Hawks exceeding expectations?

[PaceRam]

I might be one of a few Hawks fans that is very pleasantly surprised at their current record (14-12) and the way they are playing so far this season. I was very pleased and excited when the Hawks signed Danny Ferry to be their GM and I really thought he would have a huge positive impact on the Hawks future but I will admit that I was not very optimistic about the current season. I thought it would take him a couple of seasons (Growing Pains/Transitions) to get a competitive roster but here they are at 14-12 and playing pretty good basketball! With as quickly as he has made the Hawks competitive I can't wait to see what they look like in another year or two! Danny Ferry might just be one of the best hiring the Hawks have made in a long, long time!

[Admin]

I am not entirely unhappy with our record as we've been competitive in almost all of our losses and our players are still learning the system and we are just getting Lou back into the swing of things. We are #1 in the NBA in assists and play a very nice style of basketball that gets everyone involved. I expect that as we get more and more comfortable as a team that we will climb away from .500, which honestly surprised me as I didn't expect us to have that ability this year without making any other moves.

[Dnice]

Hope they can get some seperation and be a true 3rd seed.

[Dnice]

Double post

Edited December 21, 2013 by Dnice

[Wretch]

Not really surprised by the Hawks. They're pretty much doing what I thought they'd do: struggle with good teams and on the road while they dispatch the bad teams. What is surprising to me, even still, is how terrible the Eastern Conference is.All that really matters to me right now though is Brooklyn continuing to suck. :)

[JETSET]

I'm not surprised all that much. I expected them to finish a couple of games better than last year. We are 3 games above .500 but I think we should be better.

We went 1-3 in the 4 games that Korver missed and scored less than 90 in 2 of those. I think we win atleast 1 more game of those 4 if Korver plays.

We had 2 bad losses in the 8 games in 12 days span. We win both of those games if we aren't playing on tired legs. (ex. Had a 10 pt lead after 3 qtrs against Boston and then couldn't throw the ball in the ocean in the 4th, was 4th game in 5 nights)

This team could easily be 17-10 or 18-9 if you account for those circumstances.

[Peoriabird]

I am not entirely unhappy with our record as we've been competitive in almost all of our losses and our players are still learning the system and we are just getting Lou back into the swing of things. We are #1 in the NBA in assists and play a very nice style of basketball that gets everyone involved. I expect that as we get more and more comfortable as a team that we will climb away from .500, which honestly surprised me as I didn't expect us to have that ability this year without making any other moves.

I think that a lot of posters tried to tell other poster how bad LD was but apparently there are some that still think that it is some magical occurrence that has the Hawks looking like a real team and not the work of a far superior coach. Oh well, I guess we are just Atlanta sport fans and can't tell the difference between Mike Woodson and Phil Jackson and somehow always blame the GM and players for lack of team success. Sort of like those Falcon fans that still think that Mike Smith is a good coach or those Braves fans that still worship Bobby Cox

[benhillboy]

Not surprised by the record too much, I figured we'd finish around 45 wins. I am surprised by 101 points per with the holes in the roster and disappointments in the last two guards we drafted. Fortunately and oddly we can still hit our fair share of threes without Jenkins and dish rock better than any other squad without Dennis. The way Teague got us going out the gate and no drop off for Korver was/ is unexpected for me. Facilitating Mack's development is nothing for Bud.

Edited December 21, 2013 by benhillboy

[tbhawksfan]

My expectation is contending for and winning a championship. Long time without one. If we're not a contender, we better be building towards being one.

[Buzzard]

I was hoping for .500 without Lou and we got that. Now with him back we are playing better. For all the talk about the strong Western Conference, here is the biggest surprise: we are now 5 and 1 at home against the West. To add some more info on this: the East went 4 and 0 against the West last night. This included the 8th seeded East team, Raptors, beating the 8th seeded West team, Mavericks, in their house and Indy crushing the Rockets!

We are playing really good team ball. Not only do I think we are being overlooked; but the Eastern Conference as a whole is. In other words, we are better than our record indicates! And that is exceeding my expectations.

Edited December 21, 2013 by Buzzard

[Alex]

The Hawks are playing slightly better than what I thought going into the season. However it's much of the same though. Beat up on bad teams and get beat by the good ones.

A 2-7 record against teams with a winning record is a very telling sign.

[Admin]

The Hawks are playing slightly better than what I thought going into the season. However it's much of the same though. Beat up on bad teams and get beat by the good ones.

A 2-7 record against teams with a winning record is a very telling sign.

A bunch of those losses were without Korver and that changed our entire offensive flow. We were 1-3 with all 3 losses against teams with winning records without him. Once he's come back we've played much, much better. We've also only lost 1 game at home to a team with a winning record and that was OKC by 9 points in a game we could have won.