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!!!!

i promise, promise, that i will get off of this topic soon, but….

a few days ago, i implied, somewhat tounge-in-cheek that my open letter to zaza pachulia may have been the reason he opted to sign a four year deal with the atlanta hawks*.

well, this sunday, while touring around with the fam, i opened up twitter and i found this tweet from none other than zaza pachulia (who tweets as @zaza27):

@jeherv hey buddy read your letter and want to tell you that you are the best.would love to invite you on the games ones the season starts

wow. you could say i was suitably shocked. so while $18 mil may have had more to do with it, maybe my letter did help out a bit.

even more impressive is to see that zaza is actually reading and responding to things that are being sent to him by his fans. that says a lot about the power of social media for sure, that i could write a blog post about an athlete, communicate it by twitter and get a response, but it says even more about why zaza is a fan favorite here in the atl.

and it could mean a lot of good things for this town basketball-wise for the next four years.

thanks zaza!!!

the hawks would be atlanta’s resurgent nba franchise; big z would be one zaza pachulia, #27; and the local blogger would be me.

sekou smith reported yesterday that the hawks and zaza have come to terms on a new deal that will keep the big georgian here in atlanta, where he has become a fan favorite, for four more years.

i am really excited about this.

and i can’t help but notice this happened right after a certain blogger published a letter to zaza right here on these pages.

coincidence?

you decide.

photo by Chris Nelson (click pic for link)

we love you here in atlanta. for the last two years i have watched you battle with heart and grit and determination. i watched you give up a starting slot to al horford with nary a complaint. i watched you stare down kevin garnett and almost come up the better.

sure, i know the arenas are empty sometime. i remember one game against the t’wolves last season where i thought we were at a minor league hockey game. but, we are building something here. finally, here in atlanta, we are building a winner.

and we love you. here you are ZAAAAAAZAAAAAAAA PACHUUUUUUUUUUULLIA. fans stand on their feet and scream when you come in. go to another city, you may just be another east european big guy with a funny name.

i know the hawks are talking to you. sekou smith told me so. i hope you really, really think hard about their offer. this is going to be a great basketball town. and i know from your tweets that you love the city. i also know from your tweets that you are in new york. do you think those knick fans will love you like we do? do you think anyone in nyc would name a blog after you like hawks blogger drew d. once did?

i’ll take you for ice cream, i’ll petition the city council to have zaza pachulia day. i’ll sit on a downtown billboard in a zaza jersey.

so please stay. let’s get it done. tell me what us hawks fans need to do to keep you here. because we want you to. of that i can assure you.

please.

yours,

james