After an incredible season, the 2014-15 Atlanta Hawks were rudely shoved off their mortal coil in the Eastern Conference Finals. As the Hawks return home, the latest edition of FLANZILLERY assesses the damages and peers into the future.
The Hawks’ system was destroyed by LeBron. What now?
After 60 wins and a trip to the conference finals, the Hawks met their match. Is there anywhere else for them to go or have they reached their ceiling?
ZILLER: You couldn't write a more damning indictment of the starless model than LeBron James authored in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Hawks entered the series with four NBA All-Stars (coaches reward winning when picking those teams) and zero All-NBA players (because none of the Hawks were seriously among the top 15 players in the league).
All year we wrestled with the arguments that system ball unreliant on two or three central scoring stars would fail in the playoffs, when things get rougher and messier. I think we both wanted those arguments to be wrong, because Hawks Ball was hella fun in the regular season and a procession of one-on-one plays can get tiring. That said, in your final Sunday Shootaround of the season, you acknowledged that stars make the system in the NBA.
Did you see this coming? Does this result mean the Hawks’ system will go out of style before it’s even in style?
FLANNERY: Only in the NBA can you win 75 percent of your games, the regular season conference title and reach the postseason final four and have your system invalidated. What other sports would call “bad luck,” the NBA calls a fatal flaw. You can win a lot of games with a lot of good players, a strong coach and a solid system, but it’s very difficult to win a title without superstars.
Everyone points to the 2004 Pistons as the outlier, but the 2013 Nuggets may be an even better example. They won 57 games without an all-star and lost in the first round. The Hawks aren't that, but this conference finals is a stronger rebuke of their approach than I had imagined. They should have had matchup advantages all over the court, but they were dominated by LeBron and a cast of role players. I'm shocked, actually.
ZILLER: We’re left to assign credit and blame. How much of this is LeBron’s superiority, and how much is a weakness of the system? (There are also some injury issues for Atlanta, not the least of which is Kyle Korver’s wrecked ankle. Of course, Cleveland racked up a series lead before Korver went down.)
I think that injury issue might be entwined in the overall question. Look at a car engine. It's a complex machine. One flaw, though, and the whole thing comes apart. You get smoke (last month of the season) and then things start sounding real funny (Nets series) and getting sluggish (Wizards series). Next thing you know, you're driving uphill and the damned thing stalls out.
A star-centered system is way more simple and often far less beautiful. Like, say, a rickshaw. You get a strong and committed enough human and you can move that rickshaw no matter what. That's essentially the Cavaliers at this point. That offense is simple and repulsive due to injuries, but because of LeBron, by golly it works. The Hawks don't have anyone capable of dragging their car along.
FLANNERY: No, they really don’t.
ZILLER: Not much can go wrong with a rickshaw. Lots of little things can ruin a car engine. We know that the long grind of the NBA season and playoffs wear down players. We’ve seen injuries everywhere. Perhaps the reliability of that old rickshaw wins out more often than not for a reason.
FLANNERY: Coming into this series, I thought Jeff Teague would have to dominate and Paul Millsap and Al Horford would need to win their matchups. The Cavaliers contained Teague by dropping their bigs on coverages and making him into a jump shooter. It's the old Rondo defense and Teague doesn't have the creativity or strength to attack it and keep it on its heels. That also means that he's not creating for Millsap and Horford, who need his penetration to open things up for their jump shots.
Teague is a good player, not a great one. Millsap is another good player who is hampered by a shoulder injury that no one talks about anymore. Horford is probably their best player because he’s so good at so many things, but he’s not a dominant offensive force in any context. That’s not anyone’s fault. It just is.
The system works. Just look at last year's Finals when the Spurs ran rings around Miami. But not enough credit was given to the individual talents of players like Kawhi Leonard, Boris Diaw and Danny Green. They're not just system players, even if they fit perfectly in the Spurs' universe.
It wasn’t all the LeBron factor either. Atlanta’s fatal flaw all season was defensive rebounding. Lo and behold, that was exposed here.
ZILLER: Teague was a real disappointment, especially given Kyrie Irving’s absences. I mean, imagine this series if Kyrie came in healthy!
To me the star vs. system issue comes down to resilience. What happens when you run into a wall? Can you get back on track or limp to wins? Stars do that. We don’t have proof that starless systems, even those that reach 60 wins, can survive crises of the sort every title team faces.
This isn't to say systems are irrelevant. The Warriors have melded stars and a system into a hellstorm, just as the Spurs did in 2013 and 2014. This just seems like further proof that the star is the most important thing here.
FLANNERY: How many of those guys are out there? To put it another way, replace LeBron with any of the other superstars: Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Anthony Davis, etc. Are the Cavaliers going to the Finals with anyone but King James? My answer is no, but I'm curious to hear your response.
ZILLER: It’s an incredibly short list made shorter by LeBron’s impact on defense, too. But I think you can put at least Durant on it. That’s probably it. The Hawks specifically and East in general are just so uninspiring.
This isn’t to detract from David Blatt’s work to exploit weaknesses in the opponents or the other Cavaliers, of course. Everyone’s doing their jobs. LeBron’s job is just the most important by far.
FLANNERY: Right, I agree with that. Durant would be the one guy I would consider elevating into that discussion. (AD’s not quite ready yet).
Two main points here. One, LeBron is still the best player in the league. He didn’t have the best season and he wasn’t the MVP, but he’s the best player. I think people lost sight of that during the regular season. And two, what do you do if you don’t have a top-tier player?
DeMarre Carroll and Paul Millsap are free agents after this season. The Hawks' cap sheet is fairly clear and they don't have any outsized commitments to any of their players. Both Millsap and Carroll will be upper middle class expensive to retain. If they re-sign those guys, they're basically saying this is who we're going to be for the next few years. What do you do?
ZILLER: You plug along until you can sign or trade for a legit superstar, and you especially keep the critical pieces you have without explicitly killing your flexibility. Horford’s the guy you absolutely have to keep unless you trade him for one of the few better centers out there. Everyone else should be weighed carefully with a bias toward keeping the team together, even if it means overpaying here and there. The lack of a superstar is an issue only against the best player in the world, after all.
Winning 60 games (or even 50) for the foreseeable future? There are worse positions to be in. Your thoughts?
FLANNERY: Right, and I wonder if more teams will try this approach, especially in the East where there’s only a handful of legit good teams. You can get from 40 to 50 wins pretty quickly, and then you’re a key injury or a lucky break or two away from having a shot at getting to the Finals. With shorter contracts and more roster churn, there’s real opportunity for sustained success. That’s not something the majority of teams can afford to throw away.
I’d be cautious in Atlanta’s situation, however. Short of getting a Kawhi-like impact player in the middle of the first round this year (thanks, Brooklyn!) there’s not that much room for improvement. Their core guys are in their late 20s or early 30s and Horford can be a free agent after next year, when he’ll go from bargain value to maxed out star on his third deal. This looks like their best shot and it may be their only shot if something happens with Carroll and/or Millsap this summer.
This is a cold, unforgiving league.
ZILLER: Thanks LeBron for ruining the hope and joy of yet another Eastern city.
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