NBA TV’s Lang Whitaker on the red-hot Hawks

It’s true. There are plenty of journalists writing about the Atlanta Hawks. It’s also true that there aren’t enough people taking about the Atlanta Hawks. Atlanta as of this writing is 36-8, number one in the league and has won 15 straight. And there still isn’t enough buzz? That can’t be right. To help boost the conversation on ATL, we decided to chat with a Hawks connoisseur. Because, Holy Hawks, this team needs to be talked about. In this exclusive Yahoo Head-2-Head with GameTime on NBA TV’s Lang Whitaker, Lang explains how he grew up cheering for the Hawks, which of the Hawks should become All-Stars, what the Hawks need for a serious, serious playoff run, and the origins of his favorite hashtag #ATLSHAWTY.

MH: When did you start cheering for the Hawks? Was it because of a particular player or players?

LW: I grew up in Atlanta and was a basketball fan, so I watched the Hawks for as long as I can remember. It helped that Dominique Wilkins was in his prime, so I got to watch one of the most exciting players in the NBA every night. It's kind of funny now to look back on that team because the starting backcourt was Doc Rivers and Randy Wittman, and now they're among the better coaches in the NBA.

MH: What was the sweetest Hawks game you ever watched in person?

LW: Actually, that may have come a few years later. When I was playing basketball for my high school team, Shareef Abdur-Rahim was in 8th grade and sort of served as our manager. We stayed in touch through his NBA career, and I always rooted for him. So in 2001, I was home in Atlanta for Thanksgiving and went to a Hawks/Pistons game with a couple of friends from high school and Shareef just happened to have the game of his life and scored 50 points. It was pretty cool to be in the stands for that game.

MH: What is your most painful memory as a Hawks fan?

LW: Losing to the Celtics in the 1988 playoffs. That was probably the Hawks' best chance to advance to the Conference Finals, but they lost Game 6 by 2 points and Game 7 (the duel between Bird and Dominique) by 2 points. It's never fun to lose, but it was made worse because they came so close in both of those games. That was as close in my lifetime as the Hawks ever came to making it to the Conference Finals.

MH: That epic Slam Dunk Contest in ’88 between Dominique Wilkins and Michael Jordan, Dominique won that, right?

LW: Oh yeah. Go watch on YouTube even now and it's pretty clear. It was in Chicago, though, and MJ was just hitting his fame, so it wasn't a huge surprise that things went that way. Doesn't mean it was right, though.

MH: Okay, let’s go to the present Hawks. Which Hawks should make the 2015 All-Star Game?

LW: I don't know how many players will be given spots. I mean, can you make a case for having 3 Hawks on a 12-person roster? Four Hawks? I don't know how many slots coaches will give the Hawks. Assuming they get two slots, which seems likely, I think Jeff Teague and Paul Millsap are the most deserving Hawks. They're the two best all-around players, and the guys who often end up bailing the Hawks out of jams when the offense breaks down. After them, I'd say Al Horford and then Kyle Korver.

MH: How is Kyle Korver getting better as he’s getting older? Is that humanly possible in the NBA? Is his shooting humanly possible?

LW: His shooting is incredible. I've tweeted this before, but I'm more surprised when he misses a three-pointer than when he makes one. Not sure I remember feeling that way about a shooter since maybe Robert Horry or Ray Allen. Not sure how Korver has done it, but he seems to have focused on getting really good at just a few things and becoming a specialist at those things like shooting threes, running off screens. His defense is OK, though he struggles to recover from helping defensively, but he doesn't really put himself in situations to fail. By which I mean, you don't really see him taking shots that aren't in his repertoire. He knows what he can do and sticks to those things.

MH: Do you agree with the label that the Hawks are the Spurs of the East? Or should it really be the Spurs are the Hawks of the West?

LW: The Spurs are the Spurs. They started this thing. They've won titles so they can't be the Hawks of anything. But there are a lot of similarities in what the two teams do on both ends of the floor. They have some different parts and pieces, sure, but from the coaching staff down there are some similarities. And being compared to a team that's won 5 titles in the last 15 years can't be a bad thing, can it?

MH:  Do the Hawks have the needed playoff experience to win the East?

LW: Why not? They aren't really that much less experienced than Washington or Cleveland or Chicago -- it's not like any of these teams have been to the Finals any time lately. (Well, some of Cleveland's players did last year.) The thing that concerns me more than experience is how the Hawks will adjust to the pace slowing down in the playoffs. Games are generally slower and more physical in the postseason, and that could hurt the Hawks, who use their pace and speed to such an advantage.

MH: Your favorite Hawk of all-time and why?

LW: Dominique. For the most part, watching him as a kid is the reason I do what I do today. I wish the Hawks had never traded him.

MH: How did the hashtag #ATLSHAWTY come about? (Because whenever the Hawks win and they’ve been winning a lot lately, Lang always uses the hashtag #ATLSHAWTY.)

LW: Haha. It's sort of hard to explain. "Shawty" is a word people use in the south to describe a friend or a girlfriend. ATL is the airport code for Atlanta and has been made popular by OutKast and other hip-hop groups as a term of endearment for Atlanta. So "ATL Shawty" means a lot of things but basically, to me, it's just a nod to the city where I grew up, and a nod to other people from the ATL, shawty.