The surprising Atlanta Hawks -- and the way they were built -- should become required study for those NBA general managers who wheel and deal too fast, making change for the sake of change, always searching for the quick fix.
The Hawks are proving that patience does work.
The Hawks (9-2) have become the top team in the East, quietly moving past the freer spending Celtics, Cavaliers and Magic, the high-profile contenders who previously thought it was a three-team race to the top of the conference.
Shame on the NBA owners for being greedy, trying to milk their teams for an unbelievable eight exhibition games on top of an already marathon regular season and a taxing playoff march.
Eight is too many. Just ask Los Angeles Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy, who now may be without his star rookie prize Blake Griffin in Tuesday's much-anticipated opener against the cross-arena Lakers.
Griffin hurt his left knee Friday night in exhibition No. 8, a game that never should have been played if the league had listened to players, coaches, trainers and even nonsensical sports writers who have said for years that there is no need for so many meaningless games.
Hard to believe that several NBA general managers can have regrets after two years, but it's true. The results of the 2007 NBA Draft are slowly reaping, which should teach a lesson to their 2009 brethren on Thursday about taking chances on raw college players, international prospects and even those who are allegedly "proven."
The biggest debate two years ago was whether the Portland Trail Blazers should take Greg Oden or Kevin Durant first overall. Oden was a franchise center out of Ohio State while Durant was the smooth scoring swingman from Texas. Durant had the better workout with the Blazers, apparently blowing the mind of coach Nate McMillan. Yet, the Blazers stuck with conventional thinking and took the big man.
The Atlanta Hawks are considered one of the NBA's rising teams, as evidenced by consecutive playoff appearances for the first time in 10 years. The Hawks, however, were easily swept in the Eastern Conference semifinals by the Cleveland Cavaliers, who spent four games exposing Atlanta's numerous flaws and weaknesses. The Hawks are approaching a critical time for their franchise, with Mike Bibby a free agent and third-year forward and former lottery pick Marvin Williams seemingly without a role.
Hawks legend Dominique Wilkins, the team's vice president of basketball, said the Hawks need two key components to challenge, Boston, Orlando and Cleveland for Eastern Conference supremacy.
It's been five months since the Hawks last beat the Cavaliers -- their lone win in four tries in the regular season was on Dec. 13, 2008 -- but after watching the Cavs absolutely destroy the visitors from Atlanta in the first two games of the second round, it may as well be five years.
Cleveland won Thursday's game 105-85, but that doesn't even begin to convey how much they dominated the Hawks. The Cavs had a 30-point lead entering the fourth quarter, at which point Mike Brown pulled all of his starters. The Cavs improved to 6-0 in the postseason, winning every game by double-digits while holding their opponent to 90 points or fewer each time.
Cavaliers 105, Hawks 85: Recap | Box Score Cavs Lead 2-0 | Next Game: Saturday @ Atlanta, 8 PM ET
Radio announcers for the home team are supposed to be homers, but Hawks announcer Steve Holman stooped to a new low earlier this week with his over the top calls from Game 5, from sarcastically chiding Dwyane Wade for getting hurt early in the game to blowing out of proportion routine fouls.
On the eve of Game 6, Holman's comments have created a minor furor in South Beach, even as both though the league and the Hawks have (indirectly) admitted that Holman was full of hot air.
NBA Playoff 4-5 matchups are often the best of the first round. Usually the two teams are within a few wins of each other. They're not a level of David and Goliath, and both teams are usually mortal enough to make it interesting. Such is the case with tonight's matchup of the Atlanta Hawks and the Miami Heat. As such, we're rocking the live blog action again tonight. Join us after the end of Orlando-Philadelphia for Hawks-Heat. Joe Johnson. Dwyane Wade. Make this happen.
Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the "lig." Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.
The Clippers -- at full health with the monster bigs line-up for only the third game this season -- visited Oakland so Baron Davis could get cheered and smash some Warriors management egos. Except that, sorry sir, the Warriors will be doing the ego-smashing around here.
It doesn't seem that long ago that the Southeast was an afterthought. I'm aware that sounds stupid as this division attempts to rise to serious L-bound prominence, but it's true -- before Dwight Howard and before Dwyane Wade and before Josh Smith and before Jeff McInnis ... what was there?
It doesn't particularly matter now; the division is still only an erstwhile powerhouse; you would never see a prediction coming that any one of these teams can contend for the NBA title right now, and that's what matters in these sort of things.
Of course, Orlando is a different story of sorts. Maybe. At least we have to wonder: Does Hedo Turkoglu Still Have the Special Sauce?
The Hawks' Marvin Williams injured his left thumb in the first half of last night's win over the Bobcats. It doesn't appear to be too serious -- head coach Mike Woodson afterward said "nothing's broken" and Williams himself said he could "bend it but not extend it," so all signs point to him being just fine.
The bright side is that the team played the second half without him, and apparently looked good while doing so. They were able to go with a bigger lineup of Zaza Pachulia at center, Al Horford at the four, and Josh Smith on the wing, which instantly paid dividends on the boards and allowed the team to go from seven down at the half to up five at one point in the third.
The reason that this is encouraging news for the Hawks, at least in the short term, is that the team is now forced to pIay without Williams, which will help them prepare for their season opener against Orlando without him. I had forgotten, but yes, Williams is indeed suspended for the first game of the regular season, thanks to this flagrant (but not homicidal as the announcers would lead you to believe) takedown of Rajon Rondo during last season's playoffs.
The surprising Atlanta Hawks -- and the way they were built -- should become required study for those NBA general managers who wheel and deal too fast, making change for the sake of change, always searching for the quick fix.
Shame on the NBA owners for being greedy, trying to milk their teams for an unbelievable eight exhibition games on top of an already marathon regular season and a taxing playoff march.
FanHouse fixes a decade of draft-day blunders in 
The Atlanta Hawks are considered one of the NBA's rising teams, as evidenced by consecutive playoff appearances for the first time in 10 years. The Hawks, however, were easily swept in the Eastern Conference semifinals by the Cleveland Cavaliers, who spent four games exposing Atlanta's numerous flaws and weaknesses. The Hawks are approaching a critical time for their franchise, with 
It's been five months since the Hawks last beat the Cavaliers -- their lone win in four tries in the regular season was on Dec. 13, 2008 -- but after watching the Cavs absolutely destroy the visitors from Atlanta in the first two games of the second round, it may as well be five years.
NBA Playoff 4-5 matchups are often the best of the first round. Usually the two teams are within a few wins of each other. They're not a level of David and Goliath, and both teams are usually mortal enough to make it interesting. Such is the case with tonight's matchup of the Atlanta Hawks and the Miami Heat. As such, we're rocking the live blog action again tonight. Join us after the end of Orlando-Philadelphia for Hawks-Heat. 
Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the "lig." 
