OFFSEASON VIBE CHECK: ATLANTA HAWKS

Well, everyone, the NBA offseason is here. Oh boy, it hasn't been as disappointing as people expected, thanks to the repercussions of the new CBA and the dreadful second apron. But man, the Atlanta Hawks have had one of the better offseasons in recent history that I can remember. Let's take a look at what they've done:

ROSTER CHANGES:

To start things off, they bring back four of their starting five from last year, as well as two to three solid bench pieces. Trae Young, the Hawks' best player, is coming off a season where he averaged 24 points and a league-leading 12 assists. His defense is still questionable, but when you look at who they brought in this offseason, Trae is now the ONLY player on the roster shorter than 6'4. The team got taller (their average height went up by an inch), younger, more athletic, and more versatile. Expect Trae to be in contention to lead the league in assists yet again, but also possibly bump his scoring and/or shooting splits by having more room to operate and playing at a presumed faster pace. The reigning Most Improved Player, Dyson Daniels, returns after averaging 14/6/4 with a league-leading THREE STEALS. Expect him to still wreck havoc defensively. Onyeka Okongwu, the backup center, returns after the best year of his career (13/9/2/1/1 averages in 28mpg) and could see himself starting a handful of games depending on Porzingis (which will be addressed later). But the Hawks' season hinges on two players: Zaccharie Risacher and Jalen Johnson, the young wing duo. To start with Risacher, he dazzled as a rookie even if his numbers (13/4/1) weren't eye-popping by any means. The thing I was impressed with the most was his ability to score and create off-ball:

Just look at how he's coming off screens and scoring efficiently without putting the ball on the floor. Paired next to Jalen Johnson, who in my opinion, is the Hawks' x-factor and looked to be a possible All-Star before injury (19/10/5 averages), the Hawks may have the wing duo they thought they did with DeAndre Hunter and Cam Reddish. Lastly, getting off Terance Mann's horrible long-term contract, letting Clint Capela and Caris LeVert go to free up more minutes for better fits and younger guys, and turning Georges Niang into a seamless (in theory) big man fit is great work.

ADDITIONS:

The Hawks only did four moves, but by god, do I love them. Getting Nickeil Alexander-Walker as a (likely) 6th man for $15.5M/year is insane value when you also consider who he'll share the floor with sometimes. NAW and Dyson Daniels combined for 613 deflections last year AND played all 82 games. Trae Young will be even more masked for his defensive woes than he's ever been. Don't forget NAW shot 38% from three last year and has truly never played with a facilitator of Trae Young's caliber. Luke Kennard as a 3-point sniper off the bench (career 44% on 5 attempts) and will space the floor. Caleb Houstan is a great low-risk, high-reward F.A. signing considering he's 6'8, 22 years old, with signs of turning into a competent 3&D wing. But the biggest splash they made was trading for Kristaps Porzingis. Now in theory, he's a perfect fit. An 18-20+ ppg scorer for almost a decade, competent rebounder, near-elite rim protector, and amazing floor stretcher at 7'2 (39% on 6 attempts his last three seasons). But the reason it's all "in theory"? Porzingis has only played more than 60 games in a season once since 2017. And he just battled a truly baffling, mysterious illness this past season that we still know almost nothing about.

DRAFT PICKS:

So, before we even get to discuss the draft picks, the Hawks also pulled off a highway robbery in the draft. They traded pick no. 13 to the Pelicans for pick no. 23 AND the more favorable first-round pick between the Pelicans/Bucks in 2026. Which definitely could be a top-10 pick. Asa Newell is a 6'11 forward who averaged 15 points and 7 rebounds in his lone year at Georgia but also showed flashes of being a lob-threat and versatile defender. It's kind of funny but his play style looks like a young John Collins. Djurisic was a draft and stash who's finally coming over to play and no surprise but he's jumbo ball handler from Serbia. I don;t know if he'll ever be as good of a shooter as this guy but I see flashes of Bojan Bogdanovic. N'Daye is a solid UDFA who just appears to be a stereotypical rim-running big.

VIBE CHECK: TIER RANKING

Ok so as we go through and do an offseason vibe check for each NBA team, I will personally be putting them into tiers. S being the best of the best and F being absolute dogshit. Just to clarify there is no ranking within the tiers so if two teams are in the same tier it's interchangable. After everything discussed about the Atlanta Hawks today, I find it really hard not to put them in the S-tier. I'm buying a lot of stock in them this season and that kind of scares me especially if they end up back in the play-in which they just love to end up in.