Pac's Resurrection: The Official 2014-15 Atlanta Hawks Season Thread

[The ADD]

Vivlamore's 5 takes

1. Let’s start with Smith. He spoke highly of the Hawks’ success before the game. He didn’t take kindly to a smattering of boos during the game. He incited the home crowd after rattling home a fourth-quarter 3-pointer. With one hand in raised a finger to his mouth to hush the crowd. With the other hand he waved for them to get louder. They did – unfortunately for Smith. Following the incident, Smith missed his next three shots, two 3-pointers, and had two turnovers. The boos got louder and louder with each miscue. Smith watched the rest of the Hawks’ comeback from the bench.

Following the game, Smith joined the Thunders’ Kevin Durant in saying fans have jumped on the Hawks’ bandwagon. Smith said to ESPN: “I mean, those fans are fickle, very fickle and bandwagoners.”

One former Smith teammate appreciated the Hawks fans response.

“I knew he was going to do something like that,” Jeff Teague said. “They were booing him all night. He is a good player. I’m glad they responded the way they did (after hushing incidents). It was fun. He did a lot of great things for this franchise but he’s gone now. They wanted to let him know he’s not welcome here anymore.”

2. I have written several times this season about the Hawks coaching staff using video to drive home points with the Hawks – a nod to coach Mike Budenholzer’s background. Players point to a fiery film session earlier this season, after the Hawks’ 5-5 start, for the dramatic turnaround. Budenholzer held another session Tuesday – at halfime.

“(Budenholzer) told us he wasn’t going to yell at us,” Kyle Korver said. “He just showed clips of us not playing at a high enough level energy wise. He told us we have to care a little more. There were a bunch of plays where we weren’t getting back on defense and we were letting them get the loose balls. Sometimes you can challenge people with words and get mad at them. Sometimes you just show them the film. We are all professionals and we know we can play better.”

3. Budenholzer is using the Jeff Teague-Dennis Schroder tandem more and more of late. The guard duo presents all kinds of matchup problems for the opposition. Both were able to use their speed to slow down the Rockets. Teague said he likes the pairing, which allows him to guard a bigger player.

“I like to play with Jeff at the same time,” Schroder said. “We are pushing the pace on offense. We are way faster than everybody else. I think when we are both on the court we can push the pace every time. It’s been great.”

4. There was plenty of trash talking during the game – in addition to Smith. Jason Terry and Corey Brewer were singled out by Hawks players. Schroder even said Terry started the previous night. The two ran into each other at the Chris Brown concert at Philips Arena Monday. Schroder said Terry told him he was coming for him. None of the talk got out of hand but it certainly added to the playoff atmosphere.

5. There were several other notable facts that need to be mentioned. The Hawks are 36 games over .500 for the first time in franchise history. … They have the best home record in the NBA. … The Hawks outscored the Rockets 32-15 and limited them to 5 of 21 shooting in the fourth quarter. … With 22 regular-season games remaining, the Hawks lead the Southeast Division by 14-1/2 games and the Eastern Conference by 10 games.

Touch Me's comments

 

[Motife43]

Hawks sign d-league 3 point champ jarell Eddie to a ten day. @#1 pick remember anything bout here?

Dude can play from what I remember this summer

Yeah, he was with us in preseason. He can shoot the rock, quick trigger, thinking back to his VT days, I didn't think he would be in the league. Hopefully he'll contribute if we re-sign him for the rest of the year

 

[BlackMajik]

 

[Dominique Wilkins]

Team Teague forever

fukk a Josh Smith

 

[BlackMajik]

Jeff knows he meant that shyt lol

 

[AVXL]

So we clinched a playoff spot, but what's our magic number to clinch the SE? We up 14.5 with 23 to play, we gotta be closing in on that number

 

[Stone]

Jeff knows he meant that shyt lol

There wasn't really anything malicious about what he said to begin with .

 

[daemonova]

 

[Dominique Wilkins]

 

[Dominique Wilkins]

theyre giving out these shirts at the game tomorrow

Dominique Wilkins Q&A with Grantland:

What would you have averaged in today’s NBA?

Well, let’s see, [if] you couldn’t touch me, no hand checks, you use the elbows, and there’s flagrant fouls? I mean I really don’t know, but I can tell you this, I think it would be over 35 a game. I’m just being honest. I mean, if you can’t touch me? I mean, I played in the era when they could put their hand on your hip and guide you wherever they wanted you to go. But I love today’s game, the freedom that these guys play with. It’s a fun brand of basketball to watch.

 

[Dominique Wilkins]

K L Chouinard ‏@AnaheimAmigos
Nique says that Pete Maravich got him ready for the NBA. Used to train with him every day in the summers when he was at UGa.

Peachtree Hoops ‏@peachtreehoops
Wilkins: "This statue stands for change in this city and this franchise"

Chris Vivlamore ‏@CVivlamoreAJC
Wilkins: "If you try to change history, history will fight back." #ATLHawks

 

[Dominique Wilkins]

 

[postnutclarity]

None of you know, but I actually assisted the Hawks at one point -- if you wanna call it that. It started when the 09-10 season began (also my freshman year of high school). That's when I became a fan. Josh was still on the team and I stumbled upon a personal blog of his. He used it as a tool to interact with fans. Anyway, I find it funny he calls the fans fickle and bandwagoners when I'd post comments and videos full of advice that actually helped the Hawks, but he NEVER credited me EVER.

There were even post-game interviews where he'd say some things I said VERBATIM but I was never given any props for my efforts. Maybe I was naive for giving away free advice, but I was a die-hard fan and was doing it for the love more than anything else. I actually CARED about this team, unlike this lazy, lethargic bum. I even tried helping him realize that it was not only his poor shot selection holding him back, but his horrid attitude. Silly of me to think that would work. But a wise person once told me "you can only help someone if they want to be helped".

And obviously this nikka can't be helped, especially at this point in his flabby ass career.

Mad 'cause the Hawks are doing better without you. bytch ass nikka.

Oh and Josh -- if you're reading this, fukk YOU.

 

[BlackMajik]

None of you know, but I actually assisted the Hawks at one point -- if you wanna call it that. It started when the 09-10 season began (also my freshman year of high school). That's when I became a fan. Josh was still on the team and I stumbled upon a personal blog of his. He used it as a tool to interact with fans. Anyway, I find it funny he calls the fans fickle and bandwagoners when I'd post comments and videos full of advice that actually helped the Hawks, but he NEVER credited me EVER.

There were even post-game interviews where he'd say some things I said VERBATIM but I was never given any props for my efforts. Maybe I was naive for giving away free advice, but I was a die-hard fan and was doing it for the love more than anything else. I actually CARED about this team, unlike this lazy, lethargic bum. I even tried helping him realize that it was not only his poor shot selection holding him back, but his horrid attitude. Silly of me to think that would work. But a wise person once told me "you can only help someone if they want to be helped".

And obviously this nikka can't be helped, especially at this point in his flabby ass career.

Mad 'cause the Hawks are doing better without you. bytch ass nikka.

Oh and Josh -- if you're reading this, fukk YOU.

@ this entire post

 

[AVXL]

Lang Whitaker with this amazing tribute to Nique da GOAT

Wilkins will always be in the heart of the city of Atlanta


Dr. McDonough considered me carefully, glanced over to my mother, then looked back to me. I'd been seeing Dr. McDonough for all of my 13 years, so he knew my full medical history cold.

"Well," he sighed, pursing his lips, "there's nothing fundamentally or structurally wrong. And you're not in any pain, right?"

"No, sir," I replied honestly. I had also entirely fabricated this problem, but I wasn't about to admit that, not here in the pediatrician's office.

"Stand up again," he ordered, and I complied. He stared at my feet, before finally pronouncing, "Well, you do have flat feet, so I guess maybe your feet are rolling inward a bit. But honestly, that shouldn't cause you to be this pigeon-toed."

If Dr. McDonough had been more of an NBA fan, he might have correctly diagnosed me with Dominique-itis. After all, I'd been walking and running with my toes pointed at each other for months, hoping that by emulating my favorite athlete, some of his otherworldly athletic ability would somehow be generated in me.

It was not.

I grew up in Atlanta, living a normal childhood in a nuclear household, probably exactly like tens of millions of other kids in the 1980s around the United States. Except that my childhood revolved almost entirely around Dominique Wilkins.

Ask me about my youth and any of the things that I was most involved with -- living in Atlanta, playing basketball, watching the Atlanta Hawks -- were all filtered through a Dominique Wilkins lens. Nique was a fundamental, vital part of my childhood in ways that would affect me forever.

Dominique Wilkins was the best player on the Atlanta Hawks from the first game of his rookie season (October 29, 1982, when he scored 23 against Detroit) until the last game before they shipped him out of town (February 23, 1994, when hung 24 on Seattle). A rangy, 6-foot-7 small forward, Nique didn't have the most aesthetically pleasing game -- on offense he often played as though he was in a hurry, as though he just couldn't wait to score again, and he was a better two-foot dunker than he was jumping off one foot like the majority of his peers. He wasn't the greatest ballhandler, but he was better rebounding and playing defense than he receives retroactive credit.

Dominique Wilkins Interview

Atlanta Hawks legend Dominique Wilkins sits down with NBA.com's Sekou Smith.

He was able to add wrinkles to his game as his career went along. One season -- I believe it was the 1987-88 campaign -- suddenly Dominique began shooting everything off of the glass. The bank shot was revelatory to his game, because all those floaters from the wing and shots off horizontal sprints across the paint now had an anchor point. At the end of that season, Dominique was quoted in the paper as saying that he intended to spend the offseason working on his left-handed shooting, to add another new tool to his arsenal. My friends and I dutifully worked on our lefty shots all summer, the better to emulate what we assumed would be a newly remodeled Nique. Instead he returned the next year having apparently decided the left-handed thing was not really for him.

Those who didn't believe he was elite pointed out the blemishes in his game: He was not enough of a leader; he did not involve his teammates enough; he didn't work hard enough on defense. Argue he wasn't elite at those things, or some other parts of the game, and you wouldn't get much of an argument in response. Because those facets were never central to Dominique's greatness.

Dominique Wilkins was born to score the basketball, like few others in history. He could get buckets in transition, with his back to the basket, off of iso's, coming off picks, however you wanted to use him. He would pull up for a jumper, springing halfway to the ceiling to shoot over any defender. He would pump fake and dunk on anyone who tried to get in the way. If he had size on you, he'd back you down on the left block (as long as he could beat Kevin Willis to that side while the offense was setting up). He was also an above-average free throw shooter (81 percent for his career) who knew how to get to the line regularly.

As his career went along, his jump shot became more and more accurate. Between 1984 and 1993, Nique averaged 28.2 points per game. Midway through the 1991-92 season, while averaging 28.1 ppg, Dominique ruptured his Achilles tendon. He returned eight months later and played 71 games for the Hawks in 92-93, and averaged 29.9 ppg. Nique was known for his dunking, but if you think of Wilkins as only a dunker, you're missing the point. The points were the prose; the dunks were the punctuation.

Dominique Wilkins' Top 10 Dunks of His Career

In honor of Dominique Wilkins' 55th Birthday, we have re-released the Top 10 Dunks of his Career.

Being a fan of Dominique Wilkins was no simple task. To supporters of other teams who had championships and had their own Hall of Famers, Dominique may have been inconsequential. But in the absence of rings in Atlanta, having Dominique wearing our colors was our title. He was pretty much all that we had, so we held him close and defended his legacy to the death, even as it was being created, something I find myself still doing today.

It's important to remember that the NBA in the 1980s was a completely different landscape for consumers. We got the bulk of our Nique news from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which we had to read on actual newsprint, where the delightfully acerbic Jeffrey Denberg was usually on the case. Steve Holman was calling the games on the radio, and local television had the occasional live shots from games on the evening news.

For someone who grew up to become a writer, the most exciting thing was when the Hawks warranted a full-blown feature in Sports Illustrated, which wasn't often. Dominique scored a cover once, back in 1986. (To date, by comparison, Michael Jordan has appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated 50 times.)

When it came to the NBA's stars of the late 80s and early 90s, Dominique was usually included in the conversation, but almost as a courtesy. When the NBA released their revelatory NBA Superstars VHS tape, Nique was included, although his highlight video was hilariously set to the music of Yanni. While the sneaker world exploded with guys wearing Nikes and adidas and Converse Weapons, Nique was out there wearing the relatively unknown brand Brooks. While other players starred in national advertising campaigns, Nique had a local commercial for a company called Country Fed Meats.

And that was basically it. No Twitter, no blogs, no social media. If we got lucky, sometimes there would be a note with a bit of supplementary information about the Hawks in Sports Illustrated or Basketball Digest. I subscribed to both publications and read them religiously, but with the Lakers, Celtics and Bulls as the marquee teams, there was precious little info about the Hawks floating around out there.

Ironically, if Nique had come along a decade or so later, I feel like his career would have been viewed entirely differently. They didn't call him the Human Highlight Film for nothing -- Nique's game was tailor-made for YouTube, GIFs and Vines.

– Lang Whitaker

Ironically, if Nique had come along a decade or so later, I feel like his career would have been viewed entirely differently. They didn't call him the Human Highlight Film for nothing -- Nique's game was tailor-made for YouTube, GIFs and Vines.

In very many ways, Dominique's career has been repeatedly marked by being on the wrong side of history. Maybe it's bad timing, bad luck, whatever.

• Game Seven of the 1988 Eastern Conference Semifinals, when he dueled against Larry Bird, finishing with 47 points (on 19-of-23 shooting) as the Hawks barely lost, 118-116.

• The 1988 Slam Dunk Contest, when Nique combined power, grace and precision in unprecedented ways, but lost to Michael Jordan because the Dunk Contest just happened to be held in Chicago.

• In 1994, when the Hawks had finally constructed a first place team, and management decided the Hawks would be better off without the best player in franchise history. So they shipped Nique to the Clippers for Danny Manning. Nique averaged 29.1 ppg for the Clippers; Manning and the Hawks lost in the Conference semis, and Manning couldn't get out of town quick enough, immediately leaving for Phoenix in free agency.

• In 1996, when the NBA announced their official list of the 50 greatest players of all-time. Dominique was not included on that list. That was a real punch to the chest for Hawks fans, because suddenly the guy we'd held this blind belief in for so long was being institutionally snubbed. It was like the NBA was telling Atlanta fans that Dominique Wilkins was officially not as good as we all believed that he was. And it hurt.

Dominique on His Return

Dominique Wilkins talks about his return to action following an achilles injury.

To his credit, Nique has mostly taken the high road whenever he's asked about being left off the Top 50 squad. But it's mind-boggling to me that a guy who was the seventh leading scorer in NBA history when he retired wasn't considered one of the 50 greatest players of all time. Put it this way: If there was a fantasy draft at the time involving all-time players, I guarantee you Nique would have gone top 50, if not top 25.

Strictly speaking, Nique never let us down. He did his best in every one of the circumstances I listed above, performing to impossibly high standards over and over, only to see the dice come up snake eyes again and again. And throughout the whole ride, Nique held his head high, carrying himself with a sense of pride. Nique's career may have been blemished by these events, but they never defined him.

In many ways, Nique's attitude in the face of malfunction seemed representative of the way Atlanta sports fans were often left feeling. Until the Braves went from worst to first in the 90s, our teams were consistent failures, year after year after year. All we as Atlanta sports fans could do is suck it up and cheer our lungs out and wait for the day, if it ever came, that things would start to go our way.

Which is what makes this weekend so sweet. Not only will the Atlanta Hawks unveil a 13-foot statue of Dominique that will live forever just outside Philips Arena, in the footprint of The OMNI, Nique's former stomping grounds, but it couldn't come at a more amazing time for Hawks fans. The Hawks are currently 48-12, in first place in the Eastern Conference, and already guaranteed a playoff spot.

Ironically, the last time the Hawks were in first place this late in a season? That would be 1994, when they traded Dominique. In fact, the statue unveiling will be pretty close to the 21st anniversary of March 25, 1994, when Dominique returned to the OMNI as a member of the lowly Clippers. If there was any question how Hawks fans felt about the trade, they were answered when Dominique received a robust standing ovation during the pregame introductions that night. Nique thanked us by playing like a man possessed, scoring 36 points and leading a thumping of the Hawks, 97-94.

All of that was a lifetime ago, in a different world, in a different NBA. These days Nique would probably be considered a volume scorer who plays an inefficient style of basketball, and an analytics-focused general manager would move him for a collection of assets (including a few second-round draft picks) long before Nique had the chance to play a dozen years for any one franchise.

But understand, Nique was never about the numbers. It was about the heart, the soul, the ambition, the hope, and a visceral connection between a city and a man who had each others' backs, no matter what.

At their very best, sports and the athletes who play them can connect us in powerful and profound ways. Unless you lived it, it will be difficult to understand what Dominique meant to Atlanta. In the gloaming of the Civil Right movement, Atlanta was a city in search of an identity. The 1996 Olympics, becoming the capital of the new South, being known as The ATL -- all that stuff was still around the corner. In the meantime, Nique elevated the Hawks and, without really trying to do it, he unified a city behind him.

For years now, people have said if the Hawks wanted to get the city behind them, they needed a superstar. Which isn't entirely true. Right now the city of Atlanta is all-in with the Hawks, a team without a superstar, because they are winning. Atlanta didn't support the Hawks in the 80s because Dominique was a superstar. We supported them because Dominique was our superstar.

Atlanta is my city. I haven't lived there in almost 15 years now, but I was born there, raised there, fell in love there. One day, I will return there. Right now, I am not in Atlanta, but Atlanta is in me, and it will always be there.

I will always claim Atlanta, just as I hope it will always claim me.

As for Nique, he never needs to wonder: Dominique was, and always will be, part of us.

Lang Whitaker has covered the NBA since 1998. You can e-mail him here or follow him on Twitter.

The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Turner Broadcasting.


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