Jon continues hour two by talking all things Atlanta Hawks with Sekou Smith of nba.com. Jon starts things off by asking Sekou if any other team did better in free agency than the Atlanta Hawks. Sekou responds by saying “Portland maybe the way they upgraded their second group, but other than that no.” Next, Chuckery asks Sekou if 36-36 is the record the Hawks need to be shooting for to be in the playoffs, and Sekou responds by saying “Yes, that’s the realistic goal, but if your the Hawks, and you want to be optimistic you would like to be north of .500, but yes you want to be .500 or better to clear that play in range.” Sekou continues by saying that “This is a team that is going from consistently picking in the lottery to trying to be a playoff team If you’re not adding Kevin Durant or Anthony Davis to your team then adding a double digit number of wins is a lot tougher than it seems. This team has to mesh, is Bogdanovic going to be your second scorer, will it be Gallinari, you’ve got to put together a second unit, and will the guys in the second unit follow Rondo’s lead? This will bring expectations, and we’ll have to see how Lloyd Pierce handles it, everybody can’t handle expectations, and with the expectations changing the Hawks bottomline has to change.” Next, Jon asks Chuck about health and how important it will be for the Hawks to stay healthy. Sekou responds by saying “Health always dictates a team’s success, but the Hawks are deep enough now to where they could whether an injury, and get through a player being out for health and safety reasons.” “Injuries can also break a team, look at the Golden State Warriors, that was a team who were contenders before injury, and then after the injuries ended up picking in the lottery.” Chuck continues the interview by asking Sekou about some other teams around the East such as Brooklyn and Milwakue, and Sekou believes while Brooklyn is a top four team he still believes that Milwauke will be at the top of the East. Lastly, to close out the interview Jon asks Sekou if the Lakers are still at the top, and Sekou responds by saying “Until someone knocks off the crown off LeBron’s head.”
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