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2 Playoff underdogs that suddenly don't look so bad

2. The Hawks. "When they make jump shots, that changes everything for them,'' said the advance scout who analyzed the playoffs earlier in the Weekly Countdown. "Because they have youth and athleticism and interchangeable parts, everybody's long -- Josh Smith, Josh Childress -- and you can switch them around and they're all pretty damn good.''

That has always been GM Billy Knight's ideal -- a lively young team of interchangeable talent attacking the basket and protecting the rim. Knight's mistake was failing to draft point guards Deron Williams or Chris Paul instead of Marvin Williams with the No. 2 pick in 2005, and taking Shelden Williams with the No. 5 pick in 2006 instead of Brandon Roy, Randy Foye or Rudy Gay. But Knight got it right by using the No. 3 pick last year for Al Horford, whose inside presence has helped make sense of the whole roster. There remains a lot of work to do, but the Hawks no longer look hopeless.

1. The 76ers. When Larry Brown left Philadelphia in 2003, the 76ers changed their approach to the draft. They began to pick long athletes who could play in the open court, resulting in the acquisitions of Willie Green, Andre Iguodala, Lou Williams and Rodney Carney. Last year they were unable to trade up to draft Yi Jianlian or Spencer Hawes; instead, they used the No. 12 pick on Thaddeus Young, a 6-8, 220-pound freshman from Georgia Tech.

"He has an internal motor that's boundless,'' 76ers director of player personnel Courtney Witte said. "His family is there for him in any way possible, and his support group is one of the highest I've been around in 21 years. He has a maturity, a groundedness, that is very rare today.''

Young embodies the post-Iverson era in Philadelphia. The 76ers traded Kyle Korver in late December to create cap space this summer as well as to find minutes for Young, with the result that the team began to push the ball. The Sixers went 22-12 to finish the season in the playoffs instead of in the lottery, then won two of their first three before succumbing to the No. 2 Pistons on Thursday. Young started all six playoff games as an undersized power forward and averaged 10.2 points and 4.5 rebounds in 26.7 minutes while shooting 48 percent.

"I've surprised a lot of people this season,'' said the 19-year-old Young, the second-youngest player in the league behind Kevin Durant. In a game against Detroit earlier this season, he heard one Piston yelling at another. "The guy -- I can't remember who it was -- he was going, 'Don't rotate to him, he's not even going to get the ball,' '' Young recalled.

That changed in the playoffs, as the Pistons realized that Young has an instinct for scoring though no plays were called for him during the series. The hope is that he'll improve his ball handling and shooting to permit him to become a small forward, which in turn would shift Iguodala into the backcourt. Or the 76ers may decide that Young's immediate future is as a combo forward.

The Sixers have cap space to sign a max free agent this summer, and their first target should be Clippers power forward Elton Brand, who would fit beautifully with their up-tempo style. If they can't lure the potential free agent out of Los Angeles, however, two league insiders prophesy a move to land Bulls restricted free agent Ben Gordon, an undersized shooting guard who could share the backcourt with big point guard Andre Miller.

In any case, the 76ers' future is more promising than it appeared three months ago.

1 Thought on menacing gestures

1. A decade ago, the NBA was selling us hip-hop culture as the future of the league. Ten years later later, the same executives are now fining Paul Pierce $25,000 because he made a hand sign that might have been construed as a gang gesture. Pierce's big mistake was to claim that the gesture stood for "blood, sweat and tears.'' I myself would have claimed the "live long and prosper'' defense, because at this point I'm fairly confident the executives who run the NBA know more about Star Trek than they know about hip-hop culture.