Yep, you read that right. The NBA world was turned on its ear Tuesday night when the best team in the league lost to one of its cellar-dwellers, 99-98. But the upset is not as surprising as the team’s respective records would indicate – the Hawks have actually been playing pretty well of late, and their win against Detroit is their fourth win in the last five games.
Much of their success can be attributed to the play of Joe Johnson. Over the last 10 games, Johnson has averaged 24.1 points, 4.0 rebounds and 6.2 assists, while shooting a phenomenal .528 from the field. But the trade that brought Johnson to the Hawks this offseason still doesn’t look like all that good of a deal. The Hawks traded away Boris Diaw, who is having a breakout season with the Suns (11.6 ppg, 6.8 rpg, 5.5 apg), along with two conditional future first round picks.
One also wonders where the Hawks would be had they not passed on Chris Paul with the #2 overall pick in last year’s draft. Paul is having an outstanding year and is literally running away with Rookie of the Year honors at this point in the season. The thought of a Paul/Johnson backcourt has to have Hawks GM Billy Knight working furiously in his garage, trying to build a time machine.
