No Respect in the East.

[Diesel]

The other day, Saw a poll on RealGM and it talked about being third in the east. Listed were:

Atlanta, Indy, Philly, NYK, and Boston.

We came in Dead LAST...

BUT wait. Here's the standing.

Eastern Conference Atlantic W L PCT GB CONF DIV HOME ROAD L 10 STREAK Philadelphia³ 20 10 0.667 0.0 15-5 1-2 13-5 7-5 6-4 L 1 Boston⁷ 15 13 0.536 4.0 14-8 4-2 11-8 4-5 6-4 L 1 New York⁸ 15 15 0.500 5.0 10-8 4-2 8-7 7-8 8-2 W 7 Toronto 9 22 0.290 11.5 6-15 3-5 4-10 5-12 2-8 L 3 New Jersey 8 22 0.267 12.0 6-15 2-3 3-11 5-11 1-9 L 7 Central W L PCT GB CONF DIV HOME ROAD L 10 STREAK Chicago¹ 24 7 0.774 0.0 16-5 5-1 10-1 14-6 7-3 W 1 Indiana⁶ 17 12 0.586 6.0 12-9 3-2 7-4 10-8 4-6 L 5 Milwaukee 12 17 0.414 11.0 8-8 3-3 7-7 5-10 4-6 L 3 Cleveland 11 16 0.407 11.0 7-12 2-3 6-7 5-9 4-6 W 1 Detroit 9 22 0.290 15.0 7-15 2-6 6-10 3-12 5-5 W 1 Southeast W L PCT GB CONF DIV HOME ROAD L 10 STREAK Miami² 23 7 0.767 0.0 18-4 5-2 12-2 11-5 8-2 W 4 Atlanta⁴ 19 11 0.633 4.0 15-6 5-2 9-5 10-6 5-5 W 1 Orlando⁵ 19 11 0.633 4.0 13-7 5-1 11-6 8-5 7-3 W 3 Washington 7 23 0.233 16.0 5-17 2-4 4-12 3-11 3-7 L 1 Charlotte 3 26 0.103 19.5 2-20 0-8 2-11 1-15 0-10 L 16

We are currently 4th in the East. YET... The 8th ranked team won the poll.

Where is the respect.

So let me go to the fan statement related to this that got me started.

"It is a real toss up for 3rd best. Nobody between Philly, Orlando, Indiana and Atlanta have really seperated themselves for the pack."

What's the splits say?

Hawks vs. Indy = 1-1.

Hawks vs. Orl = 1-0

Hawks vs. PHIL = 0-2

Hawks vs. NYK = No games.

Indy vs. ATL = 1-1.

Indy vs. PHI = 0-1

Indy vs. Orl = 1-2

Indy vs NYK = No games.

ORL vs. ATL = 0-1

Orl vs Indy = 2-1

Orl vs. PHI = 0-1

Orl vs. NYK = 1-0

PHI vs. Atlanta = 2-0

PHIL vs. INDy = 1-0

PhIL vs. ORL = 1-0

PHIL vs. NYK = 0-1

So what do you say?

[coachx]

Right now Indy and Philly are better teams then the Hawks..............when we get Horford back that will change.

I know this much, if Indy lost Hibbert, or if the 76ers lost Hawes they would not be where they are now. The Hawks have proven they are good enough to survive losing an allstar quality center.

Also......any fan poll that has the Knicks as an option should be ignored.

Edited February 16, 2012 by coachx

[Diesel]

Right now Indy and Philly are better teams then the Hawks..............when we get Horford back that should change.

Also......any fan poll that has the Knicks as an option should be ignored.

38% of the voters said the Knicks were 3rd best in the East.

I believe in matchups... I think we have strong matchup advantages over Orlando, NY, and Chicago with HOrf back. I think Philly has our number. Indy may have our number also.

[cam1218]

Based on their play against us I have to say Philly is #3 in the East. Atlanta/Orlando/Indiana will battle for the 4-6 spots. I think the Hawks are better than both of those teams but I'm not sure how the records will turn out (who has easier schedules, etc). I wouldn't mind a first round matchup with either of those two teams, especially if we can get the #4 seed.

If we had Horford I'd say we would be a lock for the third or fourth seed. Lets hope the Boss can get healthy and be ready for the playoffs.

[macdaddy]

Haven't we beaten Orlando twice this year? Anyway, i agree Philly looks stronger than us but i don't see where indy has our number. The series is even. Right now i think it goes Heat / Bulls/ Philly / Atlanta/ Knicks. I do think the Knicks will be a tough team to face come playoff time.

[Admin]

I think that Philly is clearly better than us and we're right there with Indy and who knows about how we match up with the new look Knicks but I think we'd be competitive with them. Orlando are unpredictable like us but I have to rank us ahead of them right now based on the past 1.25 years of head to head play.

We really don't deserve much respect as we've had numerous national TV blowouts in the past year and lost to a Heat team this year missing Wade and Lebron. Plus we've had a weak strength of schedule and have gotten fat off of playing the lesser teams while getting embarrassed many times against the better teams.

The only reason we should get more respect than our results have shown is because we lost the top assisting center and the top 16-23' shooting center in the league from last year, who was also a 15/10 guy, and we've replace him with a backup. Granted Horf wasn't playing as well this year but the sample size was too small to believe that would have lasted all year.

[High5]

They barely beat a bad Phoenix team after looking terrible against two good teams and the respect talk starts again. I'd say nobody is a clear #3 right now, but it's definitely not the Hawks. And RealGM has a billion New York (and Toronto) fans so they're going to skew any poll.

[cam1218]

Right now Indy and Philly are better teams then the Hawks..............when we get Horford back that will change.

I know this much, if Indy lost Hibbert, or if the 76ers lost Hawes they would not be where they are now. The Hawks have proven they are good enough to survive losing an allstar quality center.

Also......any fan poll that has the Knicks as an option should be ignored.

Hawes has actually been hurt for more than half of the season. He has only played in 14 of their games this year and a couple of those were games he left early with injury I believe. They have only been a .500 team though when he has been out.

[HawksFan87]

Indy is not better than us..

[Buzzard]

Even with this young core that has been together quite a while now we have never gotten past the 2nd round and now we lose our all-star center. If you are a fan of an opposing team, what is there to fear ( respect ) about that?

Any team we face in the first round, their fans will like their chances. I can't blame them.

Edited February 16, 2012 by Buzzard

[AHawks89]

Yeah, we've had our ups and down this season, but we're definitely the best 3rd best team in the East.

No one is even close in my opinion. When everyone is playing with full effort, I would go as far and say we could be the 2nd best team in the East.

[Admin]

Yeah, we've had our ups and down this season, but we're definitely the best 3rd best team in the East.

No one is even close in my opinion. When everyone is playing with full effort, I would go as far and say we could be the 2nd best team in the East.

So you obviously think that we're better than Philly, who I believe have blown us out twice, and you think that even without Horford we could be better than either Miami or Chicago?

[AHF]

So you obviously think that we're better than Philly, who I believe have blown us out twice, and you think that even without Horford we could be better than either Miami or Chicago?

Hopefully AHawks89 means "with Horford back healthy"....but even then the Hawks haven't shown that on the floor so it is a pretty optimistic assessment either way.

[Admin]

Hopefully AHawks89 means "with Horford back healthy"....but even then the Hawks haven't shown that on the floor so it is a pretty optimistic assessment either way.

I can see us compete on a game by game basis with a healthy Horford against those teams but even then I don't see us winning a series against Chicago or Miami and probably not Philly either based on their athleticism and ability to force us into turnovers.

[Plainview1981]

This team doesn't really deserve much respect. If they do something really well, chances are there will turn right around and do something as equally as bad or worse. Just look at the games with Miami and Chicago earlier this year.

[Admin]

This team doesn't really deserve much respect. If they do something really well, chances are there will turn right around and do something as equally as bad or worse. Just look at the games with Miami and Chicago earlier this year.

Keep that attitude up buddy as I'm not sure we can handle any more of your jinx's this year!

[Diesel]

I can see us compete on a game by game basis with a healthy Horford against those teams but even then I don't see us winning a series against Chicago or Miami and probably not Philly either based on their athleticism and ability to force us into turnovers.

With Horf, our depth is hard to deal with.

Both of our games against Chicago this season should have been wins.

I think if you lock us up in a 7 game series with Chicago this year, they better call their mama...

[Admin]

With Horf, our depth is hard to deal with.

Both of our games against Chicago this season should have been wins.

I think if you lock us up in a 7 game series with Chicago this year, they better call their mama...

If you get the 100% focused Hawks who don't give up then yes I could absolutely see a healthy Hawks team give the Bulls a run for their money... however we don't have anyone who gets superstar calls and you can never count on whether you're going to get the good or bad Josh, the unstoppable scorer JJ or the guy who can't make anything but keeps shooting, or finally the Horf who can dominate games or disappear. So yeah we could beat them, but until we do you'll have to consider me highly skeptical.

[Vol4ever]

The Knicks are a complete joke. The 76ers are better than the Hawks because they have a NBA head coach, we dont. The Hawks dont have or nor they deserve any respect getting on national TV and looking terrible several times.

They just dont deserve any respect at this point.