Taking a look back to the ’12-’13 Atlanta Hawks.
After back-to-back playoff appearances as the 5th seed, the Atlanta Hawks looked to make the jump in the 2012-2013 season.
They would have to do so without longtime face of the franchise Joe Johnson, who was traded away to the Nets after another playoff exit.
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Josh Smith was still in Atlanta, while emerging stars Al Horford and Jeff Teague looked to fill the void Iso Joe left. Well, technically, usual role player Kyle Korver was brought in to fill his starting spot.
Horford bounced back from his arm injury that kept him out of all but 11 games the season prior, appearing and starting in 74 games.
The full starting five looking like this:
PG – Jeff Teague
SG – DeShawn Stevenson/Devin Harris
SF – Kyle Korver
PF – Josh Smith
C – Al Horford
Larry Drew, in his 3rd and final season as the Hawks’ head coach led them to a 44-38 record.
Josh Smith just nudged out Al Horford for the lead in scoring, with J-Smoove averaging 17.5 per game compared to Horford’s 17.4.
The latter averaged a double-double, pulling down 10.2 boards a game. Jeff Teague averaged a good 7.2 assists and 1.5 steals per game.
Kyle Korver showed his range in an impressive way, making the 4th most threes in the league with the 2nd-best percentage from deep.
As a team, they averaged the 2nd-most assists per game, starting off the team-first mentality they officially adopted with Mike Budenholzer took the helm a year later. They finished 10th in defensive rating, down from 6th a year prior.
They nabbed the 6th seed in the playoffs, drawing a tough match up with a Pacers team that ended up missing the Finals by just one game.
They lost in six despite going up 2-1 early.
After just one playoff series win in three seasons with talented rosters, the team sacked Larry Drew.
In what always was going to be a year of transition away from Joe Johnson, the team had a eerily similar to the years previous.
Things would dip lower before reaching the decade’s peak.