Hawks will build upon solid foundation built in the 2nd half of last season
Yahoo Sports senior NBA writer Dan Devine dives into the numbers to show why Atlanta will be just as dangerous as they were last season. Check out the full conversation on "The Big Number" and subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube or wherever you listen .
Video Transcript
From a team that was real good last year that we're saying was gonna be like a half- a handful of wins down this season.
I think the Hawks are, you know, it's a tale of two teams, right?
Like, as of the, the They won 46 games last year, and they really only had their whole team for half a season.
Um- Yeah the, at the, at the time of the Trae Young for C.J.
McCollum deal, a- and, and Corey Kispert, sorry, they don't, don't mean to, you know, besmirch Corey Kispert.
At the time of that trade, they were 18 and 21 with a negative point differential and a bottom 10 offense.
After that trade, 28 and 15, which is a 53 win pace, near top 10 offense, near top five defense, point differential of a 55 win team.
It's not as easy as just taking that and copying and pasting starting over this, from the beginning of the season.
I understand that.
They do return the entire starting five, right?
And that starting five wound up being one of the best in the entire NBA from the mo- the minute that C.J.
McCollum went in there and Zachary LaVine went out of it, and then eventually out of Atlanta.
A- and the, the, the issue that they ran into, especially in the postseason against the Knicks in that first round series, I mean, outside of the fact that the Knicks just, like, caught fire, was the Hawks had had no answers off the bench.
Like, when, when they were not able to get their, their, you know, not able to get and hold onto a lead with their starters, it was like, all right, are we getting something out of, like, Mo Gay?
Are we getting something out of Buddy Hield, Corey Kispert, Jonathan Kaminga?
Jonathan Kaminga, I guess, potentially could wind up back there.
The, he's still in the air.
We'll see what happens with that.
But they go and they take advantage of having some financial flexibility at a time when Oklahoma City needed some help.
They get Lou Dort, they get Aaron Wiggins.
Those are guys that really weren't changing the, the lives of the Thunder in the postseason, but, like, tho- they walk in as, like, six, seven guys.
Like r- you know, r- frontline contributors for a team like Atlanta.
And they've got some, you know, Jock, Jock Landale was a sneakily important player for them.
He was injured, before the end of the regular season.
He didn't play in the playoff series against the Knicks.
He comes back healthy.
He's an important piece for them.
You know, you've got, a bunch of guards.
You know, maybe it's the lottery pick Kingston Flemings.
Maybe it's a second draft guy like, Devin Carter coming out of Sacramento they picked up, like, took, took a flyer on him.
You know, Keaton Wallace.
Like, they've got these guys that maybe there's a backup point guard or a backup point guard by committee in there, and the depth is better.
And I just look at it and say, I don't necessarily think they're gonna be a f- you know, home court advantage 50 plus win team.
But the idea of them, I think it's more likely that given the youth and, you know, the, how excited we are about guys like Jalen Williams and about Nick Okongwu as a stretch big, and about the additions they made kind of for nothing, to their depth.
Like, it's more likely to me that they add a couple wins than that they fall back.
Again, I don't know that I love them as a playoff team, but in the regular season, they feel to me like a rock solid mid to high 40s win team
