Clean fits! Not the clothes kind.
You wouldn’t drive a car with two engines and no tires. Similarly, you wouldn’t call a plate of French fries, mashed potatoes and a baked potato on the side a proper dinner.
No, this isn’t suddenly a car blog or a food blog. You can see where I’m going with this metaphor. Over the previous two seasons, the Hawks lost their vision for balanced lineups, and that in effect doomed them from the start.
This offseason, the Hawks said goodbye to Dejounte Murray, and some of the national attention immediately focused on the talent that went out the door. As a result, Vegas was pessimistic this preseason of the Hawks’ chances of posting a 40-plus win season.
But I believe the Hawks are much better suited for modern basketball with a renewed embrace of what makes for a great basketball team: player specialization. When everyone knows and excels at the roles they need to play, there’s lesser chance for overlap or redundancy. The ball handlers handle the ball. The shooters shoot. The rebounders rebound.
For the past two seasons, it seemed like there was too much of one player pounding the rock while others watched. It seemed like the centers were putting out way too many fires at the rim due to poor point-of-attack defense.
It just seemed like it was always a team that was less than the sum of its parts.
Despite a minor injury crisis, the 2024-25 Hawks are 6-7, younger, and have now restocked their draft capital. And with the Eastern Conference completely muddled, Atlanta has a chance to emerge as a better team both in the present and in the future.
So let’s go through the reasons behind their better fitting roster and lineup constructions so far.
Letting Trae be Trae
For all his brilliance, there’s always hand-wringing around Trae Young’s offensive game. Yes, he commands the ball as much as anyone in the league, but he’s incredibly productive with the ball in hands.
While the two-point shooting efficiency hasn’t quite been there this year, he’s averaging a career-high 11.3 assists per game and the Hawks once again have a borderline top-10 offensive rating after falling out of the top-10 last season.
Why take the ball out of his hands any more than you have to?
Obviously, there is a limit to the offensive load one player can shoulder before he attracts too much defensive attention, something that begins to lead to diminishing returns. But the Hawks have made a concerted effort to supplement his ball-dominance with active off-ball movers and shooters.
As a secondary option, Jalen Johnson has grown into a bigger role currently averaging 18+ points, 10+ rebounds, and 5+ assists, something only five players have ever done before the age of 24.
Stathead/Basketball-Reference
But he’s still a dominant screener and rim runner who catches a large share of lobs at the rim. Dyson Daniels has also grown into a legitimate threat on offense, and his and Zaccharie Risacher’s cutting within the motion offense have come at so many key moments so far in this young season.
While the Hawks are struggling to backfill their backup point guard spot, letting Trae be Trae has proven to be a winning strategy thus far.
An actual perimeter defense
Trae Young will always be a target defensively, but up until now, the team hasn’t properly surrounded him with long help defenders to keep him out of bad situations.
Enter newcomers Dyson Daniels and Zaccharie Risacher. Daniels’ plaudits as a ball hawking thief are already legendary and historic (and we’ll have a deeper dive about his play so far later this week on this site). But revamping the overall size on the wing alongside Trae has been absolutely key.
Daniels, Vit Krejci and Risacher are all 6-foot-8ish and long-armed enough to make it more difficult for guards and wings to load up on Trae Young. De’Andre Hunter still clearly figures into the equation, and even 6-foot-4 Kobe Bufkin (when eventually healthy) and the 6-foot-3 pesky Keaton Wallace have some ability to play next to Young for added defensive insulation.
There are options here, and these options can be solutions to the problematic perimeter defenses of the past.
Shooters shoot
The Hawks have slowly backslid in their attempts to space the floor across the past three seasons. John Collins and Saddiq Bey — both now elsewhere — had major troubles just hitting shots from corner three despite taking a high volume of them, something that further cramped the offense.
So far this season, the Hawks are shooting 29% of their three-point attempts from the corner, the second-highest rate in the NBA. Even better, they’re nailing 41% of those, the tenth best in the league. This comes after two straight years being in the bottom-10 in shooting percentage from the corners.
This performance from the corner has a huge ripple effect on the spacing the Hawks have to operate — something which now affords the pick-and-roll even more of a pathway to easy points.
With Garrison Mathews taking another big step as an elite catch-and-shoot player, the eventual return of Bogdan Bogdanovic, and Hunter looking as sharp as ever as a shooter, the Hawks are better spreading the wealth on offense around the main Young-led actions.
Options at big man
Clint Capela is a player that has historically relied on his mobility and motor. He’s largely the player he always is — limited on offense but a strong rebounder and rim protector. But it’s clear we’re witnessing some level of his physical decline as he enters his 30s.
Onyeka Okongwu, for his size shortcomings at the 5, can still be a matchup nightmare with his agility and athleticism. But he’s struggled some against the burlier centers in the league at times.
Larry Nance Jr. is a wily veteran backup, and he’d been given free reign to shoot so far this season. He’s quite easily been the best stretch-big of the trio so far, a very valuable archetype in today’s NBA, as he’s attempting 5.8 threes per 36 minutes and hitting on a sky-high (and obviously unsustainable, but it’s been a fun ride so far) 67% of them.
While Clint Capela has started all 13 games so far, coach Snyder has often closed without him on the floor — with either Okongwu or Nance in his place down the stretch of games. Each player has the ability to best optimize certain lineups throughout the game. And this kind of ‘optionality’ to mix and match for specific matchups is most resourceful if you don’t possess a star big man.
A clear organizational timeline
Make no mistake: the Hawks are highly unlikely to have a championship run in 2025 — they just aren’t at a position of contending with the current team. So, it’s important to keep in focus a proper timeline when evaluating the Hawks performance this season.
Atlanta have an all-26-and-younger lineup available when Trae Young (26), Dyson Daniels (21), Zaccharie Risacher (19) or De’Andre Hunter (26), Jalen Johnson (22), and Onyeka Okongwu (23) share the court plus Kobe Bufkin (21), Mouhamed Gueye (22), and others are waiting to hit the court for big minutes as well.
Certainly, the seasoned contributions of Capela, Nance, and Bogdanovic remain very helpful for this team. But prioritizing youth and development has to remain a focus until it’s clear the team in on the verge of something special.
It will be a rollercoaster at times with a lot of unproven players playing prominent roles this season. But this trial by fire, the team hopes, will pay major dividends down the road.