The Win Column: A big day for basketball

Big day for basketball around here, folks.

The WNBA Finals officially arrive in Atlanta, with Angel Reese and the Dream looking to take a 2-1 series lead over the Valkyries. State Farm Arena is sold out, and you best believe it’ll be rocking.

The Hawks play, too.

ANOTHER SEASON COMMENCES

The NBA is back.

The Hawks (ca-caw!) start their season tonight in Orlando, Florida.

Wanna talk about it?

Meet the squad: The starting five that carried Atlanta to the playoffs last season — Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Dyson Daniels, Jalen Johnson, CJ McCollum and Onyeka Okongwu — returns.

Beat writer Lauren Williams has more on them and the rest of the roster here. (She also wrote about five keys to them having a collectively successful season.)

But I’ll go ahead and give ya a quick synopsis of some new guys:

• Lu Dort and Aaron Wiggins are both wings from Oklahoma City, where they won the 2025 title. Dort adds another lockdown defender to Atlanta’s lineup; Wiggins is a reliable bench asset.
• Top draft pick Kingston Flemings (guard, Houston) impressed in the preseason and, as Lauren wrote, “could give the Hawks strong minutes off the bench because of his defensive intensity and mature decision-making.”
• Fellow first-rounder Zuby Ejiofor (forward, St. Johns) may have a harder time getting consistent run.

Expectations: Most places put the over/under on the Hawks’ season win total around 43.5. That ranks ninth in the Eastern Conference, expectations wise — and a little shy of the 46 wins Atlanta mustered last time around.

Is that just line-makin’ hatin’?

Maybe. I’d take the over. Then again …

Competition: The competition got stiffer, too. Here’s an excerpt from a recent Ken Sugiura column on the subject (bullets mine):

After a busy offseason in the Eastern Conference, the slope up the mountain has steepened from “Climbing gear recommended” to “Your Sherpa may need a Sherpa.”

• The Philadelphia 76ers, who finished one game behind the Hawks, signed LeBron James and added five-time All-Star (and Wheeler High grad) Jaylen Brown in a trade.
• The Miami Heat traded for two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo.
• The Indiana Pacers, who went from reaching Game 7 of the NBA Finals to a 19-63 record this past season, will have two-time All-NBA guard Tyrese Haliburton back after missing all of last season with an Achilles tear.

Well then.

All that, of course, is not to mention the defending champion Knicks. Or the Celtics. Pistons. Cavs. The Raptors have Kawhi Leonard again.

Throw in the Magic, the Hornets and Trae Young’s Wizards, and you’ve got the recipe for one bloody playoff/play-in battle.

How to watch: All non-national Hawks games air on Atlanta News First/Peachtree Sports Network — and stream on Prime Video too. That last part is freshly announced and covers viewers in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina and Mississippi.

• Tonight’s game in Orlando tips at 7 p.m., as does a Friday date in Charlotte, North Carolina.
• Home opener: 8:30 p.m. Saturday against the Rockets.

🚨 GIFT LINK OF THE DAY 🚨

I try not to pull a Double Sugiura in any single newsletter. Buuut Uncle Ken did write about Hawks star Jalen Johnson being even better this season.

So here’s a gift link to the column.

That means it’s paywall-free, just for you. Consider it the start of a new Win Column tradition.

OTHER GOOD STUFF TO KNOW

How State Farm Arena will shift from Atlanta Dream to Hawks to concerts

Seven events in six days? Piece of cake.

The Falcons and Outkast just dropped their ATLiens collection

First Waffle House, now the Falcons. New headline: “Local rap legends love partnering with institutions that make your tummy hurt.”

How Falcons picked up Zachariah Branch after fumbles: ‘Don’t dwell on it’

Fun fact: Legendary return man Devin Hester fumbled eight times as a rookie.

Was Georgia QB Gunner Stockton concussed against Auburn?

Coach Kirbs says nah. Again.

Maxwell playoff projections: Could home advantage push Valdosta past Buford?

Just three Fridays left in high school football’s regular season, y’all.

Former Brave Ron Gant leaving ‘Good Day Atlanta’ as anchor after 14 years

More time to ride dirt bikes!

NICE WORLD SERIES YA GOT THERE ...

Baseball’s championship series is set. And while a small market Rays-Brewers matchup may not make the networks especially happy, it’s got the real baseball heads all sorts of fired up.

The AJC’s Gabe Burns is one of them. So I made him write about it. His thoughts:

One of the beauties of baseball is also a criticism. Almost any team can go on a run in October, but sometimes that results in inferior teams playing for pennants (remember Texas-Arizona?). That’s not the case this year. We truly got the two best teams, incredibly well-rounded with players primed for stardom now that they’re getting the exposure they’ve deserved.

And the reward for the winner: their first championship. I think this could be one of the most competitive World Series we’ve had in the 2020s. I’m glad both these teams will get their credit on a national level. You can’t take these trips for granted — we know that well in Atlanta — but these franchises are set up to compete on this stage for a long time.

Sign me up.

... BUT IT ALSO MAKES ME KIND OF SAD?

If you need a more local World Series angle, the Rays roster includes both St. Pius/Georgia Tech product Chandler Simpson and Jorge Mateo, who was a Brave as recently as August.

The Brewers, meanwhile, have former Braves catcher William Contreras — which makes it a good time to circle back on the 2022 trade that 1) sent him to Milwaukee and 2) brought Sean Murphy to Atlanta.

It was a three-team deal that also included Braves prospect Kyle Muller and a bunch of relievers, so not a one-for-one.

But who cares! Let’s compare the Murphy and Contreras numbers over the four seasons since.

• Games played: Murphy, 307; Contreras, 593
• Total wins above replacement: Murphy, 7.8; Contreras, 15.3
• Home runs: Murphy, 50; Contreras, 75
• OPS: Murphy, .726; Contreras, .792
• Caught stealing %: Murphy, 19; Contreras, 22

Yikes. Contreras bests Murphy in both performance and attendance — and, as Win Column Data Wiz Rahul Deshpande discovered, the former’s pretty good at the whole ABS (Automatic Ball-Strike System) challenge thing, too.

Sigh.