One Hawk nears the finish line, while another is mapping out his course to recovery.

Kirk Hinrich has been rehabilitating his left shoulder after having a surgical procedure performed on it in early November. He was cleared for all non-contact drills after a January 3 check-up in Chicago, and hopes to be back in uniform at some point during the Hawks current five-game, nine-day road trip.

When Hinrich returns, the Hawks will have another option in a backcourt that has received contributions from many sources already this season. Before last Friday’s game with the 76ers, Larry Drew talked about the challenge of having increased depth this season:

Meanwhile, Al Horford underwent surgery on his torn pectoral muscle on January 17. Horford was re-examined by Dr. Xavier Duralde on Saturday, and it was determined that he could begin strengthening work in six weeks.

On June 28, 1995, Jerry Stackhouse was selected with the third pick of the NBA Draft by the Philadelphia 76ers. Now, over 16 years later, Stack returns to the “City of Brotherly Love” as a member of the Atlanta Hawks. Plenty has changed since Jerry first pulled on an NBA jersey. Here are his thoughts when he looks back:

Other notable facts about ’95 that Jerry forgot to mention…

The Atlanta Braves won the World Series
The DVD was invented and developed
Yahoo! and Ebay were both founded
(No… Hawks.com had not been launched yet)
Braveheart won the Academy Award for Best Picture
Alanis Morissette and TLC topped the music charts
Andre Dawson (400 HR’s), Eddie Murray (3,000 hits) and Cal Ripken, Jr. (consecutive games) all reached career milestones

Jamal Crawford has played for a host of teams throughout his career, including two very productive years with the Hawks. Wherever he goes he quickly becomes a fan favorite for two main reasons.
1)  Jamal is most accurately described as a scorer, and the way he plays the game is pure entertainment. Take your pick between breaking people down with ridiculous handles, rising up for 4-point plays, or attacking the lane for tricky floaters. Jamal does it all on the offensive end.
2) Jamal is a great guy. He treats fans and media with a great deal of respect and appreciation.

Watching Jamal warm up a few minutes ago showed why both reasons are still valid. The enthusiasm in which he greeted familiar faces (from ‘Nique to Philips Arena staffers to Zaza) showed the personal impression he left here in Atlanta. The jump shots he hit reminded me that we better have a hand (or two) in his face tonight.

This year, the Hawks took a different direction with the make-up of their bench. The bench has maintained the same level of scoring production, while increasing other areas of production such as defense and rebounding.

This year’s version of “The Difference” is a group effort. Already this season we have seen McGrady come up huge down the stretch in Miami, Radmonovic light it up against Chicago, Greene hit clutch shots against Minnesota, and that doesn’t even include the work of Ivan Johnson or Zaza Pachulia.

BOX SCORE | AP RECAP | PHOTOS | HIGHLIGHTS

If you only enjoy “pretty” wins with little adversity and overwhelming teams on pure talent alone, then this might be a frustrating season for you.

The Hawks won their third straight game on Monday, defeating the Toronto Raptors 93-84 at the Highlight Factory. It was the latest win where Atlanta grabbed an early lead and then fought tooth and nail the rest of the way to maintain it. The game featured 46 fouls and 54 free throws (14 fouls and two technicals in the third quarter alone).

Atlanta took the lead with 6:35 remaining in the first quarter and never gave it back, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that they were “in control” the whole game. The lead only reached double digits for 12 seconds of the second half.

Josh Smith (28 points, 15 rebounds) and Joe Johnson (27 points, 6 assists) continue to set the pace for the Hawks, stepping up their games to make up for the void left by Al Horford’s injury. With Horford out Atlanta is often playing undersized, putting more pressure on their frontcourt to rebound and defend. J-Smoove has not shied away from the challenge, and tonight turned in another stellar performance.

“He’s just playing,” commented Jeff Teague after the game. “Not worrying about anything, about missing shots or anything…just playing. And I think it’s carrying over to everybody. He has me playing like that, not worrying about things, turnovers, things like that…just staying steady.”

Josh Smith: Player Profile | Photo Gallery
The early results of the 2012 NBA All-Star Balloting were released by the league earlier today, and Josh Smith was not among the top-10 forwards in votes received. It is the latest example of how fan voting isn’t always accurate.

Don’t give up hope yet that this may finally be the year that Josh breaks through to add “All-Star” to his impressive resume. The fan vote only determines the starters, while two or (most likely) three reserve forwards will be determined by the Eastern Conference head coaches. LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony seem to be locks for the fan vote based on the early results and historic precedence, so it is really a handful of forwards competing for the collective nod from the coaches.

One day after Smith dropped 30 and 13 on the Bobcats, I felt it was a good time to make the argument for Josh to make the trip to Orlando in late February.

Smoove is the ONLY player in the Eastern Conference that ranks in the top-10 in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks among forwards. That’s right, not even LeBron or ‘Melo can make that claim. James is actually the only other player to rank in the top-10 in four out of the five categories.

Josh’s overall numbers are definitely enough to get the attention of many Eastern Conference coaches, but they have been even more impressive recently.
After a relatively slow start (10.2 ppg and 7.2 rpg in December), Smoove has taken his game to a whole new level. Over the last eight games he is averaging 20.1 ppg, 9.6 rpg, 3.1 apg, 1.9 spg and 1.8 bpg.
On paper, Smith looks like he should get some serious consideration to make this year’s team… but history has proven that there are factors other than what is found on the stat sheet that determine how coaches vote for all-star reserves.
It is safe to say that players that have made the All-Star team before have a decided edge over those who haven’t. This puts guys like Josh and Chicago’s Luol Deng at a disadvantage against players like Garnett, Pierce, Bosh and Stoudemire.
Coaches also tend to vote for guys that are leading the better teams in the conference. If the Hawks continue to play well and have one of the four or five best records in the East when the coaches cast their votes, then that should help Smoove’s chances.
There are plenty of games between in the condensed schedule between now and when the coaches votes are due, but if this recent stretch is any indication of the type of play we can expect from Smith all season long, then J-Smoove will be a hard name to leave off the ballot.

The Hawks’ injury reported is suddenly crowded.

- Marvin Williams (ankle) did not travel with the team for their two-game trip
- Tracy McGrady (back spasms) did not dress for the game at Indiana
- Al Horford (sprained shoulder) left Wednesday’s game and will be re-evaluated on Thursday in Atlanta

The good news… None of the injuries seem to be serious.
The bad news… With the condensed schedule this season, even small injuries can cause players to miss 5-10 games.

Most seasons a player will play through minor injuries with one eye on an upcoming break in the schedule. This season the Hawks will be 50 days into the season before they get consecutive days without a game.

As mentioned earlier, none of the injuries seem to be serious. Both Marvin and Horford had x-rays that came back negative, and no specific incident has caused McGrady’s back pains. Still, an added measure of caution must be taken this season, when time to heal is at a premium.

Here’s hoping that the troops are back from the inactive list as soon as possible.

From the start of training camp the Hawks have appeared to have solid chemistry in the locker room and on the court. Unlike a lot of teams around the league, the Hawks nucleus remained intact from a season ago, providing a stable atmosphere to start a season that promises to provide a roller coaster of emotions.

Last week the Hawks let a big lead slip away against the Bulls in Chicago, right before the start of a stretch of three games in three nights. Then they lost to the Heat in triple overtime at home on Thursday. Then, after getting into Charlotte at 3am, they needed overtime to beat the Bobcats on Friday night.

At the end of a physically and mentally draining stretch of games, the Hawks chemistry was surely going to be tested against the Bulls on Saturday night. The blowout win helped Atlanta pass with flying colors. (Note: the final margin of 15 points did not do justice to explain how much the Hawks dominated this game. Check out a full explanation from the AJC’s Michael Cunningham.)

Re-watch the highlights from Saturday night (if you haven’t watched them yet, where have you been?) and keep an eye on the Hawks bench. As the Hawks are exploding on their 18-2 run to end the first half the bench might even be more active than the players on the floor. The only team to play nine games in their first 12 days of the season is jumping around and joking with each other like kids that only have 30 minutes of recess to get rid of all their energy.

My personal favorite was when Joe broke Deng’s ankles to end the half. Focus in on T-Mac. McGrady (894 career games) grabs Ivan Johnson (5 career games) and wrestles with him while turning away, as if to say, “Don’t watch. That’s not right to treat someone’s ankles like that.”

Here is a zoomed-in view courtesy of Fox’s X-MO:

Some great examples that were not visible on the highlights:

- The Hawks bench standing up in unison before Vlad even releases the ball on his fifth 3-pointer of the night.
- Josh Smith with some creative towel movements to celebrate another ‘And-1′ from Ivan Johnson in the second half.
- Everyone at the Highlight Factory loved seeing dunks by both Zaza Pachulia and Jason Collins on the same night.

Yes, it is only one win. But at the end of nine games in 12 days, to get a blowout win like this that has everyone feeling good about their game is huge with this year’s condensed schedule.

The Hawks erupted for 63 first-half points and then coasted to a 109-94 win over the Chicago Bulls at the Highlight Factory on Saturday night. Atlanta’s offensive outburst came against the team that entered the night leading the league by holding opponents to just 86.1 points per contest. The win improved the Hawks record to 3-2 this week that included four games against the top two teams in the Eastern Conference.

Atlanta looked energized and their execution was crisp right out of the gate, despite the fact that they were playing their third game in as many nights. Josh Smith was especially good in the early going, scoring nine of his team-high 25 points in the first quarter on 4-of-6 shooting.

One negative in the first quarter was that Marvin Williams left the game and did not return after rolling his ankle. (Stay tuned to Hawks.com for status update.) Vladimir Radmanovic quickly took advantage of the extra floor time at small forward, hitting two 3-pointers to spark an 18-2 run by the Hawks to end the half. The run put the Hawks ahead by 18 points at the break and the Bulls would never get back within single digits. Vlad finished the game 5-of-5 from behind the arc.

“I thought we came out from the very beginning and played with a lot of emotion,” Coach Drew commented after the game. “We got some transitions baskets. Defensively, we were on queue with everything we talked about. We just came out, and I thought we just took it to them.”

NBA fans should get used to seeing it more and more often this season… veteran players are starting to show up on the inactive list even if they are (relatively) healthy.

The first Hawks’ example showed up tonight when it was announced that Tracy McGrady would be in street clothes for Atlanta’s game in Charlotte. T-Mac banged his knee late in Tuesday’s game in Chicago, but felt good enough to go last night at the Highlight Factory. In a normal season, and without a third game in three nights tomorrow, McGrady would probably at least have suited up and been available for limited minutes.

With word filtering down that both Dwyane Wade and LeBron James will be out for tonight’s game at the Highlight Factory, it is easy to jump to the conclusion that the Hawks should run away with it as long as they don’t lay an egg. Well, you can bet Coach Drew is not thinking that way, and Atlanta better come out focused and ready if they want to send Miami to their second loss of the season.

The Heat have put together a solid supporting cast behind their two superstars. Let’s not forget, Chris Bosh anchored a respectable Raptors team for years in Toronto without as much support as he will have tonight.

Furthermore, you can usually count on teams stepping up as a whole to make up for injured players. It is usually brief, sometimes not even a full game, but role players and reserves view these situations as an opportunity to showcase their talents and hopefully earn a bigger role down the road. The Hawks need to make sure they match the Heat’s effort from the opening tip and follow the same gameplan that LD and his staff laid out before they knew that Wade and James would be on the sidelines.

Atlanta should still be upset about Tuesday night’s loss in Chicago, so motivation SHOULDN’T be a problem.