Atlanta Hawks: A Breakout Season For Tim Hardaway Jr.?

After two lost seasons, Tim Hardaway Jr. looks poised for a breakout season with the Atlanta Hawks. Is his early season success sustainable?

Welcome to today’s edition of small sample size theater! Most teams in the NBA have played only four or five games to this point, so all discussion revolves around a small sample of data. If we didn’t talk about the aforementioned small samples of data, we would have nothing to talk about.

Good, that’s out of the way. Let’s talk about basketball.

It’s no secret that the Atlanta Hawks‘ acquisition of Tim Hardaway Jr. in the summer of 2015 was met with some perplexed looks from the basketball community.

Why would you give up a first round pick for a one-dimensional shooter that can’t play defense or create off the dribble? Especially a shooter that was coming off a season in which he didn’t shoot particularly well?

During the 2014-15 season, Hardaway Jr. shot 38.9 percent from the floor, 34.2 percent from three, and it’s safe to say that many assumed his trade value was not very high. The fact that Atlanta was willing to give up a first round pick for him was confusing at the time.

Some people tried to rationalize it, including me. Here is what I wrote about the trade for Soaring Down South last year.

"Sometimes going to work can be a drag. You pass by the same faces, go through the same old routine, and after a while the monotony can drive you crazy, especially if your job performance is less than stellar. At that point sometimes a change of scenery is the only thing that can rescue you from the doldrums and get you back on course.All he has to do to be successful is fit in. That means playing with more effort on defense, making the extra pass, and knocking down open three-pointers. The shooting part of this plan should not be an issue (his career three-point percentage is still near league average at 35.3 percent), but it may take some time to adjust to his new responsibilities. With Kyle Korver and likely Thabo Sefolosha starting on the wing Hardaway, Jr. will not be thrust into a role that he cannot handle. A 20 minute per night bench role is perfect for a player coming into a new system that he may not have a firm handle on just yet."

Oh, how I long to be young and optimistic again. The change of scenery didn’t help him much last season.

In 51 games played, Hardaway Jr. averaged 6.4 points per game on 43 percent shooting and 33.8 percent from outside. He only played 16.9 minutes per game, and Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer didn’t trust him in the rotation for large portions of the season.

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He even had a few stints in the D-League before settling into a regular role with the Hawks towards the latter half of the season. It was a rough year to say the least.

I doubt there were many people expecting Hardaway Jr. to be much of a contributor to the 2016-17 Atlanta Hawks, but here we are. Through four games he’s been outstanding, fitting into his role as a bench scorer perfectly. He’s currently averaging 14.8 points per game on 52.5 percent shooting and 42.9 percent from outside.

He’s 9-for-21 from three-point range, including a 5-for-7 outburst against the Los Angeles Lakers this week. In the first game of the season against the Washington Wizards, he finished with 21 points on 8-for-13 shooting.

He was less than stellar in Atlanta’s second and third games of the season, which makes one wonder if he’s in for a streaky season.

It’s easy to forget that players take time to develop, and that some inconsistency should be expected with any player. Superstars like LeBron James are superstars because of their incredible level of consistency.

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For role players like Hardaway Jr., some variance in their performance is to be expected, which means sometimes they’ll have entire seasons better than their career averages, and sometimes they’ll have seasons worse than their career averages. It might be time for Hardaway Jr. to have the former.

The Hawks would take a streaky Tim Hardaway Jr. at this point.

As long as he can be a catch and shoot threat on the perimeter that shoots better than league average, he will have done his job. You still don’t want him running pick-and-roll sets, or defending during important crunch-time possessions, but that’s not what the Hawks need from him.

I’ll echo what I said before last season. With Kyle Korver, Kent Bazemore, and Thabo Sefolosha logging most of the minutes on the wings, they don’t need him to be anything more than what he is.

His contract is up at the end of this season, so it would behoove him to carve out this role for himself as the season progresses.

You can never have too much shooting, and if Hardaway Jr. has rediscovered that skill he’ll have no problem landing a multi-year contract next summer. Is this breakout season real, or is it just another mirage through the small sample looking glass?

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