When the season started in the fall did anybody have high expectations for the Atlanta Hawks? Don’t lie to me or yourself, we all know it was no. When the Hawks had four All-Stars (which is why I think the best record gets more All-Star consideration thing needs to go, but) and had the best record in the East can you honestly say you were shocked? Yes, you can, but that is the beauty of the game you never know what team or players are going to take the next step to prominence.
After getting lucky that John Wall broke his hand in the Semi. Conference Finals, they laid an egg against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals getting swept. The Hawks had a chance to win game 1 and 3, but it wasn’t meant to be. Everybody wants to throw dirt on a 60 win team that got swept, but when you think about it were they even supposed to be there? It was the Hawks first time in team history making the ECF, which is a feat in itself. DeMarre Carroll getting hurt in the first game didn’t help them even though he played in all the other games you could tell the knee was bothering him. Carroll’s injury also highlighted the void of Thabo Sefolosha being out had on the Hawks, piling that on top of Kyle “Slumping in the playoffs” Korver got his ankle destroyed by Matt “Ric Flair” Dellavedova.
Now that their season is over where the Hawks go from here? We know Jeff Teague is a budding star, but needs to be way more aggressive because he has the talent to go to the next level. We know the Hawks are small up front with Horford and Millsap. We know that DeMarre Carroll and Paul Millsap are unrestricted free agents.
Carroll and Millsap were key parts to the success of the Hawks they will have to make a decision on whether they overpay to keep them at home or let them leave. If so, who will they replace them with? They could use another scorer no matter if they keep them or not. The organization should be able to build on this experience and if the cards fall right be able to improve the team this off-season and make another deep playoff run.
