Hawks, Warriors embody new school

— -- When critics dismiss the June prospects of the conference-leading Atlanta Hawks and Golden State Warriors, they look not to the future but to the past:

"The Warriors are a jump-shooting team that lacks deep playoff experience."

The latter charge holds some weight with so many past champions steeped in postseason memories.

"The Hawks don't have a superstar, the defining feature of many a title winner."

That's also true. Atlanta is powered by mere stars.

But while the past is a good guide to what typically works, it can blind you to imminent change. There's that old saying about how generals always fight the last war. Technology warps the battlefield in ways these generals can't predict, as they draw on quickly outdated experience. France began World War I employing the Napoleonic-era tactic of bayonet charges -- the battlefield equivalent of isolation post-ups. (Spoiler alert: It worked about as well as Flip Saunders' curmudgeonly rejection of 3-pointers.)

As Warriors coach Steve Kerr says, when asked if a jump-shooting team can win a title, "the game has changed." The game has indeed changed. Three-pointers are in, isolation post-ups are out. Hero ball is out, moving the ball is in.

The strong side, i.e., the side of the floor where the ball is, used to host almost all action on a court. This was especially true in the old days when a ban on "illegal defense" allowed post-up players plenty of space on the strong side. Throw it down to your center and watch him go to work as tumbleweeds trundle through the neglected weak side.

Now the weak side has never been stronger, and Kyle Korver is its patron saint. The once-ignored weak side is where a defense gets yanked around by shooters, as it simultaneously attempts to thwart drives on the strong side. Atlanta's weakside movement has it on the forefront of the Weakside Movement.

The Warriors are playing catch-up, to hear Kerr tell it.

"They get to the next level of their offense," he said of Atlanta's multilayered attack. "We take away the first option, they automatically get to the second. You take that one, they automatically and fluidly get to the third option. Very few teams do that. We don't. We're not there yet. ... 

That's why the Hawks and Warriors don't look like contenders of the past: because they're the future.