Barnstorming: Self-doubt at the NBA trade deadline

The NBA trade deadline is a little over two weeks away and you can already feel the shadow it is casting over some teams. The Atlanta Hawks are reportedly contemplating trading Jeff Teague, their starting point guard for the past five seasons. Al Horford, the team’s most talented player and an unrestricted free agent this summer, also appears to be available for the right price. The Los Angeles Lakers are supposedly listening to offers for D’Angelo Russell, their No. 2 pick in last year’s draft. Spend a few minutes on Google and you can find rumors, with various degrees of credibility, regarding players like Blake Griffin, Tyson Chandler, Tyreke Evans, and C.J. McCollum. It can be hard to separate the temperature-taking from the wild posturing and outright fantasy. But underneath all the noise is a somewhat arbitrary midseason date that forces every team to look in the mirror and ask themselves some hard questions.

Jeff Teague has been something less than good this season. Two-point percentage, assists, and steals are all down. Turnovers and fouls are up slightly. During last season’s magical run, Teague was the key that started that beautiful motor of collaborative movement and passing. This year, he’s been doing many of the same things, only slightly less effectively. His decreased effectiveness is not the only grit in the machine, but the effect is obvious. For months, the Hawks have been able to lean on optimism and the fact that there was so much schedule left to be played. With enough time and repetition, surely Teague and the rest of the pieces, new and old, could find that rhythm again.

The looming trade deadline erases optimism and replaces it with honesty and pragmatism. The Atlanta Hawks are 28-22, currently holding the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. They are good enough to make the playoffs, will probably be working with home court advantage when they get there. And yet, there is not a single likely playoff opponent — from the Charlotte Hornets to the Cleveland Cavaliers — that they could feel certain of beating. They could certainly get themselves to the Finals, but it will not be with a swell of confidence and dominance. It will be with grit and perseverance, using a few lucky breaks to vault themselves over some equally talented obstacles. That is to say, the magic the Hawks had last year is the only thing with the real potential to separate them from the pack, and that mystical moment has passed.

That the Hawks were touched by collaborative brilliance last season is something of a curse. They were, for months and months, more than the sum of their parts, a tsunami of above average talent all cresting at the same time. This creates the illusion that it could be recaptured at any moment. Tiago Splitter will be healthy soon. Paul Millsap will find his three-point stroke again. Teague will settle and Kyle Korver will start throwing fireballs like he used to. It could click at any moment. And that illusion is comfortable until the beginning of February, because there are always multiple paths leading away from each moment. Once that trade deadline passes, all the Hawks have is waiting and hoping for things to click.

Is D’Angelo Russell who we thought we was? Or is he who Byron Scott says he is? Are we good enough to beat Cleveland this year with Hassan Whiteside as our center? How about next year? Is Derrick Rose still in there? Can we make Derrick Favors, Gordon Hayward, and Rudy Gobert into a championship core in the next five years? Can we afford to find out? How much of this busted-up scaffolding we’ve built around Anthony Davis can be repaired, and how much needs to be torn out and scrapped?

All questions being asked, all variations on the same self-exploratory theme. For months the Hawks, and half the NBA, have been able to delay this introspection, to trust that things will work themselves out. Shockingly, definitive answers continue to be far and few between.

In the NBA, there is always pressure to be getting better, and only those at the very top are allowed to take even a moment’s rest from this work. If a team can look themselves in the mirror and be reasonably certain that they are good, well then something needs to change. Other than the Golden State Warriors and the San Antonio Spurs, there really is no “good enough.” Which presents the choice between internal development and the much larger unknown of a personnel shakeup. There is usually a cap on the possibilities for internal development, and thus entropy becomes appealing.

This period of the NBA season is fascinating because we get to watch each team work itself through this process. Observing them try to define their present and exert some measure of control over their future is every bit as engrossing as a delightful reshuffling of the talent deck. For those at the bottom, where do they see a hypothetical path of least resistance to contention? For those teams in the middle and just above, do they trust that this is their season? And if not, how much work do they need to do right now to make sure than next year brings them one step closer?

For the Atlanta Hawks, how much do they trust Jeff Teague and how do they weight that against their belief in the power of Dennis Schroder? Can they see a future without Al Horford and, in that distant future, what sort of team are they? Do they still believe in the enchanting magic of last season’s run, and can it be summoned again?