Joe Johnson Unimpressed With ATL Crowd

Um, Joe, slamming your hometown fans isn’t exactly the best way to gain their support: “A few years ago, whenever the Atlanta Hawks tipped off at Philips Arena, visitors could count the small clusters of fans in the seats and wonder how the team managed to stay in business. I asked Hawks star Joe Johnson, one of the 2010 free agents, if Atlanta’s homecourt advantage has gotten any better as the team improved. He didn’t try very hard to sugarcoat the answer. ‘Don’t get me wrong, it’s the home team and I enjoy playing there and I enjoy when the fans do come out,’ Johnson said. ‘But by no stretch of the imagination have we got one of the best home crowds. We don’t. I can’t really even say it’s getting there. In the playoffs, yeah, they’re there. Throughout the regular season, it’s not much of a big difference from what it was. It’s different, but it’s not that big of a difference than what is was when I first got there.”‘