The Atlanta Hawks raced out to the #1 seed in the NBA Eastern Conference this season and pulled far far away from everyone. The Hawks haven’t played a meaningful games in weeks, maybe months. Yes, the East was a pretty bad conference; as it’s been for a few years now, but the Hawks won it by a very large margin.
Yet no one has the Hawks winning the NBA Championship. Not many have them even reaching the Finals. Quite a few NBA pundits don’t even have them in the Eastern Conference Finals.
We all love Kyle Korver‘s hair, but no one loves the Atlanta Hawks chances this spring/summer.
NBA on TNT Analyst Charles Barkley was in rare form today! OMG! This was the best media conference call ever. Even better than the Christian Laettner call previewing the 30 for 30 where the phrases “pussy” and “bitch” were used several times.
Answering a Golden State reporter named Diamond, Barkley said: “This is the first time I’ve met someone named Diamond not at a strip joint. So I’m excited about that!”
Barkley on the playoffs schedule: “the NBA for some reason makes the 1st round last like a month,”for some unknown reason I might add.”
Most of these media conf calls are as boring as Ben Stein, but holy s*** did Charles Barkley KILL IT today! I mean he f***ing NAILED IT
— Paul M. Banks (@PaulMBanks) April 16, 2015
Charles Barkley: “for some unknown reason, the #NBA makes the 1st round of the playoffs last a month these days”
— Paul M. Banks (@PaulMBanks) April 16, 2015
Barkley on the Atlanta Hawks ’ series against Brooklyn: “I don’t think Brooklyn can beat them, but I think it can be a very interesting series. What’s going to be real interesting is the Joe Johnson factor. I can promise you that [former seven-year Hawk and current Net combo guard] Joe Johnson is going to try to win that series by himself… The Nets won’t beat the Hawks, but I’m not sold on the Hawks because they are too little.”
Barkley also dropped a few f-bombs towards the tail end so that was fun.
Everyone seems to think Lebron James is headed back to the Finals with Cleveland. The Cavs are the team that no one wants to play. All in all, Barkley sees Cavs versus Bulls as the real Conference Finals, as he believes the Hawks are too reliant on jump shooting, and he isn’t a huge fan of the jump shooting teams. I don’t mean to single out Charles Barkley here; almost everybody who analyzes the NBA for a living feels this way about the Atlanta Hawks.
Coverage on TNT will begin this Sunday with a tripleheader featuring the Brooklyn Nets at Atlanta Hawks at 5:30 p.m. ET, Portland Trail Blazers at Memphis Grizzlies at 8 p.m. and San Antonio Spurs at Los Angeles Clippers at 10:30 p.m.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports Digital. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous sports talk radio stations all across the country.
Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)