Onyeka Okongwu and Wes Iwundu entered health and safety protocols Friday, bringing the Hawks up to nine total players sidelined with COVID-19.
The Hawks had signed Iwundu to a 10-day hardship exception to bolster the roster amid a COVID-19 outbreak for the team, and he appeared in one game, playing 23 minutes in their win vs. the 76ers on Thursday. Okongwu was a key reason the Hawks got that win in Philadelphia, helping to contain Joel Embiid.
Okongwu and Iwundu join Trae Young, Sharife Cooper, Clint Capela, Danilo Gallinari, Kevin Huerter, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot and Lou Williams in protocols heading into the Christmas Day game in New York. For a player to return from protocols, he must return two negative COVID-19 tests, taken 24 hours apart.
This isn’t how the Hawks were hoping their Christmas Day game would go, as they’ll be incredibly short-handed when facing the Knicks, but it looks like they’ll still have enough bodies to field a team.
