I have made a Dënniß ßchrööder vid for five of the six games of this now-sadly-concluded series against Washington. This fact probably means that he has graduated from this channel and should be the sole domain of other highlight purveyors from this point on. Probably. I have some serious soul searching to do during the offseason, not least because I can’t remember if I finished up the “Magic Lederhosen” storyline yet.
So the Hawks are done. Despite ßchrööder’s excellent play throughout the playoffs, they have fallen to the Wizards. He and Paul Millsap went above and beyond, and everyone else kinda sucked. Taurean Prince was okay, I guess, but his okay-ness was more than made up for by Kent Bazemore’s not-okay-ness. I already said ßchrööder should demand a trade, but maybe instead he should demand that Bazemore be traded. As long as the FO listens, there shouldn’t be any chemistry issues resulting from that.
Where do they go from here? Unless some serious revamping goes on (trading Bazemore will be tough), I can’t see them being any better than they have been for the last decade: a playoff team, and that’s it. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, but never a contender, even when they had a starting lineup of four All-Stars and DeMarre Carroll. Some may call them a treadmill team, but there’s more to the NBA than winning a chip. Winning a bunch of games is also fun in its own way.