As the calendar turns to January, this should not be the state of the Hawks.
Not even close.
According to the experience of coach Nate McMillan, January is the time for his team to begin to play its best basketball. However, the latest incarnation of COVID-19 has taken a wrecking ball to his plans.
The months of October and November are for teams to work on conditioning, timing and chemistry.
The month of December is for the fruits of that early labor to start to be realized.
And the month of January is when it all should come together and a team should be firing on all cylinders to start the run toward the postseason.
The NBA’s health and safety protocols have caused the Hawks to start over and do so with a roster currently ravaged by the coronavirus. The Hawks started Wednesday with a roster of 26 players, 14 of the players unable to play. They have 12 players out because of the protocols and two others with long-term injury. The have nine players on 10-day hardship contracts. One of those on 10-day contracts is in the protocols. This all includes the return of starters Trae Young and Clint Capela, who recently came out of the protocols.
“The month of December has been a tough month for us because of the injuries, because of the protocols,” McMillan said Tuesday before the Hawks travelled to Chicago to start a six-game trip Wednesday. “Now we are going into January, when you should be playing your best basketball. … It’s just not going to happen for us.”
The concern is that while the NBA is forcing teams to play through the latest round of COVID by signing replacement players, one after another in the Hawks’ case, they will fall too far down in the standings to fully recover once they eventually come out of their difficult situation.
The Hawks enter Wednesday with a 15-18 record, having lost three of the past four games since the coronavirus took its latest stranglehold. They are 11th in the Eastern Conference and a half-game out of the final playoff spot.
Several teams had games postponed at the start of the current coronavirus wave this month. The Hawks’ home game against the Cavaliers on Dec. 19 was postponed because of cases in the Cleveland organization. Since, the NBA has told teams to sign players to hardship contracts and keep playing.
It all clearly has frustrated McMillan and others in the Hawks organization.
“Hopefully we don’t dig ourselves a hole that’s so deep that we can’t come out of it. But there is nothing we can do,” the ever-diplomatic McMillan said.
The Hawks could start to get players back in the near future. McMillan said Wednesday that all the players currently in the health and safety protocols are asymptomatic. Bogdan Bogdanovic and Gorgui Dieng, two rotation players who went into protocols Tuesday, will face the NBA’s new shorter quarantine period of six days. All the other players who previously went into protocols face a quarantine period of 10 days.
“Most of the guys are not experiencing really anything and if it is, it’s really minor,” McMillan said. “They all seem to feel OK. That has been pretty much what everybody has been reporting.”
KEEPING TRACK
The Hawks currently have a roster of 26 players, with 13 players currently in health and safety protocols. DeAndre Hunter (wrist) and Solomon Hill (hamstring) are injured. Here is the list of Hawks transactions since Trae Young went into the protocols Dec. 18, the day before a home game with the Cavaliers was postponed.
Dec. 18 – Trae Young placed in health and safety protocols
Dec. 21 – Clint Capela and Danilo Gallinari placed in health and safety protocols
Dec. 22 – Lou Williams and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot placed in health and safety protocols
Dec. 22 –Lance Stephenson and Malcolm Hill signed to 10-day contracts (Expire Dec. 31)
Dec. 23 – Kevin Huerter and Sharife Cooper placed in health and safety protocols
Dec. 23 – Wes Iwundu signed to a 10-day contract (Expire Jan. 1)
Dec. 24 – Onekya Okongwu and Wes Iwundu placed in health and safety protocols
Dec. 25 – Clint Capela removed from health and safety protocols
Dec. 25 – Cat Barber and Malik Ellison signed to 10-day contracts (Expire Jan. 3)
Dec. 26 – John Collins and Jalen Johnson placed in health and safety protocols
Dec. 27 - Delon Wright placed in health and safety protocols
Dec. 27 - Chaundee Brown signed to 10-day contract
Dec. 27 - Trae Young removed from health and safety protocols
Dec. 28 - Justin Tillman signed to 10-day contract (Expire Jan. 6)
Dec. 28 - Bogdan Bogdanovic, Gorgui Dieng and Malik Ellison placed in health and safety protocols
Dec. 29 - Cam Oliver and Chris Clemons signed to 10-day contracts
Dec. 29 - Wes Iwundu removed from health and safety protocols
