Atlanta
Philip Maymin
Basketball News Services
Today's magic numbers for the Hawks are four and three, or more precisely, fourth and third. The Hawks are the fourth-worst offensive team in the league. Only Detroit, New Jersey, and New Orleans score fewer points per game, on average. Unfortunately, the Hawks are also the third-worst defensive team in the league. Only Orlando and Boston allow more points per game, on average. And despite the New Math, four plus three equals 30: in terms of point differential, Atlanta is dead last in the league, and is the only team giving up double digits on average.
That doesn't mean that Atlanta is losing games by an average of more than ten points. No, it's worse than that. It means that the average game, win or loss, is expected to be the opponent's victory by at least ten points.
Atlanta scores about 90 and gives up about 100. That's a recipe for disaster, and quick.
Three-pointers aren't going to save the day either, no matter how many they throw up there. Atlanta is second-worst in the league in connecting from beyond the arc with just a 29.1 percent hit rate, barely edging out New Orleans' 27.9 percent. They are also dead-worst in the league in free throw shooting.
Free throw shooting!
The Hawks barely hit 2/3 of their free throws, averaging a league-worst 66.0 percent from the inappropriately named charity stripe.
What's going on in Georgia? Perhaps they need to hire a shooting consultant?
NEXT GAME
The Hawks (5-24, fifth in the Southeast) travel to Cleveland TOMORROW, Wednesday, January 5th, 2005 to take on the Cavaliers (17-12, first in the Central). The game starts at 7:00pm Eastern and will be broadcast on WPXA and NBA League Pass.
TEAM NOTES
The All-Star nominations are out, and Hawks players Antoine Walker, Al Harrington and Peja Drobnjak are on the ballots. Want to see them in the 2004-05 All-Star contest? Don't forget tocast your votefor your favorite players now. So far none of those players are among the top 10 vote-getters in their categories, but a couple hundred thousand clicks could change that overnight.
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INJURY UPDATE
Chris Crawford(torn ACL) is out for the season and on the injured list.Donta Smith(back) is also on the injured list.
Steve Wilstein of The Associated Press writes inNola.com: The price tag for the franchise and operational control of the 20,000-seat Gund Arena is close to the $401 million paid for the Phoenix Suns and far higher than the cost of the Atlanta Hawks ($250 million) and New Jersey Nets ($300 million) in the past year's other NBA sales.As crazy as NBA salaries seem, and as ugly as this season has been so far with the brawl in Detroit, the sale of the Cavs also suggests that the league is still booming.
Jay Busbee ofThe Chicago Sports Reviewwrites: The two icons of the new Windy City Hoops Nation are the Atlanta Hawks’ Antoine Walker and the Miami Heat’s Dwyane Wade, former prep stars who have capitalized on every ounce of the potential they showed in gyms here.Their backgrounds-their entire games-couldn’t be more dissimilar. Walker’s a shooting guard in a power forward’s body, while Wade is a stone-cold slashing assassin. For hundreds of Chicagoland high school hoops dreamers, their life stories aren’t legends. They’re blueprints.