The Atlanta Hawks Are A House Of Cards Waiting To Collapse

The Atlanta Hawks have been one of the league’s hottest teams, but their success has been heavily influenced by luck and schedule.

Things have been looking great for the Atlanta Hawks lately. The team sits just two games back of the Toronto Raptors for the second seed in the Eastern Conference. They had won 12 of their last 15 games heading into Friday and are one of the hottest teams in the conference. Despite dealing Kyle Korver, the team hasn’t missed a stride. With the top teams in the East struggling, is there room for the Hawks to capitalize and jump up the standings?

It can be difficult to predict future success of a team in sports. Injuries, trades and even simple luck can dramatically shift power within a league. But there are a few indicators you can look at in order to gauge exactly what is taking place, and how likely those trends are to continue. The first would be quality of competition.

To this point, only seven of the Hawks’ 27 wins come over teams with an above .500 record, indicating that they have done a good job winning most of the games that they should win. It should be noted that four of those seven quality wins have come against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Toronto Raptors, San Antonio Spurs and Houston Rockets.

So it isn’t as though they haven’t shown they can play at a high level. They just have not played to that level on a consistent basis. They also rank 29th in strength of schedule, meaning they haven’t had many tests against quality teams.

Even with taking care of weaker competition, they haven’t done it in a convincing way. The Hawks have actually been outscored by 13 points, which doesn’t bode well for them as their schedule becomes tougher.

With this data, it’s fair to state that the Hawks are fortunate to be in the position they are currently in. Dennis Schroder has been having a very efficient season and is adjusting to his role as a starter. Their decision to sign Dwight Howard also has worked out well, as he’s playing at a high level while staying healthy. But what does it say when everything is going right and the team still isn’t convincingly good? How should they approach the trade deadline, knowing they don’t have what it takes to contend?

There really no easy answers when it comes to team building. It seems as though fans and media have adopted a mentality that if you aren’t contending, you should tank.

For the Hawks, a gap exists between its core pieces. Both Paul Millsap and Howard are 31 years old with their respective windows closing, while Schroder is just 23 and approaching his prime. There is a value in sustained success as a franchise. It assists in how the team is perceived and can assist in free agency. But as a franchise, the Hawks’ direction currently appears unclear.

The team must make a decision about what direction to take. With Millsap’s potential free agency looming, they must make a decision: Either prepare to make a splash in free agency to give Millsap one more chance to win, or rebuild. If Millsap were to opt-in to the final year of his deal, the Hawks would have a guaranteed salary of $89 million. With an estimated salary cap of $107 million and luxury threshold of $127 million, this will give them some flexibility.

If the team wants to show that they are committed to Millsap, they may choose to be active as a buyer in Feburary. By doing this, they would show their dedication to winning, and help prevent a second half collapse. If not, the team would be wise to shop both him and Howard in an effort to rebuild.

Next: 10 Potential Carmelo Anthony Trades

As I said, there are no easy answers when it comes to running a team. But one thing is clear, if the Hawks choose to be inactive, a correcting of their record seems inevitable — which would be a a bad sign to Millsap as he contemplates his options in free agency.

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