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Lack of Playoff Experience Won’t Limit Atlanta Hawks’ Success

By Mitchell McEver

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Of the myriad of reasons frequently listed by critics as evidence for the Atlanta Hawks impending collapse, a lack of playoff experience seems to be one of the most popular. While the Hawks do not boast a roster full of tested veterans, it is no reason for worry.

Year after year the playoffs arrive and analysts inevitably dismiss a team full of young talent as a long shot to win a postseason series. Despite the work put in to make the postseason, they are diagnosed terminal with a maximum lifespan of six games in the first round.

The Hawks found themselves in a situation such as this just a short year ago, pushing the top-seeded Indiana Pacers to the brink in the first round. Aside from delusional fans of bottom-tier teams aching to sneak into the playoffs, most people trust the Hawks to take care of business in the first round of the postseason. However, mentioning an NBA Finals appearance or even success in the second round leads to major skepticism from both critics and casual fans.

So why is this record-breaking Atlanta Hawks team distrusted to take their regular-season success with them into the playoffs? Some would repeat the tiresome, disproven notion of the lack of superstars. Others would point to the recent regression of the Hawks’ dominance, albeit a slight one. However, the myth that this Atlanta team does not possess playoff experience to win at the postseason level is consistently touted by an inordinate amount of doubters.

First it must be evaluated if playoff experience truly holds any merit in predicting the success of a team in the postseason. In an essay by James Tarlow of the University of Oregon, he inspects the common assumption that postseason experience has a measurable effect on the future games. Tarlow’s conclusion is somewhat surprising.

"The most common criticism is of the inexperience of younger teams and this study does not support this conclusion, regardless of whether their NBA experience or playoff experience is the topic of discussion…It is a coach’s playoff experience, not the length of their NBA coaching career, which is relevant to winning in the postseason."

While this study does not claim that player experience is completely negligible, it is certainly interesting that the data points to the postseason experience of coaches being more relevant to winning. Luckily for the Atlanta Hawks, Coach Budenholzer came from San Antonio, the most consistently successful franchise of the past few decades.

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Consequently, if a coach’s postseason experience tend to matter more than player experience, then the Hawks are in very good shape. Of course, there are teams that will likely turn that trend on its head. Rookie Head Coach Steve Kerr led his team to the best record in the league during the course of the regular season, and are poised to make a deep playoff run. It would be ridiculous for the Golden State Warriors to not make it to at least the Western Conference Finals, so it is reasonable to assume that they will defy the trend.

Many other teams are excused from the theories that a lack of experience will cause them to falter in the postseason. For example, the Cleveland Cavaliers are made up of players that have for the most part seen little or no playoff minutes. However, due to the fact they have the best player in the league, it is not seen as much of an issue. With Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love in addition to LeBron James, it is hard to imagine this team struggling much to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals.

Generally, it appears that talking about some teams’ lack of playoff experience is an attempt to discredit the work they have done in the regular season. While there is always value in having experience, a bad team with lots of experience will still likely crumble to a superior opponent with less experience. To disregard the Hawks outstanding regular season by believing a lack of experience will fail them is moronic.

Hawks fans have no reason to worry about a lack of experience holding them back. With Coach Budenholzer at the helm, there is no reason to believe that this is an aspect the Hawks would struggle with. However, with the recent struggles the Atlanta Hawks have had both on and off the court, there might be more to worry about.

Next: Can Kyle Korver Be The Hawks MVP?

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