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#23 in the LBB end of the season team rankings...
There wasn’t a team I struggled more with ranking than the Atlanta Hawks. While I don’t particularly love their roster, their best player, or their front office’s decision-making, the team made the playoffs for three straight seasons (’21-’23) and the play-in this season. They also have one of only two All-NBA performers in the last three years of any teams ranked thus far. Much more importantly, between shocking everyone and landing the first overall pick and their ability to make some foundation-changing moves, the Hawks have a path to becoming a team with a good amount of young talent and assets that can position themselves to be better off than several of the organizations ranked behind them. If they stand pat and don’t go that route, then we can revisit this ranking come September. However, I would be shocked if this roster doesn’t look different in very impactful ways before the summer is over.
#23 Atlanta Hawks
Record: 36-46 (21st); 100.84 Pace (6th); 116.4 Offensive Rating (12th); 118.4 Defensive Rating (27th); -2.0 Net Rating (21st)
Total Salary Cap Allocations: $199,691,180 (16th)
Cap Space: $-58,691,180 (15th)
Current Roster: Bogdan Bogdanovic, Kobe Bufkin, Clint Capela, Bruno Fernando, A.J. Griffin Jr., Mouhamed Gueye, De’Andre Hunter, Jalen Johnson, Dejounte Murray, Onyeka Okongwu, Trae Young
Key Free Agents: Saddiq Bey (Restricted), Seth Lundy (restricted – two-way), Garrison Mathews (Unrestricted – Team Option), Wesley Matthews (Unrestricted)
Single Word Description: Discombobulated
Biggest Positive: Jalen Johnson. The prevailing thought might be that the Hawks' draft lottery luck in moving from a projected tenth pick to the first overall pick would garner the most optimism. While this is a nice jump as an asset play, it also brings a first-year salary obligation for their impending rookie that increases from an expected $5.5 million at the tenth pick to $12.6 million at the first. This move ensures that the Hawks will be in the luxury tax for a unit that doesn’t inspire much confidence as a real threat in the East. Additionally, as anyone with a pulse has heard by this point, this isn’t a particularly exciting draft from a top-end talent standpoint. While I like the presumed first overall pick, Alexandre Sarr, I would like him more as the fifth pick, unburdened by the inflated expectations he will now enter into the league with as the number one overall selection. Johnson, on the other hand, took the type of leap last season that could indicate a star turn. Here’s a look at his last year’s averages versus those in his first two seasons:
MPG: 33.7 (12.6)
PPG: 16.0 (4.9)
RPG: 8.7 (3.3)
APG: 3.6 (0.9)
3PT%: 35.5% (28.2%)
3PA: 3.6 (1.3)
SPG: 1.2 (0.4)
The three-point shooting was particularly encouraging, as Johnson presenting as a real threat from distance opened up an electric driving game. His pump-and-go move gets him to the rim with the type of one-dribble quickness and ferocity that rivals a player like Giannis. Yet, unlike the Greek Freak, Johnson is a legitimately viable three-point shooter when left alone—he shot 37.4% on wide-open threes (nearest defender 6 or more feet away) last season. The former one-and-done Duke product entered the league as a known quantity athletically and has shown moments of jaw-dropping leaping ability and open-court bounding that puts him in the elite category of NBA athletes. The fact that he has begun to form skill around his preternatural athletic gifts is the type of change that gives goosebumps. The Hawks also wisely moved the 6’9” Johnson from small forward to power forward last season, where he used his quickness and leaping ability to become a far more effective rebounder—Johnson had 19 double-doubles last year after logging only one in his first two seasons—and really exploit mismatches with some of the league's less mobile fours. The only concern with Johnson is his health, as he has only played 148 of a potential 246 games (60%) in his first three seasons. With the already oft-injured De’Andre Hunter and the unfortunate ACL tear to Saddiq Bey last season, the Hawks are thin at the forward positions, so there is likely some elevated concern with Johnson’s injury history, which dates back to college when he opted to sit out most of his one year at Duke after suffering a foot injury. Despite that, Atlanta would be wise to try to extend Johnson this summer, as they may be able to leverage his having only one productive year into a bit of a discount. Paying the third-year forward in hopes that his health levels out is a gamble, but with the cap projected to jump and the expectation that Johnson will build upon last year’s impressive progress, it would be prudent to not let a player of his size and skill hit the restricted market next offseason.
Biggest Negative: Roster Composition. This Hawks team has a lot of talent, yet there hasn’t been a moment since the ’21 playoff run where this unit has coalesced into anything exciting. Injury misfortune has played a part, but the team has too many expensive players who are not complementary to each other. Some of this reflects the challenges of building around Trae Young. Atlanta has overpaid in assets or financial terms for players like Hunter, Capella, and even Murray, in an effort to construct a viable defensive ecosystem around Young. Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked, and now the Hawks have a bevy of players who seem better fits in other places.
What’s Next: As a team that has been about as middle of the road as you can get over the last three years—Atlanta has gone 120-123 in the last three seasons—and with a cap situation that is untenable, it feels destined that the Hawks will finally move Trae Young or Dejounte Murray. Whomever Atlanta general manager Landry Fields deals, the hope is likely to gather draft assets lost in the Murray deal and offer cap relief to fill out their roster, which will already be over the luxury tax as of draft day, despite still being short three players. While Trae-anon will likely come for me, I think moving Young is the right decision here, as he is the better individual talent of the two and will garner more of a haul. Additionally, as awesome of an offensive hub as Trae is, he hijacks the way you play basketball on both ends in a manner that is less beneficial for the development of a player like Sarr, whose greatest physical talents are based on his versatility, whereas Trae really flattens his centers options down to being rim-running lob threats. Were the Hawks to deal Trae, they could also move on from Clint Capela, leaving them with two mobile and talented bigs in Sarr and Onyeka Okongwu that could shift this team into a much more stout defensive unit.
What They Shouldn’t Do: Try to figure out how to keep both of their guards. With the salary cap situation as it is for Atlanta and the organization now having enough on-court data to know what the Trae Young and Dejounte Murray combo looks like—the Hawks are 56-62 when both players play—it would be foolish for the Hawks to return next season still hoping they can coax the combo into viability. While that seems highly unlikely, the Hawks may have to face the sobering reality that they are not going to get quite what they would like back for either player. The rumor is that Atlanta shopped Murray aggressively and couldn’t find a deal that suited them, and Young is the type of fit that makes him less marketable league-wide than Murray, meaning there won’t necessarily be a bidding war driving up asset cost for him. That being said, this offseason looks to be rife with movement, particularly at the guard spots, so as long as the Hawks aren’t holding out for the perfect deal, there should be plenty of opportunities to recoup value for either guard.
Is There Hope?: There should be, and yet I don’t trust that the Hawks have a clear-eyed plan for the future. They have too many assets and too many potential moves to not put themselves in a better position long-term, but I don’t get the sense that even Atlanta quite knows what they want to be. They have backslid every year since making the conference finals in ’21, and even that season’s playoff run felt a bit fluky, yet they keep adding salary and players that have redundancies. This is a prime chance to clean up their cap sheet and reset a bit without having to take a full step back, so as long as that is the choice, Atlanta is primed to rejuvenate as an exciting group at a pretty quick clip. But we shall see…
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Is there a way for the Spurs to pry away Jalen Johnson? Would the #4 pick be of interest?
No, with him still being on a rookie deal, and the Hawks possibly pivoting to taking a step back, there’s very little chance. Were Johnson to be in this draft right now, with team’s knowing what the know after last years performance, he might go number one lol.