To get us through the late-Summer doldrums of the NBA, we’re reviewing teams from around the league and how their offseasons went.
Atlanta Hawks
Key Additions:
Zaccharie Risacher
Dyson Daniels
Larry Nance Jr
Cody Zeller
David Roddy
Key Losses:
Dejounte Murray
Saddiq Bey
Offseason Review and 2024-25 Season Outlook:
The Atlanta Hawks broke up the Trae Young/Dejounte Murray tandem, which they absolutely had to do. The pair just never meshed, and Atlanta was stuck. The question is whether or not the Hawks made the right call. Should they have traded Trae Young instead? As much as I’m not a big Trae fan, I think the Hawks made the right call. Murray is a couple years older than Trae, a less impactful offensive player, and although he’s still a better defender than Trae, it’s not as big a difference as Murray’s reputation would lead you to believe.
More than anything though, the Hawks need to figure out the rest of this roster. It’s a mix of solid and good players but they don’t quite mesh. The Hawks have been plagued by inaction, where every deadline and every summer it seems they might finally move on from Clint Capela, and yet it never happens. The Hawks also had the misfortune of landing the first overall pick in a draft without a clear number one guy. I think they got bullied out of taking Alexandre Sarr by Sarr’s agent, but I also don’t know if Sarr will be significantly better than Risacher. Both, or neither, could be fine NBA players, but neither is likely good enough to have warranted a top pick.
I think the Hawks with be somewhere around the Play-In this season, mostly by virtue of being in the East, and maybe that will be enough for Hawks management and ownership to call this year a success. It’s just a very tough place for any franchise to be. Not good enough to compete for a title or make a deep run, not bad enough to bottom out, and when the odds bounced their way, it’s was just the wrong year for it be franchise-altering.
Why We Hate Them:
This is where we’ll discuss the very important and very reasonable reasons why we hate every other team.
I hate Trae Young’s flopping. I hate that Atlanta gets a pass for not drafting Luka while the Kings get all the flak. I hate that lingering protected pick the Kings owe the Hawks. And I hate that they won’t just give us Jalen Johnson.
Moreso than any other team in the league, I don’t understand what the Hawks are doing. A large part of that is I don’t understand the Risacher selection (not that I’m extremely more confident in Sarr at this point), but I really just don’t understand what the Hawks have ever done to try and build a team around Trae besides the Murray trade (and I agree with Greg, they needed to undo that move by this point).
i also hate that Atlanta has so many wings and forwards the Kings could use.
I raise you a Washington Wizards franchise. They re-singed Holmes, signed Jonas, drafted Sarr, kept Kuzma and still have Bagley. On top of that they traded away one of their promising young players in Deni Avdija. What exactly are they building there? Monte should ring them up and see if the Kings can get Bilal Coulibaly for pennies on the dollar.
In terms of the Hawks, yeah, screw them for having so many wings.
Both these teams make the Kings look good and rational. Even though both Johson and Kuzma are over-rated in Kings fans eyes (my opinion), Kings could use either one.
Both franchises are floundering. Hawks are terrible. Trae is a show off.
out.
“Wings?”
Poetry.
There are a handful of incredibly-talented NBA players whose style of play I cannot stand to watch. Trae Young is at the top of the list.
Awkward, floppy foul-hunting is one of the league’s worst problems right now. If a defender shoving a guy in the lane is a penalty because it’s a non-basketball move, what the hell is jumping two feet to the right during a shot and smashing into a defender? The only thing referees should be looking at on a shooting foul if there is contact, and who initiated it.
I’m also noticing that despite playing eight fewer minutes in an Olympic contest, the games run 45-50 minutes shorter. Some, but not all of that can be attributed to the referees not rewarding horseshit.
Is the time of the game less because there is not any commercial timeouts? Shorter half time? Less timeouts?
Hawks? –Tuah!
Prior to the DeRozan trade I would have argued that the Kings were the Hawks East. There is no question there is talent on the roster, but it’s just middling talent slotted in as a play-in or first round exit. DeRozan changed that path for the better. Where the Kins upgraded talent in Barnes for DeRozan, the same can not be said for the Hawks in the Murray trade.
ATL just seems to be built around a flawed star in Young. IMO, he’s better suited as 2nd or even 3rd fiddle on a good team. He’s an inefficient foul hunting scorer who is a major liability on defense. It’s a good thing they have Capela in the paint, or they’d be even worse. In the end, I feel they traded away the wrong guard, but they did get a younger and under the radar version of Murray in Dyson Daniels.
Trae Young is what Steph Curry could’ve been if he played for the Hawks. Now – I am not saying that Trae Young is a shade as good as 1st ballot all-time greatest shooter in Steph Curry, but Steph’s career would look a whole lot more Trae like on another squad, like an Atlanta one.
I tried to come up with a good comparison, and I came up with this one (for better or worse) in old SAT format:
Steph Curry is to Trae Young
as
Nikola Jokic is to Domantas Sabonis
(the Michael Jordan to Harold Miner is too extreme)
Another thing about the Hawks: the have what was a highly coveted Head Coach by Kings fans in Quin Snyder. And yet… their teams, despite having nice appearing talent, are meh.
Many NBA teams saw the logic in picking Trae Young. That simple logic did not exist with the Kings choice that year. Time to move on. That was a long time ago. Trae has potential still not utilized. Luka has the same number of NBA championships as Trae and Bagley. The Mavericks are realistically handling the gift of Luka. They know he has a finite number of years to be what he is. They have intentionally gone after other players to build a team that will put the Mavericks in a position to win. It is not only Luka. The Hawks have not done anything similar with Trae. Had the Kings intended to win even with Bagley that team would have at least been average.
Picking Luka vs. Trae vs. Bagley is not what has defined the Mavericks, the Kings, or the Hawks. One player has not been the difference for these organizations.
I’m very aware that picking Trae is not the same as picking Bagley, believe me. But the section about why we hate each team is not going to be a place of logic or perspective.
Did I say something wrong?
I think it was a relevant comment. I understand the “entertainment only” intent of the section and appreciate it.
Just my thoughts on the Hawks, Mavericks, and the Kings because these three teams are forever entwined in this narrative.
Add the Suns to that list. They don’t get nearly as much crap for picking Ayton.
They traded the wrong PG.
Could the Kings choose whether to trade Fox or Haliburton or did IND want the guy on the rookie contract? I like Haliburton a lot, wished they had been able to retain him. I think Fox & Haliburton are very different players and find it hard to say which is overall “better”, “better fit”, “better value”, …
I think “they” in NCKF’s comment meant Atlanta: draft rights to Luka for draft rights to Trae.
The Kings at one time had drafted the most remarkably talented big in the league: Demarcus Cousins. Had his attitude matched his athletic and basketball ability, he would and should have dominated the NBA. Remember Tyreke Evans–ROY? How’d that work out? Point is, nobody knows how top draft picks will turn out.
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