Hawks only 4 1/2 games out of the 8th seed again!

[gutz]

Wow the East is just horrible this year! Hawks are only 4 1/2 games out of the 8th playoff spot with New Jersey losing again last night. If we could only string together some wins for once and it starts tonight at Orlando. This is a huge game for us with Philly coming in town tomorrow night here at Phillips. We HAVE to win these two games if we want to make some kind of push towards that 8th seed. Something has got to give right? Come on Hawks! Show some frigging consistency and heart for once this year. Were almost at full strength with Lue coming back now. We just need to get Speedy out there ASAP.

[bfwolf]

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Wow the East is just horrible this year! Hawks are only 4 1/2 games out of the 8th playoff spot with New Jersey losing again last night. If we could only string together some wins for once and it starts tonight at Orlando. This is a huge game for us with Philly coming in town tomorrow night here at Phillips. We HAVE to win these two games if we want to make some kind of push towards that 8th seed. Something has got to give right? Come on Hawks! Show some frigging consistency and heart for once this year. Were almost at full strength with Lue coming back now. We just need to get Speedy out there ASAP.

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4.5 games is an insurmountable gap for a team that wins as infrequently as the Hawks. It's nearly impossible for the Hawks to makes the playoffs. Give it up.

[PlayaPat420]

when the other teams are just as inconsistant nothing is impossible. I have been here in Atlanta nearly 20 and these fans are the most pessimistic, quitters I have ever witness. No offense to anyone on here but if you take some, it may just be right. Give it up? That's pathetic

[gutz]

Its far from an insurmountable gap for any team in this conference. I guess you haven't seen how horrible even teams like the Cavs and Detroit have looked lately. Your right though about the Hawks being too inconsistent to mount this kind of comeback but that was what I pointed out in my post. If we could only start winning with some consistency this gap is easily attainable. A 5 or 6 game winning streak and were right there contending for that spot.

[bfwolf]

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when the other teams are just as inconsistant nothing is impossible. I have been here in Atlanta nearly 20 and these fans are the most pessimistic, quitters I have ever witness. No offense to anyone on here but if you take some, it may just be right. Give it up? That's pathetic

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The Nets have the 8th playoff spot with a .465 winning percentage. Let's assume for argument's sake then that a .465 winning percentage is what it will take to get the 8th seed in the East. That's 38 wins. For the Hawks to get 38 wins, we'd have to go 24-18 the rest of the season. Now please, tell me what you've seen in this Hawks team which would give you reason to believe that we could win 57% of our games from here on out when we've won 35% of them to date?

It's a pipe dream. The chances of it happening are less than 1%. This is not pessimism, it's realism. I already knew in my head weeks ago that our best chance with this team was to lose games and place our hope in the lottery. But in that Boston game, my heart finally caught up and I began truly rooting for the Hawks to lose. That's our best chance of putting together a contending team in the near future. I'm not saying it's a GOOD chance, but I'm saying it's our best chance.

Now you may say that makes me a bad fan, but I want the Hawks to succeed as much as you do. I just recognize that winning a few more games this year won't get us into the playoffs and only hurts our chances in the lottery.

[DJlaysitup]

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...Now you may say that makes me a bad fan, but I want the Hawks to succeed as much as you do. I just recognize that winning a few more games this year won't get us into the playoffs and only hurts our chances in the lottery.

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Yeah BDawg...It's tough being a Hawks fan. My brain says to me that we are much better off with a chance at the 1/2/3 draft pick...then the game starts and i can't help but root for our guys. Then we have a great comeback like we had in Boston and it's a blast! You go to sleep feeling good about the Hawks.

Then you wake up the next morning and look at the standings and think...OMG, what have we done

[gutz]

Well I guess you haven't noticed that our team has been the most injury ravaged team in the NBA other than the Hornets. I think that would have a little bit to do with our team only winning 35% of our games to date don't ya think? We just got Tlue back hopefully for the rest of the year now and everyone else is FINALLY healthy other than Speedy. With this being said I think we can at least go .500 the rest of the way and with some luck and consistency for once we could win a few more games to at least contend for the 8th spot. The East is just downright AWFUL this year man. Even the front running teams are playing like garbage right now. There is definitely a chance but it all starts with the Hawks staying healthy and start playing with some damn heart and consistency.

[Lascar78]

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Now please, tell me what you've seen in this Hawks team which would give you reason to believe that we could win 57% of our games from here on out when we've won 35% of them to date?

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The fact that we've played well when we don't have too many injuries, we started out strong, we've beaten good teams, and we've played the bulk of the season without a PG or one of our key young guys. There's no reason to expect the same mediocrity out of a healthy team than what we saw when Lue, Speedy, Smith, and Childress were out. Just having Smith back has made a world of difference even without PGs.

I don't think we'll make the playoffs, but I think we'll push for it, and if we win 50% or so for the rest of the year we'll be in a much better place going into next season, which is the year I think we'll really turn the corner.

[jerrywest]

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Now please, tell me what you've seen in this Hawks team which would give you reason to believe that we could win 57% of our games from here on out when we've won 35% of them to date?

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[/indent]

Qualities that can make you a good businessman can also make you a loser in sports. Have you ever ran long distance races? Probably not. You need to play one game at a time and one quarter at a time and one possesion at a time. If you think how far 26 miles and 385 yards is and what speed you have to run to run in 2 hour 10 minutes or catch the next guy, you'll never win. You have to pace yourself, gain slowly and wait for the sudden burst of energy to take over the guy before you. You also know that the guys ahead of you will have there bad minutes. You need to minimize your bad minutes. If you set goal at 57% as a long term plan, you'll never be a winner. Are we capable of making up 4.5 games if all our players are back. Heck yes! Can we tank if all our players are back healthy? We can't even if we want to.

[codyatl]

Mike Greenburg and Mike Golic were talking about this very subject this morning on mike and mike. Greeny mentioned that he would rather his team lose if the season was already lost rather than win a few meaningless games. They were originally talking about the nfl but they mentioned that Don Nelson had said that in the nba you are better off winning 25 games than you are winning 45 games. Middle of the pack isnt a good place to be. I agree. I hate for the Hawks to lose games BUT if this team we have right now isnt going to be a title contender then why would we want to be 1st rd doormats again? Remember when we would make the playoffs every year and never get out of the 1st rd? That is exactly what this team with the current talent will do. I want to see this team have a shot at winning it all, whatever the costs. If that means going through 1 more year of losing then so be it. By the way, dont you guys remember the Howard draft? Imagine where we might be now had we not won those games late in the season? Those games meant absolutely NOTHING. We didnt build on them, hell, half the guys that got us those wins were gone the next year. That worked out well. I just dont want to see the same thing happen this year.

[Iman]

As you can see, people debate but most agree that NORMALLY losing in more profitable in the long run that just being mediocre. I sure less would agree if a team is young. A young team needs to try to learn how to win. A very young team also really doesnt benefit as much as a vet team from bringing in more youth through the draft. But in our case, the biggest kicker is that most likely we give up our draft pick anyways. The only way I think we should root for losing this year is if JJ goes down to prolonged injury. You figure then we'd be bad anyways and it wouldnt harm our develop as much. I doubt any professional sports commentators will bother to discuss the Hawks, but if they did, I'd bet over 75% would agree that the odds of not getting the pick are too great vs us trying to learn how to win. A few would agree we are hopeless unless we get Oden, etc which is what the tankers on this site basically are saying.

[hawk25]

every team in the eastern conference is in the playoffs race if you look at it like that but seriously i want the hawks to compete for a nba championship something they have never done not for the 8th seed every year

[gsuteke]

if we're only 4.5 games out then there are tons of teams right around us. we can finish with the 10th pick and let's say somebody gets lucky behind us and jumps into the top 3.

i won't feel bad about giving the 11th pick up this year.

[drzachary]

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Now please, tell me what you've seen in this Hawks team which would give you reason to believe that we could win 57% of our games from here on out when we've won 35% of them to date?

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The fact that we've played well when we don't have too many injuries, we started out strong, we've beaten good teams, and we've played the bulk of the season without a PG or one of our key young guys. There's no reason to expect the same mediocrity out of a healthy team than what we saw when Lue, Speedy, Smith, and Childress were out. Just having Smith back has made a world of difference even without PGs.

I don't think we'll make the playoffs, but I think we'll push for it, and if we win 50% or so for the rest of the year we'll be in a much better place going into next season, which is the year I think we'll really turn the corner.

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It's possible for the Hawks to go 57% from here on out if you consider the beginning of the season more indicative of our ability than the injury-ridden bulk of the season. That's not a big leap of faith.

[bfwolf]

Look at what teams in the Eastern conference have won 57% of their games this year. There's only 4 of them. Are you guys telling me that when we're not injured, we're one of the 4 best teams in the Eastern conference? That people should be talking about us in the same breath as Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, and Washington?

Furthermore, do you really think our entire team is going to stay healthy for the rest of the year? That we'll be the one team in the league who doesn't suffer any second half injuries?

I'm sorry to rain on everybody's parade, but we aren't making the playoffs. Let's position ourselves for success in the future.

[gutz]

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every team in the eastern conference is in the playoffs race if you look at it like that but seriously i want the hawks to compete for a nba championship something they have never done not for the 8th seed every year

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Well were only going to get better right? Why not get the 8th playoff spot this year and build on that for next year! Your post above acts like we need to win the championship this year or something. Were a YOUNG team that needs to get better every year. Making the playoffs this year albeit the 8th seed even would be a HUGE confidence boost for this team. We can always look to improve our team as well in the offseason or trade deadline along with our Indy pick next year. You can't build championship team overnight man.

[bfwolf]

I mean, honestly, this gets more and more ridiculous everyday. A couple of weeks back, it was "if we can win 50% of our remaining games, we can make the playoffs." But then we kept losing, and now it's "if we can win 57% of our remaining games, we can make the playoffs." And you guys still believe we can do it. I have a feeling some of you are still going to believe we can make the playoffs even when we're 12 games out with 12 games to play.

[Popeye]

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every team in the eastern conference is in the playoffs race if you look at it like that but seriously i want the hawks to compete for a nba championship something they have never done not for the 8th seed every year

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Well were only going to get better right? Why not get the 8th playoff spot this year and build on that for next year! Your post above acts like we need to win the championship this year or something. Were a YOUNG team that needs to get better every year. Making the playoffs this year albeit the 8th seed even would be a HUGE confidence boost for this team. We can always look to improve our team as well in the offseason or trade deadline along with our Indy pick next year. You can't build championship team overnight man .

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Exatcly, people on here want to go from one of the worst teams in the history of the Nba(13 win season) to the Nba finals 2-3 years later. You can't do that, even with Oden you have to gain the playoff experience first. You have to be a mediocre team that goes to the playoffs consistently before you win a title. Look at the Cavs for example, they got one of the best players ever in James and they are still a mediocre team in his 5th year. Just try to win games and get to the playoffs for once, damnn.

[gutz]

Now your just being ridiculous. Of course were not going to think we can make the playoffs with that scenario of being 12games out with 12 games to play. It sounds like you have no idea what it takes to build a championship caliber team. You have to go to the playoffs first and lose. Then build on that! Oden alone is not going to take this team the promise land his first year.

[bfwolf]

No, he's not. But this core that we currently have can NEVER compete for an NBA championship. We need another major piece, and the most likely way of getting that is in the draft. Trades and FA sound nice, but in a trade, you've got to give to get, and FA is just a dream since nobody wants to play in Atlanta. If Oden were on the Hawks, we'd instantly compete for a playoff spot, FAs would want to come here, and 3-5 years down the road, we can be competing for a championship. Not necessarily will be, but CAN be. This team can't say that.