Periodically throughout the 2007-08 season, Hawks.com will reach out to several Hawks and Atlanta-area bloggers to get their thoughts on the season. We are calling it the Hawks Blog Roundtable (hence the catchy banner above!). Have a topic you'd like to see discussed here, or have a blog and want to participate? Email us at hawks.mailbag@atlantaspirit.com and let us know!
With the season starting on Friday at home against the Dallas Mavericks, we wanted to take a last look at the performance of the Hawks during the preseason. Specifically, we wanted to get a response to the following question:
| How much can we take away from the Hawks 7-1 preseason record? |
| Matt Connolly from Hotlantahawks: |
| I have always tried to discount the record of a team in the preseason, as it
seems to be no indication of the regular season record. In baseball and
football in particular, teams and players focus on preparing for the season
far more than they care about winning the games they are playing. Basketball
is a little different, though, as the way players work together as a team is
so crucial to winning. The Hawks are coming off yet another losing season
but are clearly focused on winning games this year, and it looks like they
are going to be able to do it. "Winning" is something the team is focusing
on, not just winning through skill and trying to stay healthy (like the
Miami Heat, for example). The Hawks have been trying to win and have been
fairly successful thus far. They may come out of the gate 0-5, but this team
is coming together and playing very well right now. The players that need to
step up have been stepping up, Horford and Law are solid contributors, and
the team is playing the fast-paced style of basketball that suits their
physical ability so well. As a fan I am doing my best to lower my
expectations, but after every preseason win my thought process is this: "Another win? Nice. Too bad the preseason doesn't mean anything." "The Hawks are going to run a freaking train through the East and not even LeBron can stop us." "Take it easy there, champ. The preseason still doesn't mean anything."
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Chase Kuech from Impending Firestorm: |
| With a young team, it is important to stay as positive and optimistic as
possible. That being said, what I'd like to take out of this great preseason
record is the fact that this team is ready to win now. They've begun the season
with a winning attitude and should now be used to what it feels like to win. One
of the biggest problems with a perennial losing franchise is that they tend to
get stuck in their losing and not know what it feels like to win ball games.
Winning 7 of 8 games in the preseason gets this team in the winning mindset and
should help them start the season as well as they started last season. The season looks to begin fairly injury-free for Atlanta so we'll see how this team responds. It is another season of low expectations, especially from other teams, so at the very least Atlanta should be able to sneak up on some teams early. The games may not matter, but I think the preseason is always an important way to get a team ready. The Hawks' 7-1 record in the preseason says they are ready to win games in 2007.
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| Jay Busbee from Right Down Peachtree: |
| Much as I'd love to say that the preseason portends good things for the
Hawks' 2007-08 regular season, I'm not ready to start making space for a playoff
banner in the rafters just yet. Playing with and against journeymen, tipping off
in cow palaces that see the NBA only once a year, the preseason is practice with
a shot clock. Not to say you can't take positives from this preseason. Marvin Williams and Josh Childress are making their bids for breakout years. Al Horford and Acie Law didn't look particularly terrified to be on an NBA court. Notching seven wins in eight games is a nice momentum-builder heading into the brutal six games that open the season. I'll even go out on a limb and say that winning is almost always better than losing. It's also significant that the team actually looked like they were having fun on the court for longer stretches of time, an intangible that you can't overestimate. The Falcons and the Thrashers are in twin death spirals; if the Hawks just grin once in awhile, they'll be the cheeriest team in Atlanta--and instant fan favorites. There's a better alternative to preseason. Sometime after the season ends, the Hawks brass should arrange to kidnap every single one of the players. No warning. Maybe they're running a clinic with little kids, maybe they're dining at Bone's, maybe they're wallowing in piles of chips at the Bellagio. Wherever they are, snatch 'em up and dump 'em somewhere remote for three months--an island, a mountainside, a jungle, wherever. These guys know how to play ball; they need to learn how to work as a team. So forget these eight tune-up games. Go fight a shark for a meal, and Kevin Garnett won't seem so terrifying in the low post.
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| Kevin Cott from Kevin Cott: |
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I'm cautiously optimistic about the Hawks pre-season run. Taking seven of
eight against NBA competition is always a good thing, but it's hard to get
carried away with games where Nikoloz Tskitishvili once looked like the next Dr.
J. Exhibition basketball is like an NBA funhouse filled with crazy mirrors
contorting everyone's appearance. Louis Williams can spring for 33 in the same
game Andre Iguodala barely gets off the bench. That's not normal. |
