The jury is still out on whether a NBA team can be successful at the highest levels with a single individual in the two most powerful roles of head coach and president of basketball operations. There are several men around the league now – Doc Rivers in Los Angeles, Stan Van Gundy in Detroit and Tom Thibodeau in Minneapolis – trying this juggling act of coach and executive, with varying degrees of success. But in the shadows of this mini-revolution, as he often is, stands Mike Budenholzer of the Atlanta Hawks.
After the unceremonious departure of Danny Ferry and the reshuffling of ownership roles, Budenholzer was left holding both positions. He is the de facto decision-maker on the court and off it, his system and style emerging as the organization’s defining principles. Quiet, efficient, productive—nothing flashy or revolutionary. Based around a select set of basic tenets and unraveling around the talent it welcomes.
Budenholzer took these Hawks to great heights in 2014-15, before the Ferry controversy overtook the franchise and thrust him into a larger role. That team won 60 games, a starting-five-of-the-month award in February and a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals. Budenholzer and his system made stars out of the Hawks’ frontcourt tandem, Paul Millsap and Al Horford, and earned several players a massive new payday. But even in that third-round playoff series against the Cleveland Cavaliers, weaknesses were already beginning to appear.
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Since then, those weaknesses have become magnified. The lack of individual offensive talent has kept Atlanta from overcoming its Eastern Conference foes. The Hawks have not played much basketball in May.
More importantly, they haven’t been terribly active in July, either. Introducing a shiny new thing to a rapidly changing league means that not only do competitors see the grass as greener on your side of the field; they also sort of dig up your grass and steal it. DeMarre Carroll left for The North in 2015, followed by Horford to Boston in 2016. Paul Millsap, the only major leftover from that 60-win team, could continue this pattern if he changes teams this summer.
Regardless, Atlanta has done enough to return to the playoffs once again this year.
Led by Dennis Schroeder, Millsap and Dwight Howard, Atlanta built a lead over the bottom of the East that held up even as they plummeted in March. They are the fifth seed in the conference for what feels like the 35th year in a row, and have earned the opportunity to play the Washington Wizards in the first round. No one is expecting much.
The NBA actually has a thing they do when a team with lots of question marks in a smallish market plays another, similar team. They put that series on NBATV. In many ways that designation represents the way NBA fans see this franchise– not at all.
From 2010-2015, each of the Hawks’ five first-round series featured at least one NBATV broadcast. In four of those postseasons, multiple first-round Hawks games were on NBATV. Last season was actually the first year since 2010 that Atlanta’s fans didn’t need to have a premium cable package to watch their team in the playoffs.
Unfortunately, that problem is compounded by the fact that in three of those five NBATV seasons, the Hawks lost in the first round. The NBA’s most terrifying tall tales involve stumbling down the treadmill of mediocrity. Of staying good enough to lose in and profit from the playoffs every season, but not getting bad enough to ever replenish talent. In many ways, the Hawks have become the bogeyman stalking through those horror stories. The league’s broadcast treatment of the Hawks is a perfect example of this neverending cycle of frustration. Looking at it this way, we’re basically quantifying the magnitude of invisibility.
The NBA has announced the broadcast schedules for only the first four games of each series at this point. Hawks-Wizards is already sealed into a NBATV fate for at least Game Two.
Budenholzer and the Hawks have spoken all season about the difficult balance of present and future. Trading Jeff Teague and Jerian Grant has uncovered something fun in the Schroeder-Tim Hardaway Jr. backcourt. Rookie Taurean Prince has taken on a bigger role since the All-Star break, even as the team struggled. Credit is due to Budenholzer, who has successfully managed that balance in a city where it’s hard to attract big-name free agents.
Speaking with Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution after this year’s trade deadline, Budenholzer articulated these struggles:
"“There is great effort to balance the short term with the long term,” Budenholzer said. “How are we trying to achieve sustained success? That includes success now. You don’t want to do anything that puts you in a position where you can’t be successful long term also. It’s something that I’m very comfortable with."
Atlanta has been typically solid this year on the defensive end, finishing fourth in terms of efficiency per 100 possessions. But on offense, the transition has been rocky. The Hawks were better than only the lottery-bound Magic, Nets and Sixers scoring per 100 possessions. Schroeder does not seem ready to lead an offense surrounded by average talent. Millsap has never been that kind of guy. Injuries haven’t helped.
Budenholzer and his program aren’t the type to relish their role as torchbearers. He probably wouldn’t see his performance in either role as proof of a coach’s ability to succeed doing both jobs. Like their spiritual cousins and Budenholzer’s former employer, the San Antonio Spurs, they go to work, succeed more often than not, and plug their ears to the rest. As such, these Hawks, regardless of what channel we turn to to see them or the bumps along the way, seem an ideal candidate to buck NBA tradition in several ways.
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Before them this April sit the challenges of rebuilding without a tear-down; of adjusting to their coach’s new power; of mixing veterans and youngsters. They’re a good bet to pull it all off, even with no one watching. Probably because no one’s watching.