Nice win without Jeffery

I'm the stereotypical casual Hawks fan that the hardcore hoop-heads love to hate, and say we don't deserve.

My biggest turn-off about the NBA has always been 1) the regular season doesn't matter, and 2) the Hawks have ZERO shot in the playoffs. So why follow?

Well, I watched that whole game, and ALL the Hawks played HARD... and the east is WIDE open.

With the Falcons and the Braves looking terrible for the foreseeable future, I guess I gotta pay more attention to the Hawks!

...but I'm probably still not gonna go to any of the games, so therein lies The Problem, I guess.

Cheap tickets + $6 30oz beers in the CNN center beforehand. No reason not to go to Hawks games!

This team, man. Chi @Cle @Hou? No problem.

Add @Dal and LAC to the list

1/2 game back of Tor now

I haven't wanted to watch a Hawks game since Shareef Abdur-Rahim was around. Congrats on your successes.

I wasn't much of a Hawks fan back then but I do still remember watching his 50 point game. Was awesome.

Fun team. Might really get hooked this season.

Here is the thing, we have a very legit chance to win the east but barring the western conference winner having injury issues I see no way we can beat them in the finals. Even the worst playoff team in the west is going to be as good as us and if they get out of the west it means they are playing about perfect basketball.

The winner of the West will be pretty beat up in the Finals unless it's the Spurs. With no Varejao for the Cavs, the East is really wide open, and I'm only really concerned about the Raptors. I think ATL matches up really well with Washington bc they have no one to follow Korver around, and Thibs is gonna run Chicago in to the ground.

East finals would be a new one for us in ATL and actual finals even better

And who knows...injuries happen and we could also hit a streak of hot shooting

Was thinking about the future for this team and how big of a step back we'd have to take to consider trading Millsap's expiring deal. Basically, do we keep pushing to have our best season in decades or do we keep building for the future.

But I'm not so sure that's an issue, actually.

We have have $41M on the books for next season across a LOT of key players (Horford, Teague, Korver, Scott, Schroeder, Mack, Thabo, Bazemore, Payne) with a projected cap of $66M (tax level $81M), and I guess we could free up $8M more if Schroeder goes crazy and takes the starting role.

So with $25M could we expect to keep Millsap, keep/replace DeMarre, and fill in the bench? Probably.

But then we're capped out at $12M to offer Horford after next season right which means we'd definitely lose him, right? Nooooope! Because 2016/17 is the year that the NBA salary cap could go bananas, maybe up to $90M+ giving us another $25M to spend on Horford + FAs.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/writer/...l-pie-be-split

After that point it'll come down to keeping contracts short and replacing the key cogs as they get old.

If we land one stud in the next 2 drafts and avoid injury, this team is set up really really well for a while.

We just have to use holds on Millsap and DMC so can still have room for another bench player and then go over the cap to resign Paul and DMC

We can also go over to resign horford, so that's not a problem even if cap didn't go up

We def keep Teague so we have 2 strong pgs and a good 3rd stringer (Mack)

We are basically set at pg for the next decade

If we keep DMC/Millsap/horford, then we are good there for next 5 years

The biggest issue is replacing KORVER in a few years and backup wings and bigs

If scott/Payne/muscala/antic/Tavares can hold down backup big slots then we should be focusing on 2/3 positions to improve the depth there and find a KORVER replacement

I'd love to find a way to get jimmy butler or kiwi Leonard here this summer, but I'm sure we can find other 3D wings that'll fit our system in the next 2 years

The key to our system will be to not replace too many parts at once and to keep continuity as much as possible...that way we can get better and better in the system and only have to integrate 1-2 rotation players in each year to learn from the other 8-9 that know it well

This is what the Spurs have done so well

The Cavs may be imploding, but it's nice to know we own them if we see them in the playoffs.

What do you guys think Millsap will command when his contract expires after this year, and do y'all think there's any way we can keep him?

I think he's our best and most consistent player.

We can 100% keep him even for max if we want because going over the cap is ok for our own fas

I'm hoping he doesn't want that much, though...it harms our flexibility

But I'd pay whatever since the following summer the cap should go way up with tv deal and then his contract won't harm our flexibility as much

HAWKS 24-8
Toronto 24-9
Chicago 23-10
Washington 22-10
Cleveland 19-14

weeeeeeee

@POR @LAC MEM next 3 games is gonna be fun to watch

Yep

Hawks may never lose again, 74-8 is in play

Another road victory against a top 10 team.

I was asleep before it started, though.

It was a fun game

We had some nice runs during it

Another victory guys

Now have a 3 game cushion on 2nd place Washington...who we play on Sunday. Awesome stuff.

...Beating Washington by THIRTY-ONE.

Damn.

We might just run away with the Eastern Conference