One of the more polarizing players on the roster, De’Andre Hunter’s on-court production could swing the season for the Atlanta Hawks in 2024-25.
Despite being one of Atlanta’s better defenders, and coming off of the best shooting season of his career, no player has drawn the ire of Hawks fans quite like De’Andre Hunter has over the past few seasons.
With an unfortunate injury history and career averages of 14.3 points (36.3% on threes), 4.1 rebounds, 1.5 assists, and around a “stock” (steals + blocks) in just over 30 minutes a night, it’s true that Hunter might not be the player that fans envisioned when he was drafted fourth overall in 2019. Yes, his rebounding rate is surprisingly low for a player that stands 6’8”, weighs 225 pounds, and possesses an enormous 7’2” wingspan. No, he’s probably not going to make an All-Defense team anytime soon.
That being said, Hunter is by all accounts a hardworking, soft spoken, team-oriented individual, who still has time to add a few more layers to his game (he turns 27 in December). He’s had three different head-coaches in his five NBA seasons and has dealt with some really tough injury luck, especially early on in his career*, which has undoubtedly impacted his overall development. Entering his sixth season in the NBA, and the second year of a 4-year/$90 million contract**, I see little reason to write him off just yet.
*Hunter has played in 75% of Atlanta’s regular season games over the past two seasons after playing in just 56% of their regular season games through his first three seasons in the league.
**Before you complain about the price tag, this is slightly more than Dillon Brooks money.
Last season, Hunter set career highs in three-point shooting accuracy (38.5%) and volume (6.5 attempts per 36 minutes, 45.9% 3PAr*), and returned to form as a shooter off the catch, as shown in the table below.
*Three-point attempt rate (the percentage of a players’ shots that come from three)
Though it would have been great to see Hunter carve out a few more opportunities for himself at the rim (he took just 16.6% of his shots within 3-feet in ’23-24), he did shoot a career-best 68.2% from this area of the floor last season, and looked much more comfortable finishing through contact — posting a career-high ‘and-one percentage’, converting 29.3% of the field-goal attempts that he was drew a shooting foul on last season, per cleaningtheglass.
Hunter averaged 15.6 points per game last season, which was (you guessed it) a career-high, and got more looks within the flow of the offense, with 76% of his buckets coming off of an assist*, per dunksandthrees.
While Hunter clearly made strides as a scorer last season, he has been chastised in the past for his inability to impact the game with the pass and on the glass, and though he did see marginal upticks in his assist and defensive rebounding percentages in ’23-24, he still ranked below the league average for his position in both categories per cleaningtheglass. These are areas that he will surely look to make progress in this season.
Defensively, Hunter is an interesting player to evaluate. He was tasked with some of the toughest matchups on the wing last season, and held up alright when he was isolated against — allowing 0.94 points per possession when defending in these mono e mono situations, a mark which ranked in the 50th percentile in the NBA. Off the ball, his positioning is usually quite good, and while he has never been one to rack up a ton of ‘stocks’ or take many charges, he is a reliable organizer on the back end.
Still, for Hunter to reach his defensive ceiling, there are a couple of areas I’d like to see him clean up in ’24-25. First, his on-ball ball screen navigation was extremely poor last season, which was something that was validated by both the eye test and the statistics, with Hunter rating quite low in Bball-Index’s ball-screen navigation metric.
Here, Hunter gives this switch up way too easily, putting Capela in a tough spot in a high stakes situation.
This reaction is just too slow.
Second, he’s got to cut down on the fouls. Hunter spent 5% of his defensive possessions in foul trouble last season — the 11th highest ‘foul trouble percentage’ out of the 265 NBA players who played more than 1000 minutes in ’23-24 (per Bball-Index). While Hunter’s spot on this list is somewhat indicative of his importance to the team*, it also means that he is forced to be a little more conservative on defense than he (and the team) would probably like in these minutes, which hurts his value on the defensive end of the floor.
*Atlanta’s coaching staff wouldn’t be playing Hunter with foul trouble so often if they didn’t need to.
All in all, this is going to be a big season for Hunter. The depth that the team added this offseason gives them some more optionality on the wing than they had in ’23-24, and there’s a chance that Hunter’s days as an undisputed starter could be coming to a close within the next year or two with no. 1 overall pick, Zaccharie Risacher, waiting in the wings.
Hunter came off the bench for 20 games last year after working his way back from a knee injury, and looked good in the role, averaging 16 points on 49% shooting from the floor, and 42% from three in 26 minutes a night. Could this have been a preview of his optimal role going forwards?
For what it’s worth, Hunter attributed his strong play during this stretch to the work he put in watching film while being sidelined with his injury.
“I think when you’re out with injury, you have time to watch the game and really learn. I took that time to watch a lot of film, learn where I was making mistakes, learn what other teams were doing to me as well, so I think having that time off to see [and work on] those things helped.”
On his mentality when coming off of the bench versus starting, Hunter said at media day:
“I wouldn’t say my mentality is different, it might just be more opportunity coming off the bench, but I would say whenever I’m in the game, I try to make the most of it, whether I’m starting or coming off the bench.”
No matter what role Hunter fills this season, he’s going to be a vital part of this team. Players with his size and two-way ability do not grow on trees, and if he can stay healthy, sustain (maybe even improve) his three-point volume/accuracy from last season, and snag a few more rebounds in ’24-25, there will be a lot of people eating their words when the season is up.
I’m excited to see what Hunter has in store for us this season.
Note: All statistics/video used in this article are from basketballreference.com, nba.com/stats, cleaningtheglass.com, dunksandthrees.com or bball-index.com