Opening week is in the books for the Atlanta Hawks and they are leaving it with a 2-1 record.
The season got started with road wins in Orlando and Charlotte , with the ladder coming by a franchise-record 47-point margin. In the first back-to-back of the season, the Hawks dropped their first game of the year, a close loss to the Houston Rockets .
When taking stock of how the first three games have played out this season for the Hawks, who has made their stock rise and who has fallen so far?
No player saw their stock rise more in this first week of the season than Aaron Wiggins. Wiggins is averaging 17.0 PPG so far and shooting 58% from the field and 52.6% from three and while he is not doing much when it comes to playmaking so far with the ball in his hand, the shooting and scoring is doing more than enough right now when he is on the floor. Wiggins has also closed games over CJ McCollum, which is something to continue to watch.
It was a tough week for Onyeka Okongwu.
He was ineffective and mostly invisible in every game this week, averaging only 8.7 PPG and 5.0 RPG while shooting 37.5% from the field and 15% from three. Last season, Okongwu was one of the best shooting big men in the NBA last season, but so far through three games, he has not provided that same level of floor spacing.
I think that he is going to be fine, but the shortcomings on the glass compounded with the poor shooting numbers made it a poor week for the former No. 6 overall pick.
Daniels had a very typical Dyson Daniels type of week. He was fantastic on the defensive side of the court and averaged 16.7 PPG, 7.0 RPG, 4.3 SPG, and 3.3 APG on 62% shooting from the field.
Daniels catches a lot of criticism for his lack of three point shooting, but he makes his mark on every game and he was fantastic this week for the Hawks.
A lot of this is similar to the problems that Okongwu is having for the Hawks. Landale has not been able to stretch the floor effectively for the Hawks, shooting just 11.1 from deep.
When you have players like Daniels and Lu Dort, who have struggles from three, the Hawks need their bigs to be able to effectively make shots from deep and their centers have not done that up to this point. Landale is one of the most important bench players for Atlanta and they need more from him.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/nba/hawks/onsi as Stock up/Stock Down for the Atlanta Hawks After Opening Week: Who is Rising and Falling? .
