This year the Hawks will be the first team in NBA history to increase their win totals in 5 consecutive seasons!

We've retained everyone important but Flip from last year and added depth with Teague/Crawford in the back court and Joe Smith/Jason Collins down low. We can better sustain injuries during the season and our bench should beat up on many teams' scrub benches.

But the best news? Josh Smith vowing to stop shooting 3s! If he can keep his word at least partially and shoot 0 3s in even half the games, we'll increase our record 2-7 wins by that alone...

Wow, really?
Seems like it should have been done before.

That is impressive that they can be the first ever to increase their wins 5 yrs in a row....

My only NBA game ever was the Lakers v Hawks in 02 (will call from Laker player, slap hands!)

I bought the 13 game playoff pass for this season...hope they can go off!

Losing Flip was a huge piece, and I don't see the hawks increasing their win total this season. While I love Josh Smith, he will never stop shooting 3s and I'm not going to believe it until he goes 5 games without shooting a single 3. I see the Hawks being probably around a .500 team this season.

we lost flip, but gained crawford

crawford averages for his career what flip did in a career year

also, crawford is a good passer who gets guys the ball in places they can actually use it

curry's scoring dropped off a lot after crawford was out a few years ago

we upgraded flip to crawford
we upgraded acie to teague
we upgraded bench to add joe smith and jason collins
smoove/marvin/horford should all improve
team together longer -> more chemistry

i see no reason for the hawks slipping 6 games to be more likely than the hawks gaining 1 game

Crawford is a chucker, plain and simple. Flip at least understood his role. I don't see it as much of an upgrade.

crawford is a passer, plain and simple...he gets people the ball where they can use it

flip was nice last year, but it was also a career year for him

horford was a beast today...24/16/4/2

I'm a shake and bake fan but Jamal ain't no passer.

Chucker appears to be the more appropiate term.

Going to like 15 games this year I hope. Had seats for opening night but moved down as no one was there.

We looked really good with the Starting 5 on the floor

lol Jamal Crawful is a good passer? What fantasy world are you living in? He's horrible and thank god he only got 11 minutes, if we use him as a serviceable role player we could be a good team this year.

http://www.ajc.com/sports/atlanta-ha...an-151085.html

he averages as many assists as joe and he has a higher assist % as well

his passing rating was 6.6, 7.8, 7.8, 8.3 the past 4 years (flip was 4.4 on hawks)
joe's was better at 8.4, 8.3, 5.3, 9.4 the past 4 years

not saying he's all-world, but he's similar to joe...

he's not all-world, but def is a "good passer"

Jamal Crawford has one function on a team, to score. He can do it fairly well in bulk, but he's not very efficient. He shouldn't be playing a large role on this team. If JJ is going to average 36mpg, Crawford should get the other 12 and no more. Take your chances with Teague running the backup point.

if josh smith continues this style of offensive play the hawks are a completely different team offensively. not a contender, but jsmoove has a ton of potential if he has gone the gerald wallace route and decided to stop taking jumpers

Hawks look amazing so far.

Hawks off to 4-1 start, 2-0 at home and 2-1 on the road

Lost to Lakers, but played them tight until brain fart in 2nd half
Winning on road back-to-back nights against Portland/Sacramento is nice for a team that has trouble on the road

Horford is averaging a double/double and is 2nd in the league in BLOCKS with 13. Smove has 11 blocks, although Portland stat guys neglected to record at least 3 of his blocks, so he should actually be in the top spot. Horford is also 7th in league in rebounds, only 2.4/game off the leader and 1 less rebound than howard for the year.




Leaders so far:

Points
22.8 J.Johnson
17.8 J.Crawford
14.2 J.Smith
12.4 A.Horford
Rebounds
11.6 A.Horford
6.0 J.Smith
6.0 J.Johnson
5.6 M.Williams

Assists
4.8 J.Smith
4.6 J.Johnson
4.0 M.Bibby
3.4 J.Crawford

I haven't watched as much Hawks as I would have liked to so far, but that's because of the WS. From what I have seen, Horford has shown a surprising (imo) amount of improvement imo. What he's done on the defensive end has probably made him the most valuable player on this team up to this point.

Hawks with a really tough game at home tonight the night after an embarrasing beatdown.

Anyone going?

not bad

I went last night...Jsmoove was awesome (ldo), and I thought the crowd was ~into it...were u there C?

Smoove has been excellent this year, if he completely cuts out the jumper he's gonna be a fringe all-star

Smoove hasn't taken a 3 this year . Although he's taken some long 2 pointers which seem even worse to me that 3's.

I always thought Crawford was a chucker too but I havn't seen it. He has a knack for making things happen around the basket which is just what we needed. He's basically Flip 2.0.

In Rick Sund we trust.

Yeah, he's awesome. Also, who saw the dribble that Crawford was doing at the end of the game; I thought that was nuts...

great game

we outhustled them and outrebounded them

smoove/horford are doing great so far and we're leading the league in scoring in the paint

smoove went 9 games without shooting a single 3...

and crawford has been better than flip thus far (still early)