Prime time: Hawks’ upgraded roster positions them for return to playoffs
The wait is over.
Now, the games count, and the expectations for the Hawks haven’t been higher in a long time, starting with the season opener Wednesday night at State Farm Arena against the Toronto Raptors.
In case you don’t know what they did this summer, the Hawks made moves that they believe will allow them to consistently compete in the postseason.
Yes, postseason. Playoffs — not play-in.
This season, the Hawks have assembled what looks to be one of their more competitive rosters since they made their run to the Eastern Conference finals in 2021. The Hawks have added more depth, more shooting and more size that potentially could match the increased physicality.
With the addition of big man Kristaps Porziņģis, the Hawks have another All-Star, along with Trae Young. For his part, Porziņģis boasts championship experience, having won a title with the Celtics two years ago.
The team also has multiple elite defenders, with Dyson Daniels and Nickeil Alexander-Walker on the perimeter. Porziņģis also adds elite shot-blocking to the rotation, with Onyeka Okongwu continuing to provide more than effective defense, thanks to his athleticism and ability to switch coverages. The team also has several capable defenders, with Jalen Johnson and Zaccharie Risacher.
Of course, the addition of sharpshooter Luke Kennard gives the Hawks an elite 3-point option and provides some of their best spacing in years, alongside Porziņģis and Alexander-Walker.
With so much talent on the roster, the Hawks are more poised than ever to position themselves as contenders.
“It’s a lot of differences,” Young said when asked about the biggest differences on the floor with the team’s new pieces. “Everybody brings a different type of skill set that we can hopefully take advantage of. And I mean, that’s the cool part about it, that everybody brings something different.
“They bring something new, and not speaking about my teammates in the past, but they just bring a lot of different things that we may not necessarily have had, and spacing is going to be a lot better. So I feel like that. That’s going to be a plus, for sure.”
Gauging the East
The Eastern Conference had numerous injuries to some of its top stars, including Celtics forward Jayson Tatum and Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton. Both All-Stars sustained Achilles injuries during the playoffs, likely putting them on the shelf for much of the coming season.
The Celtics, who lost to the Knicks in the Eastern Conference semifinals, overhauled their roster. The Pacers, who fell to the Thunder in seven games in the NBA Finals, will move ahead without Haliburton at the reins.
Those major injuries affect the balance of power among the top teams in the Eastern Conference.
The Bucks, who fell to the Pacers in the first round of last season’s playoffs, have also changed gears with their roster, after moving on from Damian Lillard, as well as several players who helped them to the NBA title in 2021.
The Heat, who beat the Hawks in the Play-In tournament last season, also have a roster that underwent numerous changes — most notably, trading Jimmy Butler to the Warriors in February. The 76ers are still not fully healthy, though they have Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey back from injuries that decimated last season.
‘Focus on today’
Hawks coach Quin Snyder isn’t worried about the outside perception of the Eastern Conference, though.
“There’s probably a gap between my perception of what the East is,” he said. “The East is good. Now, there’s teams that are better. And I think a challenge is for us to not accept the expectation of certain results, but to replace those with expectations of standards.
“And the best team in the East will be the team that’s in the NBA Finals, not the team that wins the East (in the regular season), not the team that finishes third and not the team that finishes fifth.”
So, should the Hawks execute their principles consistently, they could be poised to make a jump out of the Play-In purgatory they’ve found themselves in over the last four seasons.
Many national NBA analysts and reporters have all ranked the Hawks highly, with ESPN giving the team a 95% chance to make the playoffs.
The Hawks, for their part, want to be a team that’s competing for a long time.
“We like our team, but there’s also part of this. It’s like, ‘You know what? Slow down and like, focus on today.’” Snyder said. “And we have a schedule that is really tough out of the gate, and my personal expectation is this team will need to go through some adversity, in order to, find a level that we all really want to find.
“That’s easy to forget with the kind of the honeymoon of training camp and the anticipation and kind of preseason and that pretty soon, when they start keeping track of wins and losses, all that changes. That’s the nitty-gritty of this league. And, I think for our group, we need to be focused on the things this team needs to do to be successful, and there’s a lot of other teams that are doing the same thing.”
About the Author
