Atlanta Hawks: What We’ve Learned From An Eventful Few Days

Shooting For The Stars

Upon publicly asserting that Paul Millsap would be unavailable at the trade deadline, many outside observers and Hawks fans began to wonder what exactly the franchise’s plan was. After all, how far could they see a team likely to be in the middle of the East’s playoff pack going?

As it transpired, it turned out that the Hawks had much grander ambitions than most would have dared to predict.

Starting with a minor but welcome move to exchange Tiago Splitter and a second round pick for a capable rotation piece in Ersan Ilyasova, Atlanta then set out to make the kind of moves that could have catapulted them into the championship picture as soon as this summer.

According to Marc Stein of ESPN, while teams like the Celtics and Nuggets were being talked about as the most logical destinations for All-Star forwards such as Paul George or Jimmy Butler, the Hawks made sure to at least throw their hat into the ring.

An ambitious strategy that also was loaded with risks for the franchise’s future, as an organization the Hawks at least showed an intent to make the kind of move that could push them beyond the kind of nearly men status that they have carried for over a decade.

Without having the caliber of assets that other teams in the mix had to offer, the chances of a deal for Atlanta were always going to be slim to none, but the prospect of what the Hawks’ core could have achieved with one of those two stars in the increasingly fragile upper echelons of the East remains a tantalizing prospect.

Perhaps this was their one great long shot, or maybe the Hawks could revisit their interest in George and Butler, or players of similar status in the summer.

As reported by Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Hawks head coach and president of basketball operations Mike Budenholzer admitted that Atlanta was never really close to completing a shock deal on this occasion, but that didn’t make the exercise any less worthwhile.

"“No, I wouldn’t categorize anything as something close,” Budenholzer said. “But I would say unequivocally we were as aggressive as we could be, as active as we could be. When you do your work and your research and you think there might be a possibility, whether it be for some of the bigger names, we feel like we’ve collected a great group of draft picks where we could be aggressive and put ourselves in that game — including other moves and other opportunities.”"

With little clear about the new ownership’s long-term approach as of yet, this may be evidence that if nothing else they plan to be aggressive. That would be a significant shift to what Hawks fans have grown accustomed to, and it’s one that could lead to remarkable success or catastrophic failure.

In other words, for better or worse, things could be very different to how they’ve been in Atlanta in recent memory.