Atlanta Hawks | Pace and Space

The Atlanta Hawks’ Best-Ever Season: 2015

September 20, 2021 - by Fox Doucette

Every NBA franchise, even the most long-suffering, has had a high-water mark where their fans felt like they had a real chance at winning the title. For the Atlanta Hawks, a franchise whose history since moving to Atlanta in 1968 has been one largely of futility, it took them 47 years to reach a level where they began to approach the level that the franchise had achieved in St. Louis at the butt end of the Eisenhower administration. You’ll notice that the year the Hawks did win the title—1958, when they got their one win in four tries against Bill …

Editorial

Speaking Too Soon: The 2021 Eastern Conference Finals

June 26, 2021June 26, 2021 - by Fox Doucette

You ever read something and think “man, I need an editor?” Because in my piece “The Terrible Coach Redemption Tour”, I asserted that Steve Nash was coaching in the conference finals. This is what happens when you have a deadline, Game 7 of the conference semis are still to be played, and of course you’re going to be spending the next five days working a contract gig full-time that’s nowhere near your home studio. The Milwaukee Bucks won Game 7 over the Brooklyn Nets. And of course I didn’t get time to write about it until Saturday. Gods help me. …

Editorial

2021 Playoffs: The Terrible Coach Redemption Tour

June 21, 2021June 26, 2021 - by Fox Doucette

Editor’s Note: I made the mistake of assuming Brooklyn would win Game 7 of the East semis and wrote this column accordingly. Of course, Milwaukee won that game, so Mike Budenholzer, not Steve Nash, is coaching against McMillan and the Hawks in the ECF. Pace and Space regrets the error. The NBA was, for decades, a coaches’ league. Great leaders like Gregg Popovich, Phil Jackson, and Pat Riley became synonymous with the teams they led to greatness and were linked to the careers of their star players in Tim Duncan, Michael Jordan (and later Kobe Bryant), and Magic Johnson. In …

Editorial

Atlanta Hawks: Living and Dying by Trae Young

June 17, 2021June 17, 2021 - by Fox Doucette

Trae Young is simultaneously the most promising and frustrating young scorer in the NBA, and the Atlanta Hawks, as much as they’ve shocked the world as a 5 seed first by destroying the equally upstart 4 seed New York Knicks in the first round and then by taking a 3-2 lead on the Philadelphia 76ers so far in Round 2, are living and dying by him. Young, even though he’s three years into his career, all but guaranteed a giant extension this offseason as he enters the final year of his rookie contract, and has an All-Star appearance under his …

Analysis

Atlanta Hawks: Lords of the Garbage Fire

January 28, 2021January 28, 2021 - by Fox Doucette

The NBA is no longer a division-intensive league. Gone are the days when a team could get a top-4 seed just by lording over a trash division, a situation that has on occasion given us garbage like the 44-38 Denver Nuggets getting to be the 3 seed in 2006, or a similarly terrible 44-38 2007 Miami Heat team making the playoffs on a championship hangover and getting swept by a 47-win Chicago Bulls team that was the lower seed in the bracket. In theory, we could see a situation where a division winner doesn’t even make the playoffs at all. …

Analysis

Trying to Make Sense of the Atlanta Hawks Hype

November 24, 2020 - by Fox Doucette

NBA Twitter seems to be under the impression that the Atlanta Hawks are poised to make a major leap in 2021, as the young talent they’ve drafted or acquired in free agency comes together to create the nucleus of a powerhouse team. Tommy Beer broke down the Hawks’ depth chart, and that means we can start to make some projections and take a look at whether this team’s going to be any good. A tremendous offseason for the a #Hawks. A look at Atlanta’s depth chart: PG: Trae YoungRajon RondoKris Dunn SG:Bodgan BogdanovicKevin HuerterCam Reddish SF:Danilo GallinariDe'Andre HunterTony Snell PF:John …

Analysis

Kevin Willis, The Greatest Lousy NBA Player

November 23, 2020 - by Fox Doucette - 1 Comment

A few years ago, Jon Bois of SBNation did an episode of Chart Party where he talked about Jeff Francoeur, describing him as “my favorite worst baseball player.” The idea was that “Frenchy” had one of the most explosive first months of a career in the history of Major League Baseball, then dropped off a cliff. Go watch it. It’s good. The weird part is despite that, he lasted 12 years in the league, played in over 1400 major league games for his career, and all this despite frequently ending up with negative Wins Above Replacement (for those who don’t …

Editorial

The Greatest Draft Day Trade In NBA History

November 13, 2020 - by Fox Doucette

On April 30, 1956, an NBA draft day trade went down that would change the course of basketball history in a way that has rarely been matched since. Sure, there was the Greatest Fleecing in NBA History—when the Boston Celtics snookered the Golden State Warriors out of Robert Parish and Kevin McHale for Joe Barry Carroll in 1980, still the most one-sided draft day trade if not the most one-sided trade, full stop, in NBA history—but a great trade should benefit both teams in either the short or the long term to truly be considered a masterwork of a player …

Editorial

Achtung Panzer! #3: The Tanking Atlanta Hawks

November 30, 2019 - by Fox Doucette

Losers of nine straight and 12 of 13, the Atlanta Hawks now stand 4-15, dead last in the Eastern Conference and just half a game ahead of the woeful Golden State Warriors for the worst record in the NBA. A team that was supposed to have their breakout year instead finds itself mired in the throes of awful, as John Collins serves a 25-game suspension for testing positive for a banned substance, Kevin Huerter sits in street clothes with injury, and Trae Young puts up monster stat lines (like his 49-point outburst against the Indiana Pacers on Black Friday) in …

2020 Preview

Are the 2019-20 Atlanta Hawks Good?

September 25, 2019 - by Fox Doucette

The Atlanta Hawks could be best summarized as Trae Young, John Collins, and a bunch of guys who might be a playoff team and might not contend in the G-League. So which is it? Which direction is this 29-53 Southeast Division cellar dweller from 2018-19 going to go? Are they headed toward and way past their 36-win over/under for a date with late-April basketball? Or is this whole thing going to get impaled on the spear of Young’s seventh-worst-in-the-league defense (more on that in a minute) and lose a bunch of games 120-115 on their way back to the lottery? …