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The Atlanta Hawks are free falling on the court and in this week’s Power Rankings roundup.
The Hawks fall seven spots this week in Marc Stein’s power rankings over at ESPN.com.
Looking at the "Last 10" category in the standings is somewhat remedial in this era of advanced stats, but it's worth a glance on this Rankings Monday as we try to make sense of what's happening to the unraveling Hawks. For all of the various issues we can try to pinpoint -- hopefully these tweets shed some lighton the sudden struggles we've seen from these guys at both ends -- but who ever imagined Atlanta going 1-9 in any stretch of games and losing two in a row (even with Paul Millsap out) by a combined 80 points? Eighty!
Atlanta plummets 11 spots to No. 20 this week in John Schuhmann’s rankings at NBA.com.
Yikes. The Hawks have lost nine of their last 10 games (scoring less than a point per possession in all 10) to fall below .500 and out of the top eight in the East. Paul Millsap (sore hip) has been missed over the last three games, but his absence doesn't exactly explain losses by 36 and 44 points to the Pistons and Raptors over the weekend. The players have cited ball movement as an issue and they've averaged just 2.87 passes per possession over the last 10 games, down from 3.23 in the first eight. This is the second straight season they've seen an offensive efficiency drop-off of more than three points per 100 possessions, from 106.2 in 2014-15 to 103.0 last season to 99.1 this year.
Matt Moore drops Atlanta five spots to No. 19 this week in his weekly rankings for CBS Sports.
Have you seen the movie "Gravity?" The Hawks are that gigantic mass of debris spinning in orbit at high speed. Be sure to wave to them as they plummet past you. They've been outscored by 150 points over their past 10 games.
The Hawks are down nine spots this week in Kurt Helin’s rankings for Pro Basketball Talk.
Losers of six in a row and 9-of-10, I’m not sure I dropped them far enough in these rankings. They are banged up (no Paul Millsap the last three games), but this is more than that, it’s an entire offense coming undone. Early in the season the Hawks looked like a Mike Budenholzer/Spursian team the way they moved the ball, but that has fallen off and we see more isolation and far more contested looks. The players say they recognize the problem, but will they fix it?
Jeremy Woo drops Atlanta seven spots to No. 18 in his rankings at The Crossover.
Wow, what happened here? Did Gucci Mane’s recent courtside proposal just soak up all the quality juju at Philips Arena and leave the Hawks gasping for breath? Remember when the Hawks were 9–2? Well, they aren’t anymore, dropping nine of 10 games while playing the least efficient offense in the league, struggling heavily with turnovers, rebounding at a poor rate and posting the worst true shooting percentage of all 30 teams. Yuck.