When the Atlanta Hawks easily defeated the Indiana Pacers 110-91, the Hawks clinched the Eastern Conference’s best record through February 1st, which is the cutoff date for determining which teams will send their coach to the All-Star game and in this case, Mike Budenholzer is the lucky recipient for the Eastern Conference.
The way it works is that the particular coach whose team has the best record in each conference coaches in the All-Star game, unless he coached the previous year’s All-Star game, in which case the honor goes to the coach of the second-best team. Out west, the Golden State Warriors Steve Kerr has the fast track to have the honors to coach the Western Conference All-stars but the Portland Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts and Memphis Grizzlies head coach Dave Joerger are also in contention.
Atlanta has won 14 straight and 28 out of their last 30 games, and they are up 5.5 games on the second-place Washington Wizards who just were defeated by the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Atlanta Hawks have the third best mark at 28-2 in the history of the Eastern Conference over a 30 game span joining the 2012-13 Miami Heat and the 1996-97 Chicago Bulls who both went 29-1 in a 30 game span.
Budenholzer, one of the favorites for ‘Coach of The Year’, is leading the best team in the Eastern Conference but not in the NBA, contrary to what Dwight Howard believes, but there might be an issue with Budenholzer coaching the team.
There might be a chance he might not get any of his players put in the All-Star game and definitely won’t have a Hawks player as a starter.
The starting lineups will be announced tonight on a TNT and it’s not expected for a member of the Hawks to be in the starting lineup.
Thankfully, the coaches pick the reserves and the odds are more favorable that the coaches will put in possibly 2 Hawks rather than none, in Jeff Teague and Paul Millsap, but up to 4 guys are very deserving if you include Kyle Korver and Al Horford.
Only time will tell who joins Coach Bud in New York.
