Jeff Shultz over at the AJC talked to Rick Sund, and the Hawks GM reiterated that
“[his] feelings are consistent with what I’ve said all along, that this season is a barometer. We’ll analyze it when it’s all over.”
As a blogger, forget the season, I have a hard time not using every game as a barometer. Shoot, I can tell you the forecast most nights from one possession. I will break down the the play of one guy on one possession i the six seconds he touches the ball. Sometimes I feel I just micromanage the team I love.
I am the annoying fan. If this was a dumpable relationship, I would be gone. The Hawks tired of me complaining about how they don't role the toothpaste up like I want it. Sick of me weeping over the wet towels on the floor. It kind of freaks me out. But the Hawks can't dump me. They can't get rid of me. I can start keying cars over their use of tooth paste and as long as I pay my cable bill and buy my ticket, I can be as annoying and irrational as I want. But I don't want people to come to this blogging community simply to get their semi-witty, arbitrary complaints out on the team.
The Hawks are doing better than I anticipated. They are "surprise of the NBA" for some national writers. Blazers fans come one and say what an enjoyable team Atlanta is to watch. At the start of the season, I would have skipped 74ish of the games if I knew the Hawks were set up for home court in the first round of the playoffs.
Yet the game ends, and I find it easier to write five negative paragraphs on Mike Woodon than two on what the team did right. I mean when it comes to hating on the coach I am not even restricted by genres. That man is my muse. I will hook you up with a lament or an essay, a show tune or imagined conversation all on the fruits of disliking Woody.
Marvin has a good game and often all I can conjure up is, "He drove the ball under control tonight." I sound like a third grader trying to create sentences to demonstrate my knowledge of subject / verb agreement.
And still, I think I have good complaints. Maybe some of them remain to focused. Lack of effort is not simply a Mike Woodson issue, but he deserves blame. I don't care if you think John Wooden visits Woody at night you can't say he has incredible rotation management. This years Hawks team is one damn weird soup of expectations, potential, and reality and I am just not quite sure how to eat it.
I just want to be a good Hawks fan.
I don't want to be one of those guys who is a sports snob. They are just like music snobs or wine snobs or any other snob. Highly experienced, overly opinionated, and trapped in their own reputation.
Just thoughts for a Monday. Feel free to agree, disagree, or tell me how I just completly overthought something that needed little thought at all. However you feel, if we lose tonight, prepare for an explosion of thought as to why it is Mike Woodson's fault.....