The Atlanta Hawks had never won more than 57 games in a season. They had never made it past the second round of the playoffs.
This season the franchise won 60 games and made it to the Eastern Conference Finals.
Once there, the banged-up Hawks got swept by a banged-up Cavaliers team. That led some narrow-minded people to say they didn’t accomplish anything. I pity fans who view the world thinking if you don’t have the ultimate victory then it was a waste; they miss out on the joys of building, growing, the small victories of life. The Hawks had an exciting season, they filled an arena that in past years felt like a mausoleum, they played beautiful basketball for months at a time.
It’s something to build on.
The Hawks are not like the Cavaliers — they can’t luck out and have the best player on the planet decide to come home and change their fortunes. Kevin Love isn’t going to push for a trade to go there. Superstars will not fall into their lap. They need to lay out a system and get the right people to fill the slots in it. It’s the only way they can build. They have taken huge step in the right direction, one they can build on. To dismiss that as empty is shortsighted and just plain wrong.