The Atlanta Hawks are acquiring Patty Mills from the Oklahoma City Thunder in exchange for Rudy Gay, TyTyWashington, Usman Garuba and a future 2nd round draft pick per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. The Hawks are saving $4.5 million in the trade, putting them $7.8 million underneath the luxury tax line if you include the non-guaranteed contracts of Bruno Fernando ($2.58 million), Vit Krejci ($1.84 million), and Tyrese Martin ($1.72 million).
Once the trade becomes official, Atlanta will have 13 players signed to full-time contracts for the 2023-24 season (the maximum number of players allowed during the regular season is 15), and their depth chart currently looks like this:
Guard: Trae Young, Dejounte Murray, Bogdan Boganovic, Patty Mills, Kobe Bufkin, Garrison Matthews, Seth Lundy (two-way), Tyrese Martin (NGT)
Wing: De’Andre Hunter, Saddiq Bey, Jalen Johnson, AJ Griffin, Mouhammed Gueye, Vit Krejci (NGT), Miles Norris (two-way)
Big: Clint Capela, Onyeka Okongwu, Bruno Fernando (NGT)
This is a nice move for the Hawks who add a steady veteran presence in Mills to an inexperienced bench unit that currently features five players (!) on rookie-scale contracts. Mills won a title with the Spurs back in 2014, and has spent the past two seasons in Brooklyn, where he averaged 9.7 points and 2.0 assists a night in over 121 games alongside a rotating cast of characters for the Nets. While he doesn’t offer much on the defensive end, Mills does the majority of his damage from beyond the arc these days, posting a 3-point attempt-rate of 70% during his time with the Nets, while canning his long distance looks at a very respectable 39.4% clip. He will be 35 years old next season, and while he may be nearing the twilight of his career, his high-level character and 14 seasons of NBA experience will be a welcome addition to one of the younger rosters in the NBA. Mills will also be reuniting with his former San Antonio Spurs teammate, Dejounte Murray, and the two appear to have a strong friendship, with Murray calling Mills his “favorite teammate ever” back in 2019.
When looking at what the Hawks gave up to bring Mills on board, the team did well to move on from Rudy Gay who’s $6.5 million contract was simply far too much for a player who averaged 5 points per game last year on an ugly 47.5% True Shooting percentage and does not offer much on the defensive end of the floor at this stage of his career. As for Garuba and Washington, the pair of former first-round picks were acquired by the Hawks just last week for the meager price of Alpha Kabba’s draft rights, and will now be re-routed to Oklahoma City where they should have the opportunity to develop further. Neither Garuba or Washington topped the 1,000 minute mark in minutes played last season for the Rockets, and when they did take the floor, they both appeared to be a few seasons away from becoming solid, rotation-level contributors. Needless to say, neither of these players were projected to make much of a dent in Atlanta’s rotation next year. The second-round pick that Atlanta threw into the deal was simply collateral damage, and is simply the cost of doing business with Sam Presti these days as his Thunder now have an unbelievable 35 draft picks over the next 7 years, 15 of which are first-round picks.
It remains to be seen how the Hawks will decide to fill out their two remaining roster spots ahead of the regular season (they still have access to their $12.4 million MLE), but nonetheless, it’s hard to have any gripes about this trade apart from the fact that it does nothing to help improve Atlanta’s 21st ranked defense from last season. Taking a macro view of the Hawks summer moves, they have essentially turned John Collins and the draft rights to Alpha Kabba, into Patty Mills and two second round picks (they netted one in the Collins trade, and two more in the Kabba deal before sending one out in today’s trade). Even though it looks like the Hawks have taken a hit in the talent category this summer, they have added a sweet-shooting, proven NBA veteran to their bench, and will have much more financial flexibility going forwards as they evaluate the NBA landscape for future moves.
