As the halfway point in the season approaches and the All-Star weekend prepares to commence in New York, the NBA is as fast-paced and dynamic as always.

The Detroit Pistons have won nine of their last 10 games and are infused with new life after ridding themselves of former All-Star-turned-plague Josh Smith.

The Cleveland Cavaliers still don’t understand that team-stacking won’t help with their much-needed chemistry.

And the Golden State Warriors are dominating the West by playing the best basketball in their franchise history. However, certain teams require a closer look.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the season is the Atlanta Hawks; no team is hotter than they are right now. The team rests comfortably atop the Eastern Conference with a 29-8 record and has won nine straight games against the Western Conference. Mind you, this is no easy feat, as the West has long been considered a much stronger and deeper conference than the East.

Yet, no one seems to be taking the Hawks seriously. This could be accredited to their history of first round exits in the playoffs in recent years, or their lack of a true All-Star. However, the Hawks are doing exactly what the San Antonio Spurs have done so well this past decade, and look where they ended up: four National Championships and a league-wide sense of respect.

So what exactly are the Hawks doing right? To start, they are thriving under second-year coach Mike Budenholzer, who was previously the assistant coach for the Spurs. His experience appears to be rubbing off, as the Hawks’ new system looks eerily similar to the Spurs, characterized by similar exceptional spacing, constant ball movement and side to side swinging to offset scrambling defenses.

The Hawks are receiving contributions from every single member of their squad, with seven players averaging eight or more points per game and no one averaging more than 34 minutes. Keep an eye out for them as the season wears on, as they make an excellent case to be a contender for the Eastern Conference Finals.

As far as our home-town team goes, the Bulls are playing their best basketball since Derrick Rose’s MVP year in 2011. They’ve won huge games over popular title-contenders such as Portland, Houston, and Memphis, and they rest at third place in the East. However, they do appear to have had a problem recently with playing down to their opponent’s level. A blowout loss to the Utah Jazz and Brooklyn Nets was genuinely embarrassing to watch coming from a top-tier team in the league. If they expect to advance deep into the postseason, that’s something they’ll need to overcome.

Internally, Jimmy Butler is playing out of his mind both offensively and defensively, even nabbing an Eastern-Conference Player of the Month Award for December. He has basically secured the Most-Improved Player of the Year Award even this early in the season. The Bulls’ frontcourt looks as strong as ever with Pau Gasol averaging a stellar 18 points and 11 rebounds per game and looking magnificent paired with Joakim Noah. However, the X-factor has proven to be rookie Nikola Mirotic, who was the MVP of the ACB League in Spain (arguably the second strongest league in the world behind the NBA) at age 22, the youngest in league history. Sound like anyone you know? Give him a few more years and he will be a dominant force for the Bulls.

As the season continues to progress and the trade deadline steadily approaches, keep an eye out for big trades and roster changes as teams do everything they can to make the playoffs. Although the Bulls seem pretty safe, a homecourt advantage would be a huge asset in the playoffs, because if one thing is for certain in the postseason, it’s that every team steps their game up to a whole new level.