To me he'll always be the guy who smuggled a lengthy appreciation of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain into a column ostensibly about the Braves in the Spring or Summer of '94 but to you, today, Mark Bradley's the guy who wrote a good column about Acie Law IV.

His name is Acie Law IV, and the Hawks haven’t yet seen one-fourth of what he can do. At Texas A&M, he was fearless. As an NBA rookie, he played scared.

He was afraid he’d mess up, afraid he’d get benched, so afraid of doing the wrong thing that he didn’t do much of anything. This isn’t uncommon with rookies, rookie point guards especially, but Law knew even as he was hesitating how hesitant he’d become.

“I was tense [last season],” he said Wednesday, following the Hawks’ exhibition loss to Phoenix. “I wasn’t aggressive. I was real passive. I was kind of trying to play mistake-free and not to make coach mad.”

The degree to which Acie Law IV and Marvin Williams have improved will determine how long this team fights for a playoff berth. Agreed?