The First Rant

Kyle Davies is embarrassing Carlos Delgado by painting the corners as the Braves lead the Mets, 5-1, yet I find myself repeatedly flipping back to the final Hawks home game of the year. (They’re losing 52-53 to the Miami Heat’s third line, if anyone actually cares besides myself.)

Why, you might ask? Because I love basketball, and while I would say I prefer the gridiron or diamond to hardwood, I think I want nothing more than for the Hawks to become a legitimate title contender.

I would love for the Thrashers to make the playoffs. I would dance in the streets if the Braves won another title, much like I would riot like a caveman (and I’d have to imagine a caveman could riot well) if the Falcons posted consecutive winning seasons and won a Super Bowl.

(Ah, snap. Andruw Jones just smashed his second long ball of the game and seventh of the year. Bravos 7, Mets 1.)

All that said, Philips Arena would be the crunkest place in Georgia if the Hawks were competitive, and I want to be there when it is.

And the good news is the team isn’t that far off.

With the Hawks' current core of players you can create a lineup featuring incredible talent, speed and strength at shooting guard, small forward and power forward with Joe Johnson, Josh Smith and Al Harrington respectively. From there you’re only missing two starting positions, albeit the two most important in the NBA, and most important at any level of basketball – the point guard and center. The rest of the Hawks players would make for a more than serviceable bench and Zaza Pachulia would be a potential sixth-man-of-the-year candidate if he was relegated to the role of backup.

BUT, point guard wouldn’t be a current need, and I firmly believe the Hawks would be in the playoffs this year, had Billy Knight and his cronies made the correct draft choice last year.

Recently I was reading Bill Simmons’ column on ESPN.com and the subject was NBA MVP candidates. Towards the end he listed the eight most deserving players and Chris Paul, the rookie point guard phenom for the Hornets, was listed at seven. (Read Simmons's column here)

Paul, the lightning-quick game-changer that should have been a Hawk, is actually in the MVP discussion.

Simmons’ summed up my feelings adequately with his final lines on Paul; “And yes, that screaming is the sound of everyone from Atlanta. Just give them a few seconds.”

Would the Hawks have made the playoffs with Paul? Most certainly.

The Hawks struggled their way to 25 wins playing one-on-one nearly every possession; Paul, who is averaging almost eight assists a game, would surely have made the offensive game easier for everyone around him. (Can you imagine the jaw-dropping alley-opps to Josh Smith?)

The Hawks are only a single tier below the lower-seeded Eastern Conference playoff teams that backed their way in (see the Milwaukee Bucks). The Hawks, with Paul, would easily have been better than Bogut's Bucks.

But we can’t dwell on the past can we? We can, and will, because I don’t feel like discussing the Hawks draft prospects at the moment. So, in the mean time, dwell on what could have been with Paul.

Although, I will say this on the draft currently, if the Hawks draft a small forward in this draft, I’m going to buy a Bobcats jersey.


Update at 12:18 AM:


The Braves defeated the Mets, 7-1, after a complete game, three hitter by 22-year-old Kyle Davies. In his first career complete game, the right-handed hurler stifled Mets hitters and struck out a frustrated Carlos Delgado three times in four at bats.

The Hawks defeated the Heat - more correctly a squad of third-string wannabes rocking Heat jerseys - by a score of 103-101 after Tyronn Lue hit a trey to win the game with 8 seconds remaining.

But the most intersting Atlanta sports moment of the night, on ESPN's NBA Fastbreak's "3-Ds-of-the-Year" segment there was a reel of ten or more Josh Smith highlights in a row with the Hawks logo glowing in the background. They showed the Hawks' youthful star throwing down jams from every angle and swiftly swating balls left and right. The notable part, two years ago such a segment would have featured no Hawks highlights. Josh Smith is an incredible talent.