Hawks have big decisions this offseason

The Hawks may want to think hard about letting Jamal Crawford go. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

Someone asked me this the other day what we had learned about the Hawks in the playoffs. My first response was something like, “Well, we learned they weren’t playing as hard as they could — or as smartly as they could — in the regular season.”

After a nice first-round win over Orlando and a tough six-game loss to Chicago, I’m hesitant to say much more than that. John Hollinger of ESPN.com is absolutely right that the postseason showed Jeff Teague can step into the starting point guard role next season, and that coach Larry Drew is willing to hold Josh Smith accountable, tinker with lineup combinations in interesting ways and (gasp!) keep players on the court when they pick up their second foul in the first half. The future is indeed a little brighter today for the Hawks than it was three weeks ago, when they had just wrapped a regular season with a negative point differential and a bunch of dispiriting blowout home losses.

But it’s hard to have any real discussion about this team without knowing first how the collective bargaining agreement shakes out. As things stand now, the Hawks are set to be capped out through 2012-13, and they have nearly $37 million committed to just two players — in 2015-16. Nearly $25 million of that 2016 cash will go to Joe Johnson, who is about to turn 30 and just finished a season in which he ranked 83rd in Player Efficiency Rating – and saw his PER drop in the playoffs. The other $12 million is slated for Al Horford, a wonderful two-way player who just isn’t a first option on offense and may never be. (To be clear: He’s easily worth his contract, and probably worth more.)

We’re still early in the collective bargaining talks, but the league’s proposal, which the union rejected, includes salary roll-backs and a one-time-only amnesty clause that would allow teams to waive one player and wipe that player’s contract from their salary-cap number. Teams would still have to pay that player, which means that Johnson is not a realistic candidate for such an amnesty clause. But Marvin Williams, owed about $8 million year through 2013-14, might be. The Hawks, more than almost any team, need the new CBA to include some form of long-term salary relief. Remember: This is a team that has dodged the luxury tax this season even though doing so crippled its depth. This is not a franchise primed to spend piles of money in order to contend just because it has already spent piles of money on Johnson.

And the goal is to contend, right? That’s why I can’t get too optimistic about the Hawks. Any team hoping to contend in the Eastern Conference over the next half-decade has to measure itself against Chicago and Miami, and Atlanta’s core still comes up short. Atlanta’s first-round victory against the Magic gave off the whiff of gimmickry, and its offense in the postseason was abysmal. The Hawks scored 100.4 points per 100 possessions in the playoffs, a mark that ranked 14th among 16 playoff teams and would have ranked last by more than a full point in the regular season. (Scoring is down in the playoffs by about 1.6 points per 100 possessions, so Atlanta’s mark isn’t quite as bad as it looks. But it’s still really bad.) As is, the Hawks ranked 20th in points per possession, and they suffer near-fatal spacing issues when Williams is on the court with both Smith and one of the Hawks’ true centers (Jason Collins or Zaza Pachulia). Things aren’t quite as bad when only two of those three are on the court, but the issue remains.

Regarding Williams, it looks more and more like he’s not going to turn into a quality starter for Atlanta. He’ll be 25 in a few weeks, and his numbers have plateaued at a mediocre level after a promising 2008-09 season. Williams is a nice defender and could be a solid role player, but he does not look like a heavy-minutes starter on a good team. The Hawks cut his minutes for the second straight season, and he was a fringe player in the Chicago series, when the Hawks scored almost 20 fewer points per 100 possessions with Williams on the floor. Williams doesn’t normally have this sort of disastrous negative effect on Atlanta’s offense, but he has not helped over the last two seasons. He struggles to create his own shot, and the Bulls were comfortable both hiding Kyle Korver on Williams and helping liberally off him.

Smith is 25 and may be what he is at this point — an ultra-talented player who suffers from regular lapses in effort and judgment. This team could get better as Horford and Teague improve, but it looks just as much like a second-tier Eastern Conference contender as it did a few weeks ago.

Also, the Hawks have to be very careful with Crawford, who is 31 and saw his shooting numbers fall off across the board this season. He had a couple of nice games against the Magic (and one huge banked-in three-pointer), but he crumbled against the Bulls, shooting just 13-of-47 (27.7 percent) over the final five games of that series. That’s who Crawford is — a so-so shooter who can run a nice pick-and-roll (something the Hawks need badly) but contributes little else and is a major liability on defense.

Somebody is going to pay Crawford, and if it’s going to be Atlanta, the Hawks have to make sure they sign him to a contract that is movable in a new collective bargaining regime. This is not a $10 million-per-season player. If the Hawks have faith in Teague to create offense, they should think hard about letting Crawford walk.