This question is going to haunt Atlanta Hawks general manager Travis Schlenk until he can start making moves over the offseason. I suppose that you need to put it into a level of perspective, do you judge it by the freakish Eastern Conference Finals run from last season, or do you judge it from the season before when the Hawks were at the lower end of the standings.
Speaking personally, I believe that the Hawks were incredibly lucky last season and it showed in their performance this season. They are still a very young outfit with players like John Collins just coming off his rookie deal last season and Trae Young comes off his rookie deal at the end of this season.
These two are still a big part of the Hawks play and they have only been in the league five and four years respectively. There are a few players who have taken a leap around this time of their careers but that is not normal. It took Michael Jordan a number of years to get past the Detroit Pistons so we cannot judge how these Hawks are going based on playoff series victories, yet.
The Atlanta Hawks over performed last season.
At the start of last season the Hawks were expected to be a play-in team. Under head coach Lloyd Pierce they were not even at that level. Then, around the All-Star break Nate McMillan took over as head coach on an interim basis and the team went on that magical run. This lead to the Hawks making the move of signing McMillan on a long term deal.
The thing is, the Hawks got lucky during their playoff run last season. They took on the New York Knicks who were a team with little playoff experience. Then they faced the Philadelphia 76ers whose main star, Joel Embiid, was injured. He faded towards the end of games and the Hawks took full advantage.
Then, thanks to the injury to Danny Green, the Hawks were able to exploit the defensive shortcomings of Seth Curry. In the Eastern Conference Finals the Hawks came up against the Milwaukee Bucks who lost Giannis Antetokounmpo for a couple of games with a knee injury opening up a window for the Hawks which was closed by the injury to Young.
This meant that the Hawks went deeper into the playoffs than they were expected to so the front office bought the main core back. Unfortunately, the rest of the conference got better while the Hawks stayed at the same level. They then had one of the most interupted seasons in the history of basketball.
Making the play-in was the best they could have hoped for. They certainly overperformed last season which was not helped by the first couple of months of this season. There is no question that the Hawks are going to make some changes this offseason. With the organic growth they should get, if they trade for a second star the Atlanta Hawks will have a much brighter future.