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Well this is it Hawks fans, this might be the end of days or possibly the last power ranking we will see where Josh Smith is an Atlanta Hawk. I'm sure that in this weeks rankings we will hear mention of the possible trade. Anyway lets just look at the rankings and try to not let our Atlanta version of Joshmare effect us. So starting up we have Marc Stein and ESPN actually moving us up 3 spots to #17.
Al Horford, Jeff Teague and, yes, Josh Smith all had it going during the last 10 games before the break. But the Hawks were only 6-4 during that stretch ... with the longest week of the season ahead (for Smith especially) leading into the trade deadline.
Next John Schuhmann of NBA.com also has us at #17 while yes mentioning Josh Smith.
Is this the end of the Josh Smith era in the ATL, shawty? It's hard to imagine the Hawks without Smooth, one of only four guys from the 2004 draft -- Luol Deng, Andris Biedrins and Jameer Nelson are the others -- who are still with the teams they made their NBA debuts with. But it may be harder to imagine them making another long-term commitment to Smith and continuing with the status quo.
Sam Amico of foxspots.com actually managed to drop us in the ranking to #16
Far from bad, but the Hawks are coming closer to the average squad we expected, which should make dealing Josh Smith or some of the other expiring contracts easier. This might be the biggest trading deadline in franchise history.
They've stabilized the record ... but these are uncertain times with the deadline a week and a half away.