Atlanta
Philip Maymin
Basketball News Services
The Hawks pursued several marquee free agents this summer, including Kenyon Martin and Erick Dampier, and are likely to pursue others come July. But would it have even made a dent in their playoff hopes if they had landed both?
Let's make the ultra-aggressive but simple assumption that their scoring averages would be whatever they averaged this season, and that they would have replaced the fourth and fifth best scoring options on the squad. To be at least mildly even-handed, let's assume they do not affect defense at all: opponents would have, let's suppose, continued to score at an average clip of 101.68 per game. I'll ignore Antoine Walker's contributions this year, which also makes the overall assumptions probably more reasonable.
Their current scoring average is 92.05 points per game, or a league-worst 9.63 points worse than their opponents. Al Harrington is the top scorer with 17.5 points per game. After him, it's Tyronn Lue with 12.8, Tony Delk with 11.6, and the two Josh's, Childress and Smith, with 9.6 and 8.8 each, respectively.
Suppose we replace Childress's output with K-Mart's average this year of 15.4 and Smith's output with Dampier's average this year of 9.4. That would add another 6.4 points to the total, bringing the Hawks total points to 98.45, just 3.23 points below what they have given up on average.
The key word there is "just." The Hawks would still be the fifth-worst team in the league in terms of point differential. They would be stuck in the lottery quagmire currently occupied by Utah, Portland, Golden State, and New Orleans.
They would be a little better, but not good enough to be in the playoffs. So in the end, perhaps the Hawks have managed to save some cash for the really big payout while at the same time making a bid for one of the top three drafts in what could be a very deep draft.
NEXT GAME
The Hawks (11-63, fifth in the Southeast) head north of the border for the last time this season as they visit the Toronto Raptors (30-44, fourth in the Atlantic) on Friday, April 8th. The game starts at 7:00pm Eastern and will be broadcast on SCORE and NBA League Pass.
TEAM NOTES
What do Tyronn Lue and John Goodman have in common? Why does Tony Delk wear #00? And what's the connection between Josh Childress and LL Cool J? Find out in the newest Pop Up Hawkvideos!
INJURY UPDATE
Michael Stewart
(back) andKevin Willis(back) are on the injured list.Al Harrington (knee) is questionable for Friday's game.
Our own Darron Cooper writes inHoopsworld.com: Over the past several years the only sure thing with the Atlanta Hawks has been their likelihood to lose games and repeatedly fall short of making the playoffs or even finishing at .500 for that matter.Of course the fans have also illustrated a great level of consistency in return by failing to attend many of the home games to encourage the home team out of pure discontentment. How embarrassing must is it to be a team of professional athletes when the only time Philips Arena has been sold out lately has been because of a high profile visiting team has come to town to play?
Michael Rosenberg ofThe Mercury Newswrites: After seeing the men's and women's NCAA champions at least twice, along with more tournament teams than I can remember, I came to this conclusion: They would all lose to the Atlanta Hawks.And I love the college game. Hang with me for a second. We'll use the Atlanta Hawks to explain why I actually enjoy women's basketball (oops, there goes my idiot-misogynist street cred) and why college basketball is alive and well again. Why use the Hawks? Because everybody in the NBA does. The Hawks are 11-63, bringing to mind the old "Bull Durham" line: "How in the hell did they ever win 11? It's a miracle!"