Official Game Thread: Pistons at Hawks -- the Home Opener!

[lethalweapon3]

You said it, SPANX Lady!

 

This Just In: The Lions have given up yet another touchdown.

While it’s not the best time to issue hugs to unsuspecting strangers, if you come across a Detroit Sports fan, offer ‘em an air-hug, or a fist pump or something.

If you’re aged 30 or below, you likely don’t recall the last time the Lions won an NFL playoff game. Matthew Stafford will soon join Barry Sanders, Herman Moore and Calvin Johnson on the At Least You Tried Ring of Honor.

Last place in the AL Central, and dead-last-by-a-mile in the NHL, respectively, the Tigers and Red Wings know better than to have laughs at the Lions’ expense. All four of Detroit’s pro teams have been in dire straits for quite some time, including the visitors served up at State Farm Arena for the Atlanta Hawks’ home opener, the Pistons (7:30 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, Fox Sports Detroit).

At least the Pistons once had Cleveland in their division to look down upon, last season. But a 128-119 double-OT home loss on Saturday to the momentarily undefeated Cavs has Detroit (0-2) dwelling the cellar. A foreboding schedule to kick off the 2021 calendar year (game pairs versus Boston and at Milwaukee) has folks wondering if there’s a subfloor.

Far be it for any Atlanta sports fan to peer down upon anyone’s despair. But Mike Budenholzer was preparing for his first official game as the Hawks’ head coach the last time any Detroit major league team advanced in a postseason. When last the Pistons prevailed in a playoff series, Atlanta was still three seasons away from losing the Thrashers.

While we rightfully critique our sports owners around here (the ones we can find), for various and sundry reasons, there has been a full-hearted push to get every one of Detroit’s owners, from the Ilitch and Ford families, to the Pistons’ reach-out-and-bilk-someone Tom Gores, to give up the ship. It’s a tale of two sports cities that, I believe, reflects the tale of two cities at-large.

As a metropolis, Atlanta’s calling card is economic resilience. It’s hard to tell from a bird’s-eye view right now, with a rolling landscape of largely vacant office towers stretching from downtown to Sandy Springs amidst a global downturn. But on the ground, there remains a sense that our industrial diversity can keep The ATL afloat, long-term, in ways American metros sorely lacking in “depth” will struggle.

Logistics, healthcare, legal services, entertainment media, information technology, hospitality, education, construction. All industries are being frazzled while wrangling with the pandemic, and many of Atlanta’s bellwether companies are gushing out laborers to keep their bottom lines from bottoming out.

But the big bet here is that there is enough resolve among its citizens to shift with few seams from one workflow to another, enough ingenuity among its “creative class” to, if you’ll excuse the well-worn phrase, build our economy back better, as we alleviate ourselves from the stresses of COVID-19’s strains. Where Coke and Delta flounder, Home Depot, Chick-fil-A, UPS, Inspire Brands and others hope to pick up the slack. At business scales both large and small, many towns don’t have such flexibility.

While Atlanta, like Detroit, relishes in tearing outmoded things down, it generally doesn’t proceed without a forward-thinking plan to build functional replacements that last. It tries not to chase after old-hat concepts (“Hey, let’s build a bunch of casinos!”), swinging for the fences in hopes of hitting an economic grand-slam. Atlantans aren’t successful at every venture. But, by and large, rational outsiders can at least understand what we’re trying to accomplish. These are attitudes that we like to think those in charge of managing our sports clubs admire and turn to for inspiration.

The spirit of ATL Innovation produces people like one part-time Disney World worker, stand-up comic and door-to-door fax machine salesperson, who struggled with her LSATs -- and her stockings -- while striving to become an attorney.

Her ideas to reinvent the hosiery business were initially scoffed at, in the male-dominated manufacturing field. In less than 15 years after moving to Atlanta, by building Spanx into an empire, Sara Blakely became the youngest self-made female billionaire on the planet. Within 20 years, she and her jet-setting ex-rapper husband would be proud co-owners of the Atlanta Hawks.

The spirit of ATL Resoluteness lives in Dominique. Dominique Armani Jones, to be exact. In the late 2000’s, the Atlanta native was a freshman-year dropout at Booker T. Washington High, and it wouldn’t be long afterward that a fight with some racist inmate, while in the pokey for drug possession, would extend his stay there. But through writing trap music, and maintaining connections with up-and-coming artists for mixtape collaborations, Jones made his way out of the larger trap built to absorb millions of young men like him.

In five short years since his last release from jail, “Lil Baby” has amassed more Billboard Hot 100-charting hits than either Prince or Paul McCartney. It’s a pace of hip-hop bangers that rivals Atlanta artist Future zipping past 8-Miler Eminem on the hits list.

The song that helped Lil Baby surpass those titans, his Grammy-nominated “The Bigger Picture”, became an anthem during a superheated summer of 2020 protests in Atlanta and around the world. Not forgetting his Oakland City neighborhood roots, Dominique spent the days before Christmas partnering with MARTA for a pop-up wintertime coat giveaway in the West End.

We may be known for gritty yet glittery places like Magic City. But what comes across as ATL Magic to the uninitiated disguises the coherent scheming and willpower that drives this area’s citizenry, natives and newcomers alike. As Lou Williams can attest with his signature wings, we come up with the sauce and the sizzle that best sells the gristle.

Other cities’ civic and corporate heroes now turn to Atlantans to help them thrive. Blakely opened a Spanx store in not only Atlanta’s but Detroit’s international airport. She once donated $100,000 of her fortune to a Detroit empowerment campaign that paid homeless women to produce sleeping bag coats for others in need.

Motown drew world-class talents from Detroit and the upper Midwest to achieve top-tier status in the music world for decades. These days, through its joint venture with Atlanta record label Quality Control Music, Motown relies heavily on ATL performers like Migos, Lil Yachty and Lil Baby to stay on top in the record biz. This, while local products like Big Sean, Eminem, Royce da 5’9”, and Mike Posner toil for out-of-town labels beyond their own.

On the hardwood, it’s hard to assess Detroit’s end-game strategy. But newcomer executive Troy Weaver, fresh from OKC, and incumbent coach Dwane Casey hope they’ll be granted enough time for all the demolition dust to clear.

Detroit could “boast” of its league-high four players who were Top-4 NBA Draft picks. Or at least they would, except two are aging ex-MVP candidates -- Derrick Rose (out, rest) and Blake Griffin (injury management, left home ahead of Detroit’s third game in four nights tomorrow) -- while the others are redefining their careers after being literal busts elsewhere – Jahlil Okafor (questionable, sprained ankle) and Josh Jackson.

Including lotto-pick guard Killian Hayes, and two-way backcourt mate Saben Lee, the Pistons have seven rookie or second-year contributors on its 17-man roster. But in the early going, Casey has not figured out a way to use them. With his leading minutes-logger (Griffin) and sixth-man spark (Rose) out of action tonight, Detroit’s coach won’t have much of a choice. “Everybody wants an instant overnight All-Star,” Casey told the Detroit News’ Rod Beard, “and that’s not going to happen with a 19-year-old kid. It’s a process with them.”

Atlanta has stayed true to its process of molding a core of young talent. Now, unlike the case with Detroit’s Rose, it doesn’t necessarily require a 2008 Draftee clinging to what remains of his prime (Danilo Gallinari, questionable with a foot contusion) to help coach Lloyd Pierce’s Hawks (2-0) outshine bad-to-mediocre competition.

Detroit (NBA-low 97.3 O-Rating, with Griffin and Rose) needs its biggest-moneyed acquisitions, Jerami Grant (18.5 PPG), Delon Wright and Mason Plumlee (team-highs of 8.5 RPG and 5.5 APG so far), to have huge nights to stay in the running for a victorious result.

Comparatively, Atlanta’s Bogdan might need more time to shed the early Bustdanovic label (31.8 FG% through two games), while Clint Capela (probable, Achilles), Kris Dunn (out, ankle surgery), lotto-rook Onyeka Okongwu (out, foot imflammation) and ex-Piston Tony Snell (see Okongwu) would do well to simply grace the floor with their presences.

But if prospects like third-year guard Kevin Huerter and the unheralded Nathan Knight (combined 35 bench points, 6-for-8 3FGs in Saturday’s 122-112 win at Memphis) continue stepping up in the aforementioned Hawks’ absences, there’s no need to rush. While the Motor City has been spinning its wheels, Atlanta has been building an all-wheel drive collective that suits near-overnight All-Star sensation Trae Young just fine.

When Trae quits subtweeting Ted Bruz and other professional trolls around the league, his play is garnering the most likes and follows. With 73 and 77 combined points from the opening two contests of Young’s past two NBA seasons, as per Stathead, only Wilt Chamberlain (105 in 1961, 106 in 1962) and Russell Westbrook (81 in 2015, 83 in 2016) have scored more to kick off back-to-back years.

While there’s reason to anticipate what scoring feats Atlanta’s latest Pistol Pete, Trebuchet Trae, might accomplish through Game #3, it will be more beneficial for Young to get his frontcourt freewheeling. Whether through stealthy lobs, cuts, or switches off pick-and-rolls, Young and the Hawks’ ballhandlers must find ways to endow Capela and double-double machine John Collins with productive touches around the rim.

Keeping an overwhelmed Grant (28 points, 10 boards, 3 blocks in 2 OTs vs. CLE) and Plumlee contracted in the defensive paint and drawing fouls can wear down Detroit’s front line early. That would make it simpler for Young (87.1 FT%, leading the NBA’s most frequent and accurate free throw shooters) and Atlanta’s perimeter threats to make tonight’s game, unlike the case for Cleveland’s Sexton and Garland, a strictly four-quarter affair.

Times are tough around the globe, and that’s especially true whether it’s in The 313 or The 404. But on and off the courts, strategic planning, collaborative talent building, and inner drive provides Atlanta the aspiration, depth, and flexibility to persevere and shine through all the down cycles thrown our way. No matter how grimy and sticky things get, as Lil Baby and Future know, it feels different when you can get it out the mud.

 

Let’s Go Hawks!

~lw3

[NBASupes]

Let's get it!

[lethalweapon3]

~lw3

[NBASupes]

Just now, lethalweapon3 said:

~lw3

Anytime you start a rookie PG, you will lose a lot of games. 

[JayBirdHawk]

Finally!

 

 

[macdaddy]

18 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Finally!

 

 

Ha.  Everyone playing in the 20s anyway.  

[Carmine]

20 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Finally!

 

 

Bout' time! Let em play Coach, even if it's in bubblewrap!

 

[RedDawg#8]

Having Capela, and hopefully Rondo would be a huge boost. 

Hopefully Gallo is back by the Nets game.

We have done well in their absence but its time to build some frickin chemistry with this team and establish roles instead of just plugging holes.

 

[lethalweapon3]

LP calls CAP!-ela. Also... are you Reddy for Monday Night?

~lw3

[GameTime]

 

[lethalweapon3]

At the other endline... we might not get a kick out of Mr. Doumbouya.

~lw3

[JayBirdHawk]

Oh well.

 

 

[JayBirdHawk]

29 minutes ago, lethalweapon3 said:

LP calls CAP!-ela. Also... are you Reddy for Monday Night?

 

~lw3

So is this the established starting lineup going forward?

[RedDawg#8]

7 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

So is this the established starting lineup going forward?

I sure hope so. Bogi has been trash every game he has started. Off the bench he has been night and day.

Plus Cam and Dre are a great fit next to Trae on offense and Defense. The other 3 guys we already knew were going to be starters.

[GameTime]

27 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Oh well.

 

 

Rather him rest for Wednesday at this point.

[gurpilo]

So, no Griffin, no Rose, no Okafor.... I really hope we win this game, if not it would be a disappointment for me against a 0-2 Pistons. Sekou Doumbouya might be out as well. Let’s hope Hayes size do not bother too much Trae.

[JayBirdHawk]

 

lol.

[bleachkit]

51 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

So is this the established starting lineup going forward?

Let the play decide going forward. No scholarships.

[BangHolman]

No Rose, no Griffin, no Okafor. Gotta win the gimme games like this one.

[JayBirdHawk]