the nba all star reserves were announced last night.

and my friends, there are TWO atlanta hawks on the roster. BFD, you say? well let me tell you that not since dikembe mutombo and steve smith were on the all star team in 1998 have two hawks been named to the all star team.

i don’t know if anything yet speaks to the resurgence of this team like the inclusion of two of it’s stars on the team.

congrats to joe johnson and al horford on their selection.

there is a lot of justified anger in the hawks blogosphere that three hawks weren’t included. josh smith deserved to go too and the amazing thing is this is being echoed nationally. i love this.

i feel especially excited about al horford. he’s my favorite hawk and i decided to become a hawks fan the year he was drafted. i even dug up my old post about his draft. it makes me smile to see what he has blossomed into (even if that acie law thing never worked out!!)

so congrats again to joe and al and condolences to j-smoove. keep playing like you are and next year you’ll be voted in over creaky old kevin garnett.

GO HAWKS!!!

(now when is that al horford jersey going to be available to buy?)

two things i love:

1. twitter
2. the atlanta hawks

and one thing that brings me immense glee is the powerful combination of the two. two hawks players tweet with pretty serious regularity, centers al horford (@al_horford) and zaza pachulia (@zaza27). you may remember that zaza even responded to me by twitter this summer when i wrote him a letter on this blog urging him to resign with atlanta (i still take credit for his ultimate resigning too!!)

al horford has been a very engaged twitterer, giving away tickets and hosting q&a sessions with fans. he has even responded to me twice by direct message. fwiw, this is why al is fast becoming a favorite among the hawks faithful. great play, great effort, great personality and being engaged with fans and the community.

in addition, hawks vp of communications, arthur triche (@hawksprman), is active on twitter and will often respond to slam magazine executive editor lang whitaker (@langwhitaker – himself a diehard hawks fan) in 140 character bursts.

add to that hawks tv play-by-play man bob rathburn (@hawksvoice) and several hawks bloggers (@peachtreehoops, @hawkstr8talk) and the official hawks twitter account (@atlanta_hawks) and the hawks twitter community has become an active part of being a fan for me.

so get on board, and don’t forget to follow the hawks banished mascot @spiritthehawk (not official but hillarious none the less.)

follow these people and NOW YOU KNOW!!!!