Depending on who you ask, the Atlanta Hawks are either having a bad offseason or they are remaking their roster in a way that fits Trae Young better, even if they are not an NBA title contender. I am in the latter group, but not everyone is. In a recent ranking of the NBA offseason’s winners and losers, CBS Sports Brad Botkin had the Hawks as one of the losers of the offseason:
“I originally had the Hawks as a winner this summer because the return they got on Dejounte Murray was pretty good considering their lack of leverage and Murray’s depreciating market, but upon more thought, the Hawks are still operating from a place of considerable debt.
The 2025 first-round pick they got back from New Orleans for Murray is coming from the Lakers, and the 2027 pick will be the worse of either the Bucks or Pelicans. All those teams project to be pretty good into the near future, so it’s not likely that Atlanta just scored a high-value pick.
The three picks they gave up for Murray in the first place, however, were very high value. They were the Hawks’ own picks, and without them they have no incentive to bottom out for a higher draft pick. They don’t control their own first-round pick until 2028.
So sure, Dyson Daniels is a keeper, and Zaccharie Risacher was the No. 1 overall pick, but even that pick comes with the caveat of this being universally regarded as possibly one of the weakest drafts this century. If Risacher turns out to be a star, then this summer becomes a success. But that could be a long shot, and as of now, the Hawks are still a play-in team at best without seemingly any avenues to a Trae Young trade that could truly reset their clock. The Hawks did OK with the position they had put themselves in, but it feels more like cutting losses than an actual winning summer. Atlanta is in a tough spot.”
I think this is fair analysis because not having their own picks does hinder the Hawks. The Eastern Conference got tougher this offseason and it will be a challenge for the Hawks to make the playoffs, though it is not impossible. You could argue that Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Orlando, Cleveland, Indiana, and Miami are all better than Atlanta right now, but the Hawks could still have some moves to make. I think if things break right, the Hawks could be better than some of these teams, but that is far from a given.
The bottom of the East (Brooklyn, Washington, Detroit, Charlotte, and Chicago) is terrible and you can make the argument that Atlanta is better than Miami and Toronto. While the Hawks were not very good last year, they were also one of the unluckiest teams when it came to injuries. With better injury luck and a roster that makes sense around Young, it is not impossible for Atlanta to be a top six seed in the East, especially if other teams underperform their expectations and don’t make the next projected leap (Indiana and Orlando). Jalen Johnson should only continue to get better, Onyeka Okongwu might finally get a chance to start, and the Hawks defense should be much better than last season.
ESPN’s Chris Herring put every Eastern Conference team into tiers and had the Hawks in a “stuck in the middle” tier along with the Chicago Bulls:
“Atlanta, a play-in team for each of the past three seasons, has been in much the same boat as the Bulls in recent years: directionless.
There’s little to no incentive for the franchise to bottom out completely, as the Hawks owe their 2025 and 2027 first-round selections to the Spurs in exchange for the Dejounte Murray deal back in 2022. (San Antonio also has swap rights for Atlanta’s pick in 2026.)
Perhaps because of that inability, the club finally decided last week to move Murray to New Orleans for Larry Nance Jr., Dyson Daniels, E.J. Liddell and a pair of future first-round picks. And there is upside on the roster. Jalen Johnson, 22, likely would have placed in Most Improved Player award voting if he hadn’t narrowly missed the games-played threshold. Backup big Onyeka Okongwu is still just 23. Zaccharie Risacher, the No. 1 overall pick in last week’s NBA Draft, will make his Hawks debut in summer league in the coming days.
Still, as it’s been since 2018, Atlanta is trying to figure how to build around franchise player Trae Young, whose elite offensive skills are complicated by his defensive shortcomings. The Hawks reached the 2021 conference finals, but have gotten nowhere near that stage since.”
The bottom of the Eastern Conference makes it to where Atlanta should be a play-in team with their current roster and it could even be a top-six seed if things break the right way. This is a better roster around Trae Young and all of the pieces fit better, much like the conference finals team in 2021. I am not saying that this team will do that, but the team structure makes more sense than the past two seasons. There are still moves for the Hawks to make this offseason, including potential deals for Clint Capela, Larry Nance, and possibly De’Andre Hunter. The Hawks should continue to add the right pieces to their team, stay patient, and continue to build their roster, which they have done this offseason.