The (pleasant) surprise of the ordinal rankings make it possible to overlook that the projections have the Hawks winning games at a lesser rate than their 2011-12, fifth-best record in the East performance. This isn't an argument that the Hawks get better, it's that the East gets worse.

As for why the Hawks project to win* almost 49 games after trading away their two best wing players in salary dump deals, I think the explanation is fairly simple. Because Marvin Williams is such a low usage player and Joe Johnson is not an especially efficient scorer (and surely projects to decline in any forecasting system given he's on the age precipice for good but nor great shooting guards), a collection of fairly efficient low usage players (Morrow, Korver, maybe John Jenkins) and a couple of not especially efficient high usage players (Devin Harris and Lou Williams) simulates to be similar to the Hawks having kept Williams and Johnson.

Nor should we overlook in the upheaval that a (healthy) primary post rotation of Josh Smith, Al Horford and Zaza Pachulia with the fully competent Jordan Williams and Ivan Johnson in reserve, is a really nice post rotation.

I don't think it will play out along the lines of this projection because of the uncertainty of the practical changes in usage and roles for so many players. Plus, until Ferry acquires a good perimeter defender, Smith and Horford will have their work cut out to make this an average defensive team and team defense has to have a similarly large margin for error in any forecast. And there's always the chance that Danny Ferry makes a conscious decision to win fewer games in 2012-13 in order to improve the franchise's program's chances of winning a championship thereafter.

In the accompanying Summer Forecast, the ESPN.com NBA team collectively picks the Hawks to win 40 games and finish eighth in the East next season. Assuming the Hawks try to win for the entire season, I pegged them at 45 wins, envisioning them playing an offensively entertaining but defensively abysmal style.

Once More, With Feeling: Reviewing Marvin Williams' Years in Atlanta

Previously: Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, Larry Drew, Rick Sund

In retrospect, Marvin Williams' time with the Atlanta Hawks never made more sense than the night he was drafted. Oh, in hindsight it was a mistake to take Marvin ahead of Chris Paul or, to a significantly lesser* extent, Deron Williams, but it was a mistake 28 other teams likely would have made. It's only in pairing hindsight with selective memory, forgetting Deron Williams' college playing weight, forgetting how bad Wake Forest was defensively, forgetting the final two weeks of Chris Paul's college career were lowlighted by both his punch to Julius Hodge's groin and a second-round loss in the NCAA Tournament as a 2-seed, that drafting Marvin Williams becomes a singular, spectacular act of incompetence.

(I understand you may disagree. For me to take you seriously, you'll need to cite your work. An unsupported "I knew back then" is not convincing. Here's mine. There is much wrong within.)

There were questions about Paul and Williams. Marvin Williams was potential. He didn't fulfill much that potential as an Atlanta Hawk. It's unclear how much of that was due to his limitations, unrecognized during the 22 minutes a game he played during his lone season at North Carolina, and how much was due to organizational dysfunction.

*In hindsight, Utah made a pretty sizable mistake in taking Williams ahead of Paul, too, though that generally goes unmentioned.

On his rookie deal, Williams often played ahead of the superior Josh Childress. Once the Hawks, quite reasonably, chose the younger Williams over Childress and signed Marvin to a sizable extension, the team, quite inexplicably, became disillusioned with him almost immediately. Despite the sizable extension and Williams being the only legit small forward on the roster, he found himself in a reduced role that never gave him a chance to justify the contract. Not that he would have justified it, given the chance. His almost tragically poor playoff performances added to the impression that Williams was not one to seize the moment.

Williams took grief for being an okay player drafted two spots ahead of an all-time great. For being offered a long, large extension despite being, in his brighter stretches, no more than a useful player. For his usefulness coming in ways likely to be unappreciated. In Atlanta, Marvin Willliams came to tick many of the boxes on the list of ways to be an underrated player: an efficient, low-volume scorer who didn't turn the ball over, a slightly above average defender, and a fine rebounder who played only 30 minutes a game.

Much like Joe Johnson, but at a lesser cost, Marvin Williams couldn't hope to match the organization's over-investment in his talents, especially given how he was utilized. Exactly like Joe Johnson, Marvin Williams is not his contract, nor is he what might have been had the Atlanta Hawks never acquired him. Marvin Williams is an adequate player who, in fresh circumstances, could, in his age-26 and age-27 seasons, justify the final two years of his contract. For his sake, I hope he gets that chance in Utah.

The Future

Through two trades announced within a couple of hours of each other on Monday, Danny Ferry transformed the Atlanta Hawks from one of the most capped-out teams in the league to one that will have $30-40 million in cap space next Summer when Chris Paul and Dwight Howard and Andrew Bynum and James Harden and Serge Ibaka will all be free agents. And cap space isn't just for signing free agents. It gives an organization the flexibility to take advantage of other teams' dysfunction to add quality players and assets. A numbingly cautious and predictable organization became bold and opened itself up to countless possibilities.

The Hawks are going to be far more interesting now that their ambitions extend beyond hosting a couple of second-round playoff games but greater ambitions and smart management provides no guarantee of greater success. Kevin Pritchard couldn't turn and Daryl Morey hasn't turned sound methodology into a championship contending team. Sam Presti runs a model franchise but it's got to be better than even money the Thunder don't win an NBA title on his watch. Danny Ferry was there as the Spurs saw what might be their last hurrah turn from two months of glorious basketball into playoff elimination in the course of a week. For all the ambition, talent, and hubris collected in Miami, Pat Riley and the Heat felt both accomplishment and relief in winning the NBA title. It's terribly difficult to win a championship.

Here's the thing: reaching the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in franchise history won't be all that satisfying if the Hawks lose that series. That's the nature of fandom. Team success breeds desire for more success. For now, for the first time in a very long time*, the desires of the Atlanta Hawks and the desires of Atlanta Hawks fans are in sync. I think we have to enjoy that, embrace the possibilities or the playoff losses and the injuries (in various degrees, both will come) will won't make it feel like a better place. For Hawks fans, it is.

*I don't count the Joe Johnson sign-and-trade. That was a move made out of desperation and insecurity, one that diverted resources which could have been used for rebuilding into the acquisition of an above average player. It laid the foundation for an era of competency despite mismanagement, realized only through moving up in the 2007 lottery and drafting Al Horford to pair with Josh Smith. The Hawks didn't have a winning record until you could honestly argue that one of those two, rather than Johnson, was the best player on the team.

Great Trade. Who'd We Get?

So ends an era. One wherein terrible management turned a good player into a profound organizational handicap. Michael Cunningham reports:

The Hawks and Nets have agreed to terms on a trade that will send All-Star guard Joe Johnson to Brooklyn for expiring contracts and a first-round pick, according to a person with knowledge of the deal.

Let's hear it for Danny Ferry, who performed a miracle. And let's hear it for Billy King, who saw the post-prime years of (presently) an above average score and passer who doesn't rebound, whose defense can best be described as "won't kill you if you put him on the other team's second-most dangerous wing" and thought to himself, "That's worth $90 million and a first-round draft pick."

The cost of the Joe Johnson era was only, it turned out, $105 million, one first-round pick, and one league average player. Danny Ferry turned a potential disaster into something that didn't work out as planned.

The Hawks have moved on. This trade doesn't improve them in the short-term, it only makes improvement possible in the future. Ferry will have to make several good decisions (and have them work) to get the Hawks to win two playoff series in a season for the first time since they moved to Atlanta.

Tonight, though raise a glass to Ferry, to Joe Johnson, to Billy King, and to the future.

A Draft Dissent

I gave myself a day to find something more valuable than frustration and disappointment to express regarding John Jenkins and Mike Scott being the 23rd and 43rd selections in the 2012 NBA Draft.

In Jenkins, the Hawks acquired a one-trick pony. Granted, Jenkins' trick is the most important in the game. He can make shots. Problem being, he can't create shots and there's little evidence that Larry Drew's offensive system is capable of consistently creating quality shots for players. Furthermore, given Drew's tendency to play his reserves en masse, Jenkins figures to get court time with to be determined reserves who will, in all likelihood, be more comfortable creating shots for themselves than others.

Unless injuries force his hand, Drew has shown little willingness to give inexperienced players consistent minutes. Jenkins will always be a percentage player. Give him enough open looks from beyond the arc and he will score points efficiently. In a situation where a couple misses in a row might lead to Jenkins getting a week off, his limitations as a player could even be exaggerated as a Hawk.

In short, Jenkins is a nice second-round talent the Hawks drafted in the first round who does not, pending roster completion and/or changes, have a defined role to play for a team that, historically, has done a poor job of leveraging its players strengths while mitigating their weaknesses.

Regardless of identity, it is unreasonable to expect anything from the 43rd pick in the draft. Mike Scott does not figure to challenge that precept. Successful as a fifth-year senior at Virginia, Scott turns 24 in a couple of weeks. He's just two years younger than Marvin Williams and Al Horford. There's little precedent of a power forward draftee of any age succeeding in the NBA with the poor athleticism markers evident in the stats from Scott's excellent senior season. Scott averaged just one blocked shot and 1.4 steals per 100 on-court defensive possessions. He rebounded less than ten percent of Virginia's misses.

It's difficult to find recent comparisons to Scott's numbers. Best I can come up with are Luke Harangody without demonstrating college three-point range, a less efficient Tyler Hansbrough, or Gary Wilkinson, who went undrafted out of Utah State and currently stars in the Australian league. All three of those guys turned the ball over significantly less than Scott in their final college seasons so even the best comparisons for Scott break down eventually and not in his favor.

Furthermore, it's puzzling to comprehend how Scott fits on a roster with Ivan Johnson. Were Scott younger, it might make more sense to carry him as fifth big man (sure to be sixth once the Hawks sign a franchise-defining third-string center) in the hopes he develops into a rotation player. With Johnson yet to receive a qualifying offer, the suspicion lurks that the Hawks may be comfortable replacing him with an inferior, younger (but no young) player, in order to save about $500,000.

All in all, would the Hawks be significantly worse off, from a talent perspective, not even considering the combination of talent plus the inherent value of using the 23rd and 43rd picks to acquire additional talent, with the undrafted pair of William Buford and Drew Gordon?

Name	Age	TS%	Pts/100	A/100	TO/100	BS/100	S/100	OR%	DR%
Jenkins	21	66.2	36.5	2.2	2.9	0.6	1.5	1.7	8.2
Buford	23	52.5	25.9	4.8	3.9	0.4	1.5	3.2	14.4
Scott	23	62.8	38	2.5	4.4	1	1.4	9.7	24
Gordon	21	59.1	27.2	2.4	4.6	2	2.2	12.4	28.6

Jenkins and Scott are clearly the superior scorers. Not to get all Prof. Berri here, but that's the simplest explanation for why they were drafted while Buford and Gordon were not. However, as all around players, what certainty is there that Buford, longer and more athletic than Jenkins, won't become a superior two-way role player to the Hawks' first-rounder? Does Gordon's relative youth and superior activity defensively and as a rebounder really suffer that much in comparison to Scott's superiority in knocking down a face-up jumper?

We'll see, won't we.

The TrueHoop Network Held a Mock Draft

With the stipulation that we make predictions rather than express preferences and given the first 22 selections made by my colleagues, I have the Hawks taking Royce White.

1. New Orleans: Anthony Davis (Joe Gerrity, Hornets247.com)
2. Charlotte: Thomas Robinson (Spencer Percy, Queen City Hoops)
3. Washington: Bradley Beal (Kyle Weidie, Truth About It)
4. Cleveland: Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (Colin McGowan, Cavs: The Blog)
5. Sacramento: Harrison Barnes (James Ham, Cowbell Kingdom)
6. Portland: Andre Drummond (Sean Highkin, Portland Roundball Society)
7. Golden State: Dion Waiters (Rasheed Malek, WarriorsWorld.net)
8. Toronto: Jeremy Lamb (Sam Holako, Raptors Republic)
9. Detroit: John Henson (Dan Feldman, PistonPowered)
10. New Orleans: Damian Lillard (Joe Gerrity, Hornets247.com)
11. Portland: Kendall Marshall (Sean Highkin, Portland Roundball Society)
12. Milwaukee: Perry Jones III (Jeremy Schmidt, Bucksketball)
13. Phoenix: Terrence Ross (Ryan Weisert, Valley of the Suns)
14. Houston: Tyler Zeller (Jared Dubin, Hardwood Paroxysm)
15. Philadelphia: Terrence Jones (Carey Smith, Philadunkia)
16. Houston: Austin Rivers (Robert Silverman, KnickerBlogger)
17. Dallas: Quincy Miller (Connor Huchton, The Two Man Game)
18. Minnesota: Meyers Leonard (Steve McPherson, Hardwood Paroxysm)
19. Orlando: Tony Wroten (Eddy Rivera, MBN)
20. Denver: Andrew Nicholson (Kalen Deremo, Roundball Mining Company)
21. Boston: Jared Sullinger (Brendan Jackson, CelticsHub.com)
22. Boston: Moe Harkless (Brendan Jackson, CelticsHub.com)
23. Atlanta: Royce White (Bret LaGree, Hoopinion)
24. Cleveland: Arnett Moultrie (Colin McGowan, Cavs: The Blog)
25. Memphis: Fab Melo (Red Coleman, 3sob.com)
26. Indiana: Marquis Teague (Tim Donahue, 8p9s)
27. Miami: Jeff Taylor (Beckley Mason, HoopSpeak)
28. Oklahoma City: Draymond Green (Royce Young, Daily Thunder)
29. Chicago: Will Barton (Matt McHale, Bulls by the Horns)
30. Golden State: Jared Cunningham (Rasheed Malek, WarriorsWorld.net)

Given the same situation, I would prefer Draymond Green and Evan Fournier to White. This is where you tell me I'm wrong.

Danny Ferry Hired As GM

Danny Ferry's tenure as GM of the Cleveland Cavaliers is not impressive. He inherited LeBron James, Anderson Varejao, and Zydrunas Ilgauskas. For the positive of the Mo Williams trade, there's the negative of signing Larry Hughes to a 5-year, $60 million contract as a free agent. For the positive of drafting Shannon Brown and Danny Green, there's the negative of neither playing useful minutes for the Cavaliers. Ferry traded for Ben Wallace and Shaquille O'Neal, but well after either could play significant minutes anymore. His last major move, trading for the 33-year-old Antawn Jamison, didn't work.

I fear it's this history, of drafting out-of-sync with his head coach, adding an above average player to an undisturbed core rather than making a move of profound and risky change, signing a player in the hopes he'll be something he hasn't been before, acquiring the fading, ex-famous rather than promising players and giving them a defined role to play, acquiescing to ownership's desire to win now, even the Cleveland franchise's futile fascination with the potential of Wheeler's JJ Hickson that makes him a natural fit with the Atlanta Spirit Group rather than an indication of a new direction.

Not that a new direction would be especially feasible for anyone to forge given the years of entrenchment represented by the franchise's current roster and cap situation.

Despite my general misgivings, Ferry's hiring offers one indisputable reason for optimism: a six-year contract. Danny Ferry's contract lasts longer than Joe Johnson's. Long-term planning could return to the Atlanta Hawks for the first time since Billy Knight mused as to how many wings could play at the same time. Given the fairly predictable and familiar near-future (unpredictability only coming via the potentially unsatisfying conclusion of Josh Smith's time with the team), the possibility of a long-term plan, even if it exists as a mirage for the time being, offers Hawks fans a reason for real, true hope.

Once More, With Feeling: Reviewing Joe Johnson's Season

Previously: Josh Smith, Larry Drew, Rick Sund

The second season of Joe Johnson's second, more ridiculous contract with the Atlanta Hawks demonstrated some practical understanding of his strengths and limitations. Up to a point, it was as good a season as could reasonably expected from Johnson at this stage of his career. That point was the playoffs.

During the regular season, Johnson, presumably recognizing his increasing inability to create high-percentage shots for himself or for teammates, demonstrated a greater willingness to finish rather than start possessions and he finished possessions from behind the three-point line more often (per minute and as a percentage of his field goal attempts) than in any previous season in Atlanta. The result of his slightly smaller role in the offense: significantly more efficient scoring at the cost of some assists. A fair trade.

With Mike Bibby and Jamal Crawford replaced in the rotation by Jeff Teague and Kirk Hinrich, Johnson was no longer burdened with futile defensive assignments. Johnson took on a role more suited to his lack of athleticism and general defensive passivity. He stopped fouling almost completely (committing a little more than one personal foul every 36 minutes and committing more than three personal fouls in a game on three occasions, one of them being the triple overtime loss to Miami) and let his already poor defensive rebounding rate shrink to 9.2%. Neither of these prevented the Hawks from improving significantly defensively, suggesting that reducing Johnson's defensive role was a net positive. He even had a (relative) shot blocking explosion, rejecting 13 shots in 2127 minutes after blocking just 12 shots in more than 5400 minutes during the previous two seasons combined.

Despite the positive results, all this sensibility regarding Joe Johnson disappeared in the playoffs. Injuries didn't help matters but, even at less than 100%, Josh Smith and Al Horford clearly looked superior, outplaying the overextended Johnson in the playoffs. That's old news. In a new development, Jeff Teague joined them in outshining Johnson.

Johnson repeatedly failed to create good shots for himself or his teammates while struggling to chase Paul Pierce around screens for much of the series. Yet it was Johnson, dribbling nowhere good against a set defense to which the Hawks turned again and again until elimination. It was the worst of Johnson's five mediocre-to-poor playoff performances as a Hawk.

The series also re-raised the question of whether the limitations Johnson's contract has put on the team from a player personnel standpoint will continue to carryover onto the court. There are now three younger teammates (Smith, Horford, and Teague) capable of making Johnson a more effective player the more they are on the court, the more they have the ball in their hands. The Hawks are overpaying Joe Johnson to be an above average player. The overpayments* will continue after Johnson has ceased to be an above average player. The team must get maximum value out of him while there remains value to be had.

*Since Rashard Lewis was traded again this week, a word regarding untradeable contracts: untradeable contracts become tradeable once another team is in possessions of a contract (or contracts) as large, but longer than the one you want to get out from under. Joe Johnson's contract has four years to run and more than $89 million due. Also, unlike Lewis, Johnson's contract is fully guaranteed.

Once More, With Feeling: Reviewing Josh Smith's Season

Previously: Larry Drew, Rick Sund

The jump shots don't reflect well on anyone: not the player, not the head coach, not the organization. The player's insistence on taking the jump shots, the head coach's indulgence thereof, and the organization's dysfunction can also overwhelm the depth and breadth of the player's contributions to winning basketball games.

Josh Smith's stubborn insistence on taking lots and lots of jump shots, more than 500 of them during the 2011-12 regular season, again existing in tandem with some very poor free throw shooting (63%, not even matching his poor 67% career rate), suggests the answer as to why Smith does this to himself, and his team, rests in the realm of psychology. Whatever need low-percentage shots fills for Smith appears to be insatiable. There's no debate to be had about Smith's shot selection. These are bad shots. Taking so many of them hurts the team and prevents him from making maximum use of his varied talents.

But Josh Smith is not just the sum negative value of those jump shots. Nor was Larry Drew, last season, simply an enabler of his best player's worst offensive habit. Drew also made it possible for Smith to take great advantage of his best defensive attribute. By shedding the worst defensive players from the backcourt and generally playing guards and wings capable of defending their positions, Drew allowed Smith to serve as a true help defender. No longer was he forced to rescue an incompetent or mismatched teammate, he could provide a second level of defensive pressure on opponents.

Because Larry Drew's offense either encouraged or accepted jump shots over more efficient shot types, the Hawks had to win with defense. Smith led that effort. And, because he was helping rather than bailing out his teammates, Smith's efforts didn't remove him from defensive rebounding position as often as in past seasons. He posted a career-best 24.8 DR%.

Position, it must be admitted, is a relative term when applied to Smith the defender. He doesn't box out, instead relying on his athleticism to react faster than an in-position opponent can to a missed shot. It's that lack of anticipatory work that prevents Smith from being as effective a defender at the point of attack as he is when providing help. It's what keeps him (legitimately) off the All-Defensive Team. It's also what keeps him from being an attractive candidate for a second long contract.

Between his established preference to take jump shots despite ample evidence that the other team wants him take every damn one of them and his reliance on athleticism for essentially everything positive he does defensively, Smith is not a great candidate to age gracefully. What part of his on-court activity and demeanor indicates that he will adapt to the diminishing of his physical gifts? Even a willingness to completely change the way he approaches the game wouldn't guarantee success in an endeavor as difficult as completely changing the way he approaches the game. Josh Smith is the most Josh Smith player in the league. Could he ever be something else? Someone less different?

It's a bit of an intellectual exercise anyway. Because of the aforementioned organizational dysfunction, signing Josh Smith to another long-term contract appears impossible from either side of the negotiation. Because of the aforementioned organizational dysfunction and Smith's sui generis style of contribution to winning making him best appreciated and understood the more one is exposed to his play, his trade value, even coming off a career season, may not match his on-court value.

Considering that potential complication, the specter of Smith's age-related decline, and that the Hawks have, quite consciously, put themselves in a position where they are incapable of adding a quality player alongside Smith and Al Horford it's possible to argue with a straight face that the best course of action for the team would be to keep Smith for the final year of his current contract, hope Joe Johnson can remain above average (in the regular season, at least) for 12 more months, and make one more stumbling run toward hosting two second-round playoff games.

Barring the unlikely event of a run to the 2013 Eastern Conference Finals, the story of Josh Smith's time with his hometown team will be told in a series of questions asked: What if Josh Smith had channeled the things he needed to prove into the things he could do? What if the franchise hadn't invested so heavily for so long in a player so obviously inferior to Josh Smith? What if the franchise had invested in an experienced head coach in an attempt to get the most out of Josh Smith?

Only the first of those questions still has a chance of being answered in a satisfactory fashion. To know that answer would be worth losing the future rights to Smith for nothing. Not to know that answer, ever, would be the more fitting conclusion to the Josh Smith experience, simultaneously the most hopeful and frustrating aspect of the last eight seasons in Atlanta. Appreciation expressed through expectations, accepted by acts of defiance.

Once More, With Feeling: Reviewing Larry Drew's Season

Previously: Rick Sund

With a couple of exceptions, Larry Drew had a very good regular season. With a couple of exceptions, Larry Drew had a very poor playoff series. There are some commonalities between these disparate results.

Larry Drew really trusts his bench and likes to use them a lot. In addition to giving Jannero Pargo and Willie Green credit for making shots this season, one has to give Drew credit for consistently putting them in situations to succeed, to the extent they can. If you're going to play Pargo and Green, you can't get too upset about the things they do (or don't do) that made them freely available talent in the first place. Sure, injuries played a role, but Drew's instinct to look for additional players he could use also gave us Ivan Johnson's delightful regular season.

Johnson was something of an exception as Drew's trust typically extends to veterans. The career years from Pargo and Green were off-set (not so much on the court but at a franchise level) by the absurdity of the team going over the luxury tax line to have Jerry Stackhouse and Erick Dampier sit at the end of the bench.

Tracy McGrady was something of an exception to the rule as well though the reluctance to extend the trust inherent in a regular rotation role to a player physically unable to play both ends of a back-to-back during a compressed season, a player physically unable to finish every game in which he did play more isn't so mysterious.

Certainly not as mysterious as Drew fundamentally underestimating the difference between regular season and playoff basketball. Though not an especially good professional basketball team at this point, the Celtics are a clear cut above the non-playoff teams in the Eastern Conference, against whom the Hawks ably padded their regular season record by winning 22 of 25 games. Furthermore, Doc Rivers made every effort to highlight his team's remaining strengths while mitigating their numerous limitations.

One trait of Drew's benefited the Hawks in the playoffs. He's a players' coach. In the regular season that trait manifested itself in such ugly ways as letting Kirk Hinrich come back from shoulder surgery weeks before he was ready, letting Joe Johnson play on one leg for a stretch in February, and letting Josh Smith shoot 500 jumpers with an eFG% below 37%. In the playoffs, the trait manifested itself in letting Smith and, especially, Al Horford play significant minutes while injured. Both were clearly limited by their injuries, but they were also easily the team's two most productive players and central in extending the series to the final seconds of Game 6 despite Drew's self-sabotage over the first three games.

To be sure, Larry Drew drew a bad hand for the playoff series but he played that hand poorly. He willingly rested his few above average and healthy players en masse for the first three games of the series, with disastrous results. He too often tried to defend Kevin Garnett with either Jason Collins or Marvin Williams. The former (from Game 2 onward) couldn't cover Garnett in space, the latter couldn't handle him on the post. He repeatedly allowed the team to go away from what was working (usually Jeff Teague in a two-man game with either Smith or Horford) to Joe Johnson dribbling toward an empty possession.

The series was there for the taking. One flawed team made a concerted, unified effort to take it. The other team did not.

Depending on where the breakeven point on home playoff games is exactly, the franchise is probably getting good value on their investment in Drew but not so much to make up for the money wasted on other people or to push the team significantly closer to contending for a championship.