Say, these Atlanta Hawks are fun!

Flannery, who writes about the Knicks, Jeff Green, Kyle Lowry and the Raptors, also talks about your Atlanta Hawks, and he notes that, say, these Hawks are pretty darned interesting.

We mentioned Brandon Jennings in the Sunday Shootaround as a player who will be in demand as a restricted free agent, but left unnoticed -- again, Atlanta -- is that Teague had a solid first season as a starter. His emergence combined with the return of Al Horford, the addition of a handful of shooters and a heretofore never before witnessed willingness to share the ball, have made the Hawks downright intriguing. Their victory in Oklahoma City on Sunday -- without Josh Smith, mind you -- was a wake-up call.

Flannery links to two Jeff Teague dunks as a testament to Teague's excitability factor and compares the flavor to the Hawks of old (read: last year).

Meanwhile, Atlanta's own Rembert Browne just pours the love over the Hawks (and all things ATL) over at Grantland.

From Tuesday's NFL Run and Shootaround piece, Rembert waxes rhapsodic about the Hawks victory over the Thunder.

On Sunday, the Hawks had their second game, against an Oklahoma City Thunder one year removed from being in the NBA Finals. As a team with a drastically different lineup, trying to figure out their chemistry and gain some confidence, losing game one against the Hardenrockets wasn't the end of the world, but starting 0-2 would undoubtedly be a blow to the preseason momentum, along with the many predictions that the team would be surprise contenders in the East. So what did they do? They beat the Thunder, 104-95, without Josh Smith in the lineup. This was another surprise. That was Sunday evening.

Rembert was also the writer who penned this awesome epic on spending four days with the Hawks and then this gem about the ATL and its rappers, football and how they meshed on Twitter. Gotta love the love.

I am not sure how to get used to all the love coming into the interwebs regarding the Hawks -- but it sure is different that when we could get nothing but cheap shots and limericks about the team previously.