There's something strange and honestly kind of exciting about where the Atlanta Hawks are sitting heading into 2026-27. They're not rebuilding, they're not an obvious title favorite either, but I'll say it plainly: they might have the deepest roster in the entire Eastern Conference , and enough defense to make life miserable for whoever they run into.
Last season was already a big step forward. Atlanta shipped Trae Young to the Wizards in January for CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert, then kept dealing at the deadline, adding Jonathan Kuminga , Buddy Hield, Jock Landale, and Gabe Vincent. The payoff: a 46-36 record, the No. 6 seed, and the franchise's best defense in years, though it all ended in the first round against the eventual champion Knicks.
The offseason didn't slow down either. They let Kuminga go without picking up his team option , and former No. 1 pick Zaccharie Risacher got flipped to Dallas in the deal that brought back Luguentz Dort and Ryan Nembhard. They also pried Aaron Wiggins away from Oklahoma City for two second-round picks, basically adding a great shooter for scraps, scooped up former lottery pick Devin Carter for next to nothing, re-signed McCollum for an extra season, and used the draft to grab Kingston Flemings at No. 8 and Zuby Ejiofor at No. 23.
So yeah. This team is deep. The real question is whether depth is enough in an East that suddenly looks ridiculous. The Knicks are defending champs, the Pistons just won 60 games, the Sixers now have Jaylen Brown and LeBron James lined up next to Joel Embiid, the Heat have Giannis, the Cavs won 52 and added Peyton Watson, and Boston, Orlando, Toronto, and Indiana are still pretty good. Ten Eastern Conference teams finished above .500 last year. That stat alone tells you everything about what this season is going to be.
Atlanta absolutely belongs in that conversation. Whether they belong near the top of it is what 2026-27 actually has to answer.
Point Guard – CJ McCollum
Shooting Guard – Dyson Daniels
Small Forward – Luguentz Dort
Power Forward – Jalen Johnson
Center – Onyeka Okongwu
McCollum staying in the starting lineup makes sense, even if the soon-to-be-35-year-old obviously isn't the long-term answer at point guard. The numbers don't lie: Atlanta went 27-14 with him in the lineup, 19-6 when he started. He averaged 18.7 points, 4.1 assists, and 3.1 rebounds in 41 games after arriving from Washington, shooting 45.6% from the field and 35.7% from three. They brought him back on a one-year, $21 million deal , so this will be another year of him being the veteran scorer holding the ship together.
And honestly, McCollum doesn't even need to replace what Young used to do, because that job is now shared with Jalen Johnson. CJ can attack mismatches, run pick-and-roll, get his own shot off the bounce, and be the guy who's actually comfortable taking a tough shot with the clock bleeding out. That is a big need for them, because none of the other players could really damage the Knicks as CJ did.
Dyson Daniels made his second straight All-Defensive Second Team, averaging 11.9 points, 6.8 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.0 steals. He finished with 143 total steals, 303 deflections, and 48 multi-steal games, while Atlanta climbed to ninth in defensive rating after years of being an embarrassment on that end with Young running the show.
And now they're putting Lu Dort right next to him, who had a quieter offensive year in Oklahoma City (8.3 points, 34.4% from three), but nobody brought him in for scoring. This is a guy who made First Team All-Defense in 2025 and has spent years drawing the toughest perimeter assignment on the floor every single night. That pairing, for me, is the single biggest reason I like this team.
And at the top of this squad stands Jalen Johnson , whose jump last season was massive. He averaged 22.5 points, 10.3 rebounds, and 7.9 assists, made his first All-Star team, and earned Third Team All-NBA. He shot 48.9% from the field and became one of the rare forwards in this league who can basically run an entire offense while still handing you a double-double in rebounds every night.
This team belongs to him now, which was obvious after the Young trade, sure, but 2026-27 is the first full season where Johnson walks into camp knowing everyone else is built to fit around him. McCollum can play off-ball. Daniels can cut. Dort spots up in the corner. Okongwu can screen, roll, or pop. Johnson is the one to grab the board and just push the whole team himself, which is especially valuable for a team that finished fifth in pace last year.
His jumper is the number I'd keep an eye on. He shot 35.2% from three, which is fine; he doesn't need to become Kevin Durant out there. But he's a really low-volume shooter and needs to adapt to modern basketball to generate those driving lanes to attack the rim.
Onyeka Okongwu rounds out the five after finally becoming the full-time center Atlanta had been waiting years for. Career highs across the board of 15.2 points, 7.6 rebounds, 3.1 assists on 48.0% shooting and, this is the fun part, 37.6% from three on 5.2 attempts a game. That number alone changes what he can be offensively.
If Okongwu really is a 37% three-point shooter now, the Hawks can play five-out and not lose a thing defensively. He's not huge for the position at 6-foot-8, but he's mobile, switchable, and doesn't get hunted by faster lineups. He also shot 45.5% from three in the Knicks series specifically, so at least that jumper survived its first taste of the playoffs.
This starting five isn't flawless offensively, though, I'll say that upfront. Daniels shot 18.8% from three last year. Dort shot 34.4%. There are going to be nights when teams just flat-out ignore them. But defensively? This could be one of the nastiest groups in the East , and Johnson plus McCollum give them just enough juice to keep the offense from stalling out completely.
Point Guards – Kingston Flemings, Ryan Nembhard, RayJ Dennis
Shooting Guards – Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Buddy Hield, Devin Carter
Small Forwards – Aaron Wiggins, Corey Kispert, Keshon Gilbert
Power Forwards – Mouhamed Gueye, Asa Newell, Jalen Wilson
Centers – Jock Landale, Zuby Ejiofor, Henri Veesaar
This should start with Nickeil Alexander-Walker , coming off the bench for a team that just watched him become the Most Improved Player last season. 20.8 a night, nearly 40% from three, 71 starts… that's a guy who'd start on twenty teams in this league without blinking.
Don't get too attached to the word "bench" here, honestly. Snyder can just as easily close games with NAW over Dort, or over McCollum, depending on what the game calls for. Atlanta basically has a sixth starter sitting on the bench.
Then there's Kingston Flemings, the No. 8 pick, and probably the guy I'm most curious about on this entire roster. He was putting up 16 and 5 with elite efficiency at Houston as a teenager, the kind of line that makes you want to shove him onto the floor immediately. But Atlanta doesn't need to rush any of it.
He gets to learn behind McCollum and Daniels instead of getting handed 34 minutes a night as a rookie and told to figure it out, and if he's not ready right away, Ryan Nembhard is sitting right there as insurance, a pass-first guard who showed in Dallas last year that he can genuinely run an offense even at 5-foot-11.
Aaron Wiggins might be the sneaky-best value move of the whole offseason. He was a huge rotation piece on a title-contending Thunder team, and Atlanta got him for a couple of second-round picks, the kind of price that makes you double-check it's not a typo.
Buddy Hield had a rough year; no sugarcoating it, under 35% from three isn't what you sign up for with Buddy. But this is a career 39.5% shooter with over 2,000 threes made. When the offense stalls and defenses start straight-up ignoring Daniels or Dort, Hield is the release valve. Corey Kispert offers something similar, a steady catch-and-shoot presence, even though his minutes basically evaporated against New York.
Up front, it's more of the same kind of depth, almost to a fault. Mouhamed Gueye is a defensive pest in short bursts; he just needs a jumper that currently doesn't exist. Jock Landale is the steady vet who won't wow you but won't cost you either, coming off a season split between Memphis and Atlanta where he quietly shot 39% from three in his limited Hawks run.
Asa Newell flashed real touch as a rookie: 53% from the field, 38% from three, and then there's the rookie pairing of Zuby Ejiofor, a two-way menace out of St. John's who won Big East Defensive Player of the Year, and Henri Veesaar, a 6-foot-11 center out of North Carolina who somehow shot over 42% from deep.
Round it out with Devin Carter, a former lottery pick Atlanta grabbed for almost nothing, plus RayJ Dennis, Keshon Gilbert, and two-way signee Jalen Wilson. The main issue is that there aren't enough minutes to go around. Somebody in this rotation is going to be unhappy by January, and I wouldn't be shocked if the Hawks make another trade.
The defense is the obvious starting point. Daniels, Dort, and Alexander-Walker are perimeter defenders who can all handle a tough assignment on any given night. That's a luxury basically nobody else in this league has three times over.
Start Daniels and Dort, bring Alexander-Walker in six minutes later, and you barely lose a thing defensively. And if the Hawks want to go for the jugular late in a game, they can throw out Daniels, Alexander-Walker, Dort, Johnson, and Okongwu together and just erase every easy shot on the floor. That lineup isn't going to space the floor beautifully. I'll give you that. But scoring against it could be genuinely brutal.
Depth is strength number two , and it might honestly be the more important one. Atlanta has enough guards to survive injuries, enough wings to change up schemes on the fly, enough shooting to bail out an ugly offensive stretch, and enough size up front to shift styles depending on the night.
McCollum goes down for two weeks? Flemings should be ready to start. Dort's out? Alexander-Walker slides in. Okongwu needs a breather for a stretch? There's plenty of depth at center to replace him with defense and shooting.
They can also just flat-out run. Johnson is built for it, Daniels sprints the floor every time down, and Okongwu finishes above the rim. Flemings should only add more gas to that once he settles in. They finished fifth in pace last year, and I don't see any reason for them to take their foot off it now.
And the last piece here, maybe my favorite thing about this roster: Johnson doesn't have to do it all himself. He's the best player on the team, sure, but McCollum can still go for 20, Alexander-Walker can catch fire, Okongwu can give you 15 quietly, and Hield can drop five threes out of nowhere. That's about as good a supporting cast as a 24-year-old star could ask for.
The big question hasn't gone anywhere, and it's the same one I keep coming back to: who's the second star here? Atlanta has a lot of good players. What they don't have is another guy operating on Johnson's level. And that gap shows up a lot louder in the playoffs.
The Knicks lean on Brunson and Towns. The Sixers have Embiid, Maxey, Brown, and LeBron . The Heat have Giannis and Bam. The Pistons have Cade Cunningham and Jalen Duren. Atlanta has Johnson, and then a very good, very deep supporting cast behind him.
McCollum's probably the closest thing to a second star right now, but he's turning 35. Eighteen points a night over 82 games? Fine, no problem. Being the guy defenses key on in a Game 5 in the second round? That's a completely different ask, and I'm not sure it's fair to put that on him at this stage of his career.
Alexander-Walker could be the answer, but the doubts will remain until we actually see it in the playoffs. He averaged 20.8 during the regular season and then fell to 13.7 against the Knicks. I don't think that's a fair reason to write him off, but the question is still very much open, and Atlanta needs it answered.
The shooting in that starting five worries me too. Daniels at 18.8% from three is a number playoff defenses are going to exploit immediately; they'll just stand in the paint and dare him to beat them from outside. Dort's streaky on top of that. If Okongwu's three-point number regresses even a little, Johnson is suddenly driving into a wall of bodies every single trip.
Size is another soft spot. Okongwu is strong and mobile, but he's still only a 6-foot-8 playing center. Against the league's true giants, Atlanta could get out-muscled on the glass and around the rim. Johnson helps a ton there with 10.3 boards a night, and Daniels chips in too, but there are going to be matchups where Landale has to play more minutes than the Hawks would probably like.
And then there's the strange problem of just having too many good players. Flemings needs run. Nembhard needs run. Alexander-Walker needs a lot of run. Wiggins has earned a role. Hield and Kispert need enough time to stay sharp. Carter, Newell, Ejiofor, Veesaar… all of them need development reps.
I think this team is better than the one that lost in six to the Knicks last spring. That doesn't automatically mean they finish higher than sixth, because the rest of the East got better. It's not like they get to have this leap for free. But Atlanta built a roster that should win a lot of regular-season games as long as Johnson stays on the floor.
The defense can be elite. The depth is almost comical. Johnson is already an All-NBA player, and he's only 24. McCollum still gives them veteran scoring punch, Alexander-Walker is riding a career year, Okongwu keeps getting better every season, and there's enough young talent stacked behind all of it that somebody's bound to break out.
I'd bet on this team staying around 45 to 48 wins in the season, because the East is so stacked that I think 50+ wins will be close to the top for the No. 1 seed. So no, I'm not putting the Hawks in the championship tier yet. They still need somebody to prove they can create offense when a playoff game slows down to a crawl, and they need to figure out which version of this deep, occasionally crowded rotation actually holds up in April.
Nevertheless, last year felt like the first step out of the Trae Young era. This year, a first-round exit doesn't cut it as progress anymore. This roster's too good for that excuse now.
