The hottest team in the Eastern Conference doesn’t have a three-headed monster like the Cleveland 
Cavaliers.
It doesn’t have a scrutinized superstar returning from injury like the Chicago Bulls or a rapper sitting courtside at every home game like the Toronto Raptors. Heck, it doesn’t even have a national TV appearance, even though it plays in TNT’s backyard.
But the Atlanta Hawks have won nine of their last 10 games, flying well under the radar toward the top of the conference.
The Hawks don’t have a tremendous home court advantage. They don’t have a 7-footer. They don’t have a top-30 scorer or a top-20 rebounder. Their best player this season occasionally sits during the stretch of close games in favor of his second-year understudy.
What the Hawks do have is a roster devoid of knuckleheads and full of players who understand the value of passing. They have a flotilla of 3-point shooters. They have a disciple of Gregg Popovich calling the shots. And despite the well-publicized mess in management this summer, they are under the salary cap and have extra draft picks coming.
In some ways, the Hawks are the Spurs with training wheels.
“I see a good team on both sides of the ball,” Sixers coach Brett Brown said this week.
For many years, Brown worked alongside Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer as assistants to Popovich. In Atlanta, Budenholzer has installed a system of unselfishness that is first in the NBA in assisted baskets (67 percent), fourth in assists per game (25.3) and fifth in assist/turnover ratio (1.87).
The Hawks are seventh in 3-pointers per game (9.3) and 10th in percentage (.370), but it’s not all Kyle Korver (whose .549 shooting from the arc is 143 percentage points better than Stephen Curry). Atlanta has four other players – Jeff Teague, Paul Millsap, DeMarre Carroll and Mike Scott – shooting above 36 percent from deep.
“I’m a big believer in shooting when you’re open and spreading the court,” Budenholzer said. “The three-ball is part of our game. (But) at times, you have to drive more and you have to attack more.”
The Hawks have that element as well in Teague, who is quietly having the best season of his career, and backup Dennis Schroder, whose game has taken a dramatic jump from his rookie season.
Things have been clicking over the last two weeks as the Hawks put together nine straight wins – the franchise’s longest streak since an 11-0 start to the 1997-98 season – before being shot down at the buzzer by Tobias Harris in Orlando on Saturday night.
Of course, hardly anyone has noticed, because the Hawks haven’t been on TNT or ESPN this season. That doesn’t make Atlanta unique; eight other teams have yet to appear on national TV. But the Hawks are 16-7, while the other eight teams are a combined 60-130.
In fact, Atlanta’s first national TV appearance isn’t until Jan. 14 at Boston. Meanwhile, the league’s primary networks already have featured Minnesota once, Sacramento and Denver twice apiece and the awful New York Knicks a ridiculous five times.
Another reason hardly anyone has noticed is because the Hawks have been beating up on bad teams. Atlanta’s victims had a combined record of 59-102, and only two – New Orleans and Miami – were above .500.
The schedule gets much harder starting tonight vs. Chicago, whom they have not beaten in six tries. That is followed by 
road games vs. Cleveland, Houston and Dallas and a home game vs. the LA Clippers. The Hawks are just 1-4 vs. teams currently above .500, and they have to keep winning to stay with East-leading Toronto, which just began a stretch of six games against teams with losing records.
Regardless of the schedule, the Hawks may have an X-factor in Al Horford, a two-time All-Star who has missed huge chunks of two of the last three seasons due to injuries. The big man is coming along slowly – his 29.5 minutes are the lowest of his career – but he is beginning to find his footing, averaging 17.8 points, 7.5 rebounds and 1.8 blocks in his last four games. Horford figures to get better, and so do the Hawks.
Atlanta has reached the playoffs the last seven years – the longest current streak of any team in the East – but hasn’t gotten out of the first round since 2011. With Cleveland and Chicago not running away from the pack as most expected and the unknown quantities in Toronto and Washington, this could be an ideal season for a breakthrough to the conference finals, a place the Hawks have never been since the formation of conferences in 1970.
And those games will definitely be on national TV.
TRIVIA: Five current players once played for the Seattle SuperSonics. Who are they? Answer after the jump.
I’d put the Hawks to finish at #5, barring major injuries in the East. As you pointed out, they haven’t been really tested yet.
Its really ashamed that the Networks are so biased with their TV coverage. Hopefully they will cancel more Knicks (1 was already cancelled), Laker & Heat games.
I gather that Danny Ferry is still, quietly, the GM, despite all the attempts by the media to get rid of him. It wasn’t as though he was reading the “State of the Union” Address – it was supposed to be a confidential meeting of Execs. Also, the media failed to mention that long time friend, Billy King, called him “the furthest thing from a Racist”. May be Danny Ferry deserves lots of credit for putting together that Hawks team, with limited salary. I see that the Hawks website has left out “Front Office” personnel.
It’s good that Hawks are doing well, because it could increase the value of the team, if Levinson does sell team (seems to be taking a long time). Minority owner Michael Gearon Jr., appears to be coming out of that summer incident, unscathed, as he seems to have been the mastermind behind trying to get rid of both Levinson and Ferry.