After one of the most fun playoff series in recent memories, and securing their two stars for the foreseeable future, what’s next for the upstart kids from the A?
Notable Additions/Subtractions
Additions: Lou Williams (1yr/$5m) Delon Wright (1yr/$8.5m)
Departures: Rajon Rondo (Traded to Los Angeles Lakers) Tony Snell (Free Agency)
Projected First Two Rotations:
Starters: T. Young, B. Bogdanovic, D. Hunter, J. Collins, C. Capela
Second Unit: L. Williams, K. Huerter, C. Reddish, D. Gallinari, O. Okongwu
Last Season’s Record: 41-31 (5th in the East)
The Atlanta Hawks’ offseason was not littered with big-name free agent signings, but through two good draft picks, three essential extensions, and improving a culture that’s seemingly on its way to the top of the East, they made themselves a both now-and-future threat.
Last season’s matchup against the Knicks was one of the most fun playoff series in recent memory. The 4 seed Knicks hosted a pair of opening contests in Madison Square Garden that will go down in shit talk history. Trae Young cemented himself as the centerpiece of the Hawks’ future after knocking off New York’s defensive darlings before falling to the eventual champion Bucks. He was rewarded appropriately, inking a 5-year rookie extension that will potentially pay him north of $207m over that span.
The other big move for the Hawks was locking down his running mate, power forward John Collins, to a long term extension. The big man secured a 5-year deal as well, which will make him $125m. The Wake Forest product had a bit of a down year last year, as compared to his 2019-20 campaign, but the sample size of those are worth noting. There’s been hardly a whisper of tension between the Hawks’ two young stars; so landing both of them on contracts that, in the NBA economy we live in, make sense, was a no brainer.
Earlier this week, the Hawks signed big man Clint Capela to a 2-year extension that will pay him $46m. This seems steep on first look, but some of the Hawks’ struggles can be pointed to the defense, so securing one of the game’s premier paint protectors as they prepare to make a push to June was smart.
As you can tell though, the Hawks that we see this year will look like a more seasoned version of the Hawks from years prior. This should worry teams in the middle of the Eastern Conference, and Miami should take every matchup with Atlanta very, very seriously. Getting to watch Kyle Lowry versus Trae Young four times this year is going to be a god damn treat.
The young supporting cast of Deandre Hunter, Cam Reddish, Kevin Huerter, and Onyeka Okongwu are all poised to make more strides this season, after the prior three all showed clear improvement from the year before. The USC big man and former teammate of the Ball brothers (shoutout to people watching those Chino Hills mixtapes in 2021) tore his labrum and missed a large part of last season, but in his 50 games played, he averaged 12 points and 5 rebounds, and showed flashes of elite defensive instincts. As a second unit big behind Collins and Capela, he puts the Hawks in a not-often-seen situation in which they have a potentially elite level big in their second unit. ‘Big O’ could take a big step this year, and will likely be trying to push Capela out of a job.
Really more than anything I just want like 15 games of Hawks/Knicks every year as long as their rosters look relatively similar to the past two years. I want to see Trae Young quiet the MSG crowd and then I want to see him score like two points while those Knicks guards bump into him every time he comes inside the three point line. Fuck I’m excited for basketball season again.
It's worth noting that I literally published this blog and am going back and adding this paragraph to it because hello, the Hawks made two potentially great sleeper picks this year, nabbing Duke's Jalen Johnson at 20th overall, and former Auburn PG Sharife Cooper at 48th overall. Both of these two, Johnson in particular, showed flashes of value far beyond their draft pick, and literally everyone said that Jalen should have gone much higher, and now the whole East is probably going to pay for it, so that's cool. Oh and Sharife hit a game winner in Summer League (even though he also got dropped by Payton Pritchard). Okay I'm going to try to publish this again.
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