The Atlanta Hawks seem destined to repeat their successes and failures of a year ago, and that perception should persist until Larry Drew is able to show us something about the Hawks that Mike Woodson never could. Given how little we know about Drew as a head coach, I can’t give you a compelling reason why he’s doomed to fail, but to assume that the roster and performance will remain more or less the same until they prove otherwise is a reasonable burden for Drew to bear.
It doesn’t help that the universe is clearly working against Drew. As he tries to break his team of their old ways and show them the light, it only makes sense that the very fabric of our existence would fold and contort to injure as many Hawks as possible. Atlanta just wasn’t meant to play good perimeter defense, and with a string of injuries to ATL’s core players through training camp and the preseason, the cosmos has ensured that the Hawks of old will also be the Hawks of new. From Michael Cunningham of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
The Hawks finally started to shorten their injury list at practice Thursday. Jamal Crawford (back), Mo Evans (knee), Jason Collins (leg) and Williams (ill) all returned. Injuries to those players, plus starting center Al Horford, have made it tough to evaluate the Hawks. They’ve also hindered Drew’s efforts to install his new offense and alter his team’s approach to defense. “That part of it is tough,” Drew said. “But that’s just the way it is. You have to deal with it. When [the injured players] get back we will spend more teaching them to try to get them caught up.”
The Hawks haven’t had their full group of regulars for three preseason games. The closest they came was in the opener, when all of the expected rotation players except Crawford played much of the first half. Otherwise, Drew has had to make do. Drew had planned to let Horford play significant minutes at power forward. But that became less feasible with Horford limited by a balky ankle injured early in camp and also Collins’ injury. With Crawford and Teague both out, Drew had to play rookie Jordan Crawford at point guard at Detroit and Washington. Crawford, a shooting guard, hadn’t practiced at point guard.
I wouldn’t worry too much about Horford; he’s far too intelligent of a player for a little make-up work to derail him, and he wasn’t even part of the problem to begin with. I’m also going to pretend that Collins’ name is included for purely comedic reasons, or to indicate that Atlanta had one fewer practice big than they’d like.
But to have Crawford and Teague miss minutes at this critical juncture, given both players’ inability to defend on the perimeter (or in the paint, or in a house, or with a mouse, etc.) is potentially damning. Expecting Drew to immediately make effective defenders out of Crawford and Teague would be asking a bit much, but even an attempt to curb some of their poor habits by way of proper adjustment within the Hawks’ new defensive system could have ended with real, substantive progress. Additionally, even if those two were healthy, Horford’s presence completely changes how Atlanta would react to certain sequences defensively, leaving the whole preseason process half-empty in its potential benefit.
Maybe none of this will matter in the long run, but I fail to see how the Hawks’ recent string of minor injuries could be anything but negative. Best of luck, Larry Drew. Your task of improving Atlanta’s effectiveness on both ends of the court has been undercut from the start, and one can only hope that the team starts November better than they did October.
