The Hawks have confidence in their work, and with the NBA draft one week away, their draft board is shaping up. To get there, they’ve stuck with a process they believe will allow them to select a player they see as a great fit for the future.
They’ve prioritized a collaborative environment, and ultimately Hawks GM Landry Fields will make the final decision on draft night. But Fields has appreciated the different points of view of the members of the front office, as well as the coaching staff.
“(It’s) highly collaborative,” Fields said Monday. “Personally, I enjoy hearing different perspectives. Your vantage points can be different from mine. So how do you see this? Can we take those and put them together and make the best-informed decision as possible?”
To gather the most information, the Hawks have brought in players for workouts, while also leaning on the information their scouts have gathered over years of evaluation. Fields said that the team’s scouting department has been evaluating some of their prospects from their junior or senior years in high school.
So, it has allowed them to balance the information they’ve gathered in prospect workouts at the Hawks practice facility, with what they already knew.
“A guy could come in here and not be great, and I still would make sure our group is really looking at the whole picture,” he said. “And we have so many different assessment tools for us that it doesn’t come down to 45 minutes to an hour of a workout. But it’s helpful, it’s always just nice to kind of feel their energy amongst the rest of the group in the front office and the coaches and whatever players are here. So it’s a nice piece of data, but it doesn’t come down to just that.”
The Hawks currently have one pick in this year’s draft, with their second-round pick heading to Portland. Fields said that the Hawks evaluated different scenarios, including what a potential trade could yield.
“So we, as a group, we’ve looked at a ton of different scenarios,” Fields said. “Like, if you keep the pick and try to get back into the draft, you move back, all the things that you’re talking about. And was where right now, we’ll pick one. I don’t think it would be wise for us not to like go over those scenarios. But there’s been a ton that we’ve gone over, and we’ll continuously go over those as well, even ones that, may present later on with different team talks that we’ve had.”
But having only one pick in this year’s draft wasn’t the only reason the team considered situations, and it’s not the only thing informing their decision.
“I think there’s more to that than just having one,” Fields said. “It’s looking at where are we at from a roster standpoint, how many roster spots do we project to have available, all seeps into that, the new cap environment is a big thing too. It’s how you’re spending your money is definitely going to add or hinder you from a roster-building perspective. So all factors into it, for sure.”
Though a few players have blown away the Hawks with those workouts, Fields said the team’s evaluation process will continue over the next week until the draft, which starts June 26, gets closer.
“We’re gonna have more visits, more phone calls, more conversations,” Fields said. “We’ll sit as a group, as we have done and really dive deep into every single player. I think that’s what’s been really fun about this process, is just how deep you can go with certain guys. And that’s probably what our week is gonna look like until we get closer to the draft, where start to funnel it down to a point.”
