Ladies and gentlemen, it was an anti-climactic finish for the Atlanta Hawks this season. The Hawks were victims of a gentlemen’s sweep, following their 4-1 series-loss against the top-seeded, Miami Heat. Coming off the heels of the best season, maybe in franchise history, or at least since moving to Atlanta, the Hawks were never able to capture that same mojo from their Eastern Conference Finals run. This season was unlike any we had ever seen, between Covid-19 protocols and injuries, inconsistent play and coaching, Atlanta never really got a full stretch of games from this team as whole. This seems to be a common theme from the past two seasons. The final result was a frantic finish to qualify for the Eastern Conference play-in tournament, as a nine seed, and an eventual first-round date with the Heat. The Hawks did finish the season above .500, at 43-39, but it was hard to celebrate knowing how many golden opportunities this team let slip through its hands.
Coming into the season, the hype for this franchise was bubbling over. The front office did what any logical front office would do. They ran it back with their young core and paid that young core in the offseason. No one can really blame them for doing so, since they just watched the team get within two games of an NBA finals berth. 23-year old, Trae Young, agreed to a super-max contract, which can be worth up to $208 million, if he makes an All-NBA team this offseason. Young’s regular season play should cement him on one of the three All-NBA team’s, as he was the first point guard since “Tiny” Nate Archibald in 1973, to lead the NBA in total points and assists. 24-year old, John Collins, signed a five-year, $125 million dollar deal in the offseason to become the second star of this franchise, behind Young. 27-year old, Clint Capela, was offered a three-year extension through 2023. 23-year old, Kevin Huerter, was also given a four-year, $65 million rookie contract extension, following his stellar Game 7 performance against the Philadelphia 76ers. Returning the same team, ultimately, did not yield the same results, and created a new set of questions for the team as a whole.
Truly, the Hawks never got off to a great start or hit the ground running to set the tone for their season. Atlanta started their campaign at an underwhelming, 4-9, highlighted by a six-game losing streak to some of the top teams in the NBA (Brooklyn Nets, Utah Jazz (twice), Phoenix Suns, Golden State Warriors and Denver Nuggets). It was an early litmus test that Atlanta failed at miserably. Ironically, Atlanta immediately followed up its losing-streak and went on a seven-game winning-streak to stabilize their record back to 11-9 and rejuvenating some hope for the team we all saw go deep into the playoffs. From that point on, the fanbase was subjected to the excruciating inconsistency the Hawks displayed for the entirety of the 2021-22 season. Atlanta struggled to get above .500, or even back to the .500 mark, pretty much the entire season. To put in perspective, Atlanta only had above .500-record six times this season, and if you want, you can exclude when they were 1-0 or 2-1 to start the season.
Atlanta was a polarizing team, and by that I mean they were a stellar offensive unit, but as good they were offensively, they may have been just as bad defensively. Atlanta ranked second overall in the entire NBA in terms of offensive efficiency, but 26th overall in terms of defensive efficiency. To make it simple, the defensive INEFFICIENCIES were a glaring eye-sore for anyone that watched the team this season. Atlanta often looked overwhelmed, discombobulated, and out-of-sync on the defensive end of the floor, more times than not. This was not just against top competition either, the team had several head-scratching losses due to these deficiencies against sub-.500 clubs. See below for the losses I am talking about, and realize what a difference this could have made in the standings for Atlanta if they has just handled business.
- 10/28/21: Against a Bradley Beal-less Washington Wizards team, which was also missing their entire front-court, ended up a 122-111 loss for Atlanta.
- 12/5/21: Playing the Charlotte Hornets, at home, without Lamelo Ball, was a 130-127 loss for Atlanta.
- 12/13/21: Blowing a 19-point lead, at home, against a sub-.500 Houston Rockets team, gave a 132-126 loss for Atlanta.
- 12/22/21: Straight up beat by the lowly-Orlando Magic, was a 104-98 loss for Atlanta.
- 1/3/22: Maybe the worst loss of the year, a Covid-19-ridden Portland Trailblazers squad, that had zero starters playing, finished as a 136-131 loss for Atlanta.
- 3/7/22 & 3/23/22: Both games were losses to a young-Detroit team, and the worst part was that this was a crucial time for Atlanta to avoid the play-in tournament and stack some much need wins. Both games ended up as a 113-110 loss and a 122-101 loss for Atlanta.
- 3/20/22: A home-loss to the New Orleans Pelicans, again in a period where Atlanta NEEDED to win, was a crucial 117-112 loss for Atlanta.
Tally that up and that is a total of eight games that Atlanta squandered. Adjust the win/loss column, and the Hawks at best, could have very well finished with 51 wins and 31 losses, which would have had them tied with the Boston Celtics, Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers, for the second-best record in the Eastern Conference. In addition, Atlanta would have also avoided the whole play-in tournament scenario. So, when fans argue if the regular season matters or not, just have them look back on the squandered opportunities from the 2021-22 Atlanta Hawks.
There was a stretch of the season that was particularly brutal for Atlanta, and that was the multiple Covid-19 outbreaks on the team. The Hawks went 6-16 during their peak Covid-19 outbreaks. During this time, the entire roster and coaching staff was out at some point. The NBA only postponed two games from that period, and that was actually in favor of the opposition, because the Chicago Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers did not have enough players to play. Yet, that same principle did not seem to apply for the Hawks, as Atlanta still had to court line-up’s with G-league players and 10-day contracts for the duration for this stretch. Food for thought, the Atlanta Hawks and Boston Celtics were the hardest hit teams from a Covid-19 perspective.
Now, the “shoulda-coulda-woulda” excuses for this team could go on for days, but they simply did not get the job done. The inconsistencies from all aspects of the team led to the demise of this promising-core, and now they head into the offseason with more questions than answers. Nevertheless, it is not the end of the world, the young team still found a way to make the playoffs and superstar Trae Young is going nowhere in the foreseeable future. There is some obvious tinkering that needs to be done with the roster but this is not the worst situation in the NBA or anything close to that. See below for my main take-aways from the Hawks this season.
TRAE YOUNG
Young cemented himself as one of the best point guards in the NBA this season. Besides leading the entire league in total points and assists as mentioned prior, Young had a career-year almost across the board. He averaged 28.4 ppg on career-best shooting splits of 46%/38.2%/90.4%, and averaged 9.7 apg, also a career-high, in 76 games this season. Yes, recency bias, will leave the bad taste of the Heat series in fans’ mouths, where Young only averaged 15.4 ppg, on ugly shooting splits of 29%/16.7%/80.5%, and only 6.0 apg. Add-in the 6.2 turnovers per game compared to the 4.0 during the year, this was all a far-cry from Young’s “All-NBA-like” regular season. I attribute that more to the Heat’s defense and the lack of other ball-handlers or play-makers not on this current Hawks roster. If there is one thing we know from Young, is that he has improved year-over-year during his tenure in the league. If he improves even more than he did this year, watch out for another historic season from the former Oklahoma-product.
STANDING PAT AT THE DEADLINE/TRADING CAM REDDISH
A big point of contention this season, from a fanbase perspective, was the decision to not do anything at this year’s trade deadline. Guy’s like, C. J. McCollum, Derrick White, Marcus Smart or Ben Simmons, were all linked to Atlanta for months, but ultimately the team stood pat. My personal opinion still has not changed, and I do think the Hawks made the correct decision. The value for what was available on the trade market was just not worth it, and to be quite frank, I do not think anyone the Hawks would have brought in would have made this team significantly better. Nevertheless, the team has all off-season to wheel-and-deal, where I think better players may came available.
Now, Atlanta did not go all year without making a move. They traded their former lottery-selection, Cam Reddish, Solomon Hill, and a 2025 second-round pick (via Brooklyn) to the New York Knicks in exchange for Kevin Knox and a 2022 first-round pick (via Charlotte). A couple weeks into the New Year, this trade took everyone by surprise. Reddish seemed to be apart of the team’s future. He was young, full of potential, and had some good outing’s for the team. Reports later came out via The Athletic which indicated that Reddish was unhappy with his role with the team and wanted to be the main focal point of the team’s offense. Ultimately, Atlanta thought it more valuable to trade him than to work it out. The lack of consistent play and wing depth was pretty noticeable at parts of the season, and definitely, against Miami in the first-round. The Hawks did not really get much from Knox, except for a couple spot-starts or spot-minutes here and there. Only time will tell, if anyone “won” this trade, but it is ok to think what this team would have been like had Reddish played all year.
COACH NATE MCMILLAN
Head Coach, Nate McMillan, was the face for a lot of the Hawks’ criticism this season. Some justifiable and some not, in my opinion, but when it comes to a young team, the head coach should be viewed as the head of the snake. Now, when I say some of it is un-justifiable, I mean the players deserve a brunt of the criticism as well. At the end of the day, they are the one’s on the floor and they are the one’s that need to execute. With that being said, it is up to the coach to put players in advantageous positions to help the team win. There were numerous times from Coach McMillan this season that just left us puzzled as a spectators.
One issue we noticed in the playoffs, that was constant during he regular season too, was the timing of calling timeout’s. In the Heat series specifically, Miami went on 17-0, 22-0 and 15-0 run’s, respectively, in three different games, Coach McMillan did not call a timeout during any of those scoring run’s to stop momentum or get his team organized. By then, all three of those games were out of hand. In addition, Coach McMillan rolled out some interesting line-up’s or rotations at times during this season. Some out of necessity but some were by his doing as well. Lastly, is this archaic idea that Coach McMillan has of not playing rookies. Multiple teams around the league were deploying rookies on playoff-contenting rosters. Jonathan Kuminga on the Warriors, Bones Hyland on the Nuggets, Evan Mobley on the Cavaliers, just to name a few. It is a shame now one has any idea how Jalen Johnson or Sharife Cooper would have faired if they were given regular minutes. I do think Coach McMillan will be back for 2023, but if he is, he is starting day-one under the microscope.
OFFSEASON FULL OF CHANGE
This Hawks roster may look very different by the start of next season. In my opinion, the only truly untouchable player is Trae Young. If a package comes along for the right player and Atlanta has the pieces to do it, I do not think the front office will hesitate. On the other hand there are several players, excluding Young, that I would like to see back on the Hawks roster, this includes: De’Andre Hunter, Onyeka Okongwu, Delon Wright, Jalen Johnson and Sharife Cooper. All those guys fit the young-core timeline and for now they are all on team-friendly deals. In the cases of Johnson and Cooper, the Hawks still have some evaluating to do.
When you break down the roster, there are some big question marks with some of the other players. John Collins is a great piece, who would be awesome to retain, but he is also our biggest trade asset. If a player the Hawks like does pop up on the market, Collins would be the main cog in any trade framework. The Hawks know what they have in Capela already, and “OO” has shown flashes that he can be the anchor for Atlanta at the center position going into the future. This makes Capela expendable for the right cost and return. Bogdan Bogdanovic is reported to have a degenerative knee issue which is never a good sign. Kevin Huerter would most likely be replaced in any incoming trade. Now, if we could keep him, and have him as a sixth-man or coming off the bench that would be palatable. Danilo Gallinari, Louis Williams and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, are all veteran players who may not be returning. Louis Williams had already expressed that this would be his final season prior to the start of the 2021-22 campaign. The Hawks are in need of consolidation and combined with the fine drafting skills of the front office, the team can reboot quickly.
Will the same coaching staff be leading the team heading into next season? If Coach McMillan and his staff return, one can only wonder what adjustments they will see on the hardwood. Will it be more of what we saw this year or more of what we saw during that magical 27-11 run and trip to the Eastern Conference Finals? A new coaching regime does have its set of growing pains. It will take a little while for the team to adjust to a new style of play and coach. Rotations, minutes and roles, may be changed, but it may also be a breathe of fresh air and an objective view on how to work this roster.
It was not the season we expected but there is always hope for next year. What moves do you want to see the Hawks make? Do you want a new coaching staff in the building? Anyone in particular we should target in trade talks or free agency? Let us know your thoughts below!
