The 18-month unraveling of an Eastern Conference Finals team has been well-documented. Complacent players, intransigent coaches, and heavy-handed ownership are all culpable for the Atlanta Hawks' predicament halfway through the 2022-23 NBA regular season.
There is plenty of blame to go around. Recent revelations about Atlanta's midseason front office shakeup, Nate McMillan's thoughts about resignation, and Trae Young's preference for private flights after playoff games all warrant criticism.
If this were the Los Angeles Lakers, ESPN would cover it like the Watergate Trials. Instead, it is just a bad news cycle in print media. This is the rare instance of Atlanta's underdog status benefiting the team.
While the flood of juicy behind-the-scenes drama has been a sign of good journalism, there has been some level of piling-on that is misdirected. Two main characters in Atlanta's soap-opera don't deserve blame - Landry Fields and Kyle Korver.
Fields, 34, was promoted from assistant general manager to general manager last summer. But team president Travis Schlenk's abrupt departure essentially tossed the car keys of the organization to Fields. Korver, 41, was promoted to assistant general manager less than six months after joining the organization as director of player affairs and development.
Fictional Game of Thrones character Littlefinger was right when he said, "Chaos isn't a pit. Chaos is a ladder." However, no one is interested in organizational disorder—certainly not Fields and Korver. Misdirected anger at Atlanta's newly-minted front office is the equivalent of yelling at firefighters for not rescuing your pet fish while saving the house.
The balancing act of pacifying billionaire owners and millionaire players is not an easy job. Luckily, the two recently-retired players are ideal for navigating the choppy waters ahead of Atlanta. Fans do not have to place faith in Fields and Korver, but they need to give them time to right the ship.
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