The Atlanta Hawks' unlikely magical season

ATLANTA - Of all the places, of all the teams, of all the times for everything to go right, the Atlanta Hawks entered this season as least likely to possibly begin a basketball renaissance.

The "A" in Atlanta had stood for apathy three times over in a city that mostly ignored the existence of the Hawks for most of their 47-year history in town. The Hawks have been in a long-term relationship with dull after a brief affair with mediocre and haven't had a must-see, sure-shot Hall-of-Fame talent in more than two decades. The organization was recovering from an offseason in which the owner decided to sell after the release of a racially insensitive email and the general manager went on leave after reading a scouting report that questioned the character of an all-star player because "he's got some African in him."

The Hawks have distanced themselves from ignominy and controversy with a magic season in which they have the most wins in the NBA, staged the fifth-longest winning streak in NBA history, sent the most players and their coach to the all-star game on Feb. 15 in New York and already have two more sellouts at Philips Arena than the past two seasons combined. The players are clicking on the court with a selfless system. The fans are cheering - for them, for once - in the stands. And with trendy in-game promotions and a witty Twitter feed, the Hawks keep winning in every way possible.

"I've seen heaven and hell in the same year," said Hawks chief executive Steve Koonin, a lifelong Atlanta resident who joined the franchise last April after spending the previous 14 years as an executive with Turner Entertainment Networks. "There is nobody in the world who is not surprised."

Second-year Coach Mike Budenholzer doesn't allow himself to think in terms of surprises. To him, the Hawks are 40-9 because they have collection of hard-working professionals willing to share the ball and the success. A Gregg Popovich disciple from his 17-year apprenticeship with the San Antonio Spurs, Budenholzer has brought a similarly efficient scheme to Atlanta that emphasizes teamwork, ball movement and relentless effort on defense.

The Hawks had their 19-game winning streak snapped on Monday in New Orleans but they still rank first in assisted field goals and three-point field goal percentage and join league-leading Golden State (37-8) as the only NBA teams to rank in the top five in offensive rating and defensive rating. The similarities in style and personnel to a certain five-time champion in south Texas have led to the Hawks often being referred to as "Spurs East," which is a title that hasn't exactly been embraced in Atlanta out of deference and also because of the subtle differences.

"If it's good, solid fundamental basketball and if it's good, solid fundamental players and they're making good decisions at both ends of the court, that's what we want to do," Budenholzer said. "I think the Spurs have done it at a really high level for a really long time. We all have a ton of respect, the whole league has a ton of respect for the Spurs. I've seen firsthand the kind of success, a lot of the things that were done there. But we're trying to do a lot of things our own way and with our own players."

Minnesota Coach Flip Saunders called the Spurs-ish nickname "unfair" but added, "You call 'em, 'Spurs East' because they play the way every coach wants to play."

Saunders felt the Hawks actually remind him of the first Pistons team he coached in 2005-06 that entered the all-star break 39-6, finished with 64 wins and produced four all-stars despite having just one player, Richard Hamilton, averaging at least 20 points. The Hawks' five starters Paul Millsap, Jeff Teague, Al Horford, Kyle Korver and DeMarre Carroll average between 17.2 points and 11.7 points, making it difficult for opposing teams to focus on stopping one or two primary scorers.

"Give me four or five really good players over one superstar. I will take that any day," Millsap said. "It gives you a lot of comfort. When things aren't going right and you are having one of those 3-for-10 or 1-for-7 nights, you know somebody else will pick up the slack. That is what a full team does."

Korver was a part of two Chicago teams that finished with the league's best regular season record but the Bulls were built to exploit the talents of Derrick Rose, with the other players assuming complementary roles. Millsap and Horford had all-star credentials before this season, but neither is showcased as the featured option. Teague's dribble penetration is valued right along with Korver's ability to hit demoralizing three-pointers. During a seven-game stretch in December, the Hawks had a different leading scorer each game, with each player posting at least 20 points.

"I have been on some really good teams," Korver said, "but there is something different about this group. There is a lightness to our spirit. We are just out there having fun.

"We all fill a role. No one is dominating the ball. No one is pounding it into the ground. We all have to be able to do everything because of that ... Because we all have to do that, it brings more out of you."

The Hawks have gone 33-3 since Thanksgiving after starting the season 7-6 - a run that remains mystifying even for the players. When asked if he could have envisioned this kind of success, Teague said, "I'm not going to lie and say I could," Teague said.

Teague added that Budenholzer won't allow this team to get complacent.

"You can never put a smile on his face," Teague said. "I don't care what you do. He just doesn't smile. I think it just trickles down to the team."

What would put a smile on his face?

"Probably win a championship," Teague said.

The list of teams that have fallen during this latest streak includes Cleveland, Portland (twice), Memphis, Washington, the Los Angeles Clippers, Toronto, Chicago and Oklahoma City. Wizards forward Paul Pierce won 19 in a row with Boston in 2008-09 and believes the Hawks have established themselves as a favorite to win the Eastern Conference: "People are still questioning them as an elite team even though their record says otherwise. They're definitely a team you can't take lightly."

Horford missed the final 53 games with a torn right pectoral muscle and started to think the team could be special during the Hawks' near-upset of first-place Indiana without him last postseason.

"I was like, if I can get acclimated to that, I feel like we have a chance to do some good things," Horford said. "And adding me is adding a new piece, like, 'Oh, hey, we've got this good player contributing.'"

The Hawks have made the playoffs every season since drafting Horford third overall in 2007, recording a 53-win season in 2009-10. But they've never finished higher than 18th in attendance and cratered to 28th last season.

The empty arena prompted Hawks majority owner Bruce Levenson to issue a clumsily written and offensive email in 2012 that blamed the lack of support on an "overwhelmingly black audience." Levenson wanted to find ways to attract a more desired demographic of whites between ages 35-55.

Koonin dismissed that line of thinking by calling the so-called target ticket buyer, "the Alpharetta unicorn" - a reference to an affluent area in Atlanta where an imaginary, ideal fan exists. Hawks ticket buyers are spread throughout the metropolitan area and Koonin decided that the way to combat one of the long-used excuses for poor attendance in Atlanta - that it had too many transplanted fans from other cities - was to attract their children. They had to make the Hawks cool, make their games events. And, from his days in television, Koonin realized that NBA Finals ratings in Atlanta were always high, supporting his belief that, "this is a great NBA town, it just wasn't a great Hawks town."

The Hawks have tried innovative ways to draw millennials, such as teaming with the dating app Tinder to help fans find their match at the game. They also run a 3-D animation, pre-game introduction video that uses the court as the screen. With 10 sellouts in their past 12 games, a city that once only came en masse to see opposing stars and teams - and famously booed its own homegrown player, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, when he made the game-winning jumper to spoil Michael Jordan's final game in Atlanta in 2003 - appears to finally be on board.

"This city is getting turned on. It's re-ignited the passion that has laid latent in a lot of people," said Koonin, who believes fandom should be gauged through civic and team pride and affection for the players. "We always try to surprise and delight. Make it an incredible experience. A bit irreverent, a little outrageous. What we're trying to do is build long-term relationships. Building bridges through basketball. So far, so good."

Hawks forward Elton Brand questioned the ability for a swift recovery by the franchise because of the healing required after Levenson's email and team president Danny Ferry's comments about then-free agent forward Luol Deng became public; two incidents that Brand said, "hurt us."

Brand, a 15-year veteran and a Duke alum like Deng and Ferry, re-signed with the Hawks after the fallout, but only after reaching out to Deng. Deng spurned Atlanta to sign with Miami as a free agent last summer but became the center of a controversy that was not of his own doing. Ferry read a scouting report about potential free agent targets during a conference call with members of the Hawks' three ownership groups and flippantly recited some insensitive comments about Deng's African heritage that eventually forced him to take a leave of absence.

"He said, 'I don't understand why it's in the report, but I forgive Danny and I'm ready to move on,'" Brand said of Deng. "So that helped me. As a team, we felt like that's a management issue. That was up there. We still got to play, we still got to get our fans back."

Ferry's absence is the bizarre twist to this season because he would otherwise be the leading candidate for executive of the year, with his hands on nearly every part of the organization. The architect of the team with the best record in the East gave Budenholzer his first head-coaching gig, signed Millsap, Korver and Carroll as free agents and matched an offer sheet for Teague. The Hawks are thriving with the league's fifth-lowest payroll. Horford is the team's highest-paid player at $12 million.

"Despite what anybody says about him, he gets a lot of credit, because he's done a terrific job putting together a winning team," said Millsap, who spoke with Ferry in the immediate aftermath of the summer incident. "We felt it was in the best of our interests to put it in the back of our minds, stick to basketball and let things play out."

Budenholzer and assistant general manager Wes Wilcox run basketball operations while Ferry's future with the organization remains uncertain until the team is eventually sold. Forbes recently valued the worth of the franchise as $825 million. Koonin said there is no shortage of interested buyers and the current success "is good for the value. It's a winning organization now."

Ferry has apologized to Deng and others, and Wayne Embry, the NBA's first African-American general manager, is among those who believes he deserves a second-chance in Atlanta or somewhere else.

"I know Danny Ferry and I got to say, I sincerely don't believe that Danny Ferry is a racist," said Embry, who acquired Ferry for Cleveland in 1990. "We all can learn from our mistakes, but the true character of a person is how they recover and learn from it and make a change."

Koonin acknowledged that Ferry deserves "every bit" of credit for the Hawks' resurgence but added, "There is definitely a gap here. That will be resolved when it's resolved, but we move on. We are a stronger group today than we were last summer. I think everybody wants to do the right thing for the organization and the city. I wasn't prepared in a sense, but I knew being transparent, communicating and taking responsibility would be the best way out. I certainly understand how fantastic this ride is."

The Hawks have the league's best record this late in the season for the first time since moving from St. Louis in 1968 and players have admitted that opponents are now bringing their best efforts against them. But maintaining the success has been anything but stressful.

"You can't have a burden winning," Horford said with a laugh. "We've never been through this. It will be interesting to see. We have a tight group here, and as long as we stay together, we'll see where this goes."