Not really. They've seldom even made it to the playoffs in their history. This current team is one of the most successful teams in the history of the organization if that tells you anything. They made it to the Western Conference Finals once in either the late 80's or early 90's (I can't remember) with a team led by Dominique Wilkins, but since then? Nothing until now. And while I think this team is respectable, the idea that they're a championship contender is kind of laughable to me. Their second best player would be maybe the 4th best player on the Lakers? Maybe even 5th?
Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if they were trying to sucker the Rockets into trading McGrady and probably Lowry for Robinson or something along those lines. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I know Knicks management would love to have McGrady's money coming off the books so they can land Lebron. Heck, since D' Aintoni arrived, they have been cutting costs all over the place.
He's good enough to keep both teams in the game <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/kOhLgApNrgM&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/kOhLgApNrgM&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
Atlanta is a rough sports town period. Even when the Atlanta Braves were going to the playoffs year after year and winning the division year after the year the attendance was still pretty bad. The attendance for the Falcons games were only high when Vick was there. It's got better last year with success but nowhere near like it was during the Vick era. And then we have the Hawks. It used to be dead in that arena unless someone like Kobe came, but it has gotten better.
It does smell like a showcase game for Nate to go somewhere. Hadn't it been something like 10 straight games without an appearance before that?
