Guerry Clegg: Don’t expect titles anytime soon from Atlanta pro sports teams
Baseball season opens next week. The NBA playoffs begin shortly after that, followed by the NFL draft. April is a busy sports month. It’s an appropriate time to assess the state of Atlanta’s three major pro teams.
It’s a good time to ask, “Which Atlanta team is closest to at least contending for a championship?”
I look at the franchises on four levels — ownership, management, coaching and talent. It takes, first and foremost, talent. There’s no way to quantify this, but there are probably more examples of teams that overcame bad leadership — whether it’s ownership, management, coaching, or some combination thereof — with good talent than the other way around.
In the long run, though, strong leadership will find a way to upgrade that talent. Case in point: The New England Patriots. Yes, they have quite possibly the greatest quarterback ever. While Tom Brady has been a constant for the Patriots, it was not that long ago that the Patriots completely overhauled their defense. It had become atrocious. Now it’s one of the best defenses in the league.
This time last year, the team closest to contending, simply by default, was the Hawks. They were wrapping up a 60-win season and the path to the NBA Finals was relatively easy. All that stood in their way was LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Besides, the Braves and Falcons had no shot at contending for a championship in 2015.
Much has changed since then. The Hawks have slipped, while the Falcons and Braves have improved, even if it’s not very noticeable.
None of them are going to contend within the next year. The best-case scenario for the Hawks is winning two series and getting back to the Eastern Conference finals. More likely, they will be done by the second round. Then, who knows? Al Horford will be a free agent. Jeff Teague, Kyle Korver and Paul Millsap will be free agents in 2017.
So it looks like the Hawks soon will be in tear-down mode — again.
The Hawks are one great player away from being very good. The problem is there are very few true franchise players in the NBA, and none of them want to play in Atlanta. They might not become dreadful in a few years. But their window of opportunity is quickly closing — unless James leaves Cleveland again and goes to the Western Conference.
Mike Budenholzer has proven to be a capable coach. But after the firing of general manager Danny Ferry, Budenholzer now has more say-so in building the roster. He’s completely unproven in that regard. We don’t know much about Tony Ressler as an owner.
Short-term outlook: Meh
Long-term outlook: The movie Groundhog Day comes to mind.
If not the Hawks, how about … the Falcons?
Here’s the upside. They have some good pieces, especially on offense — Matt Ryan (yes, still), Julio Jones, Jake Matthews, Devonta Freeman, Desmond Trufant and Robert Alford. They’ve added three starters via free agency — center Alex Mack, receiver Mohamed Sanu and now Courtney Upshaw. They might pick up an immediate starter or two in the draft.
Also, teams can change quickly — for better or for worse — in the NFL due to injuries and the fact that players age much more quickly than in any other sport.
Carolina won the NFC South in 2014 with a losing record. The next year the Panthers were in the Super Bowl.
More likely, though, the Falcons are still several players away — especially on defense — from being one of the teams in the NFC. Dan Quinn is still an unknown as a head coach. His loyalty to offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan says one of two things. Either Quinn knows what he’s doing, or he’s too stubborn to admit he made a mistake hiring Shanahan.
That leaves management and ownership. There was a time that Arthur Blank appeared to be one of the best owners in the NFL. He wanted to win. But now, it’s not so clear whether Blank is more concerned with winning or the bottom line.
Short-term outlook: Legitimate playoff potential in 2016.
Long-term outlook: Too many unknowns to get excited just yet.
That brings us to the Braves. The future is very promising if only half of their promising prospects pan out. They have no fewer than nine viable starting pitchers to fill three spots behind Julio Teheran and Matt Wisler. No team has two young shortstops as talented as Ozzie Albies and Dansby Swanson.
Fredi Gonzalez enters his 10th season as a big league manager, yet it is still hard to gauge him. Some of his teams had no shot at winning. The Marlins improved each of his first three years before he lost support and was fired. He has done a commendable job through the Braves’ rebuilding, publicly supporting management while not making excuses for the team being young and inexperienced.
John Hart and John Coppolella have drawn raves for their ability to restock the farm system in just 16 months. But the question of how Hart and Coppy will manage the budget going forward remains unanswered.
It’s fashionable to criticize ownership, Libery Media, for being uncommitted to winning. But there’s no evidence to support that Liberty Media has inhibited them from winning. Liberty didn’t sign those terrible contracts with Dan Uggla and Melvin Upton Jr. Ownership had nothing to do with Kris Medlen, Brandon Beachy, Mike Minor or Jonny Venters injuring their arms, or Jason Heyward failing to develop into a legitimate slugger. Liberty didn’t make the bad TV deal that is costing the club revenue.
The Braves’ problem wasn’t that they didn’t spend enough money, but that they spent foolishly.
Short-term outlook: A .500 season would be a major accomplishment.
Long-term outlook: This team could contend as early as next year.
This story was originally published March 26, 2016 at 4:42 PM with the headline "Guerry Clegg: Don’t expect titles anytime soon from Atlanta pro sports teams."