4 NBA teams in desperate need of a big November
Team No. 1: Atlanta Hawks
Record: 3-4, 9th in Eastern Conference
Remaining November Schedule: vs. SAC (11/8), at POR (11/10), at DEN (11/12), at PHO (11/14), at LAC (11/16), at LAL (11/7), vs. MIL (11/20), at DET (11/22), vs. TOR (11/23), vs. MIN (11/25), at MIL (11/27), at IND (11/29), at HOU (11/30)
Of the Atlanta Hawks‘ top 10 rotation players, only a single player — yep, Vince Carter — has played “meaningful” basketball in the postseason (unless you count the 11 minutes Tyrone Wallace clocked in last season for the Clippers).
Despite that, expectations were that they’d ascend into that upper echelon of Eastern Conference teams, some even coining the term “Playoffs or bust.”
So far, even despite the 3-4 record, “bust” feels just a tad bit safer. Seven games in, the Hawks have rarely poorly. In their first three losses, they played the Heat close in a home-and-home set and it took a pair of game-winning free throws from Joel Embiid to knock them off last month.
But, there’s a strong possibility things could get much tougher from here on out and they were blown out by the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday.
Their own ankles played a part in their demise in the NBA’s opening month. This time around, it’ll have a lot more to do with their rigorous schedule.
Starting with Sunday’s trip to the Moda Center in Portland, the Hawks will be away from home for 18 of their next 27 games.
Just as you might expect, it’s a murderer’s row of sorts: a back-to-back against the Clippers and Lakers, the Bucks, Pacers and Rockets over a four-day spread, the Blazers, Nuggets, you name it.
The Hawks will also have rest working against them; because of a rare four-day rest to begin the month, they’ll be gearing up for 14 games over the next 24 days. In other words, now might be the perfect time to show off that youth.
Within their 13-man rotation, 11 of those players are 26 and younger. If nothing else, watching the Hawks attempt to tread water will be entertaining, at the very least.
Now would’ve been an ideal time for Trae Young and John Collins to accelerate their growth a bit, but latter is serving a 25-game suspension for violation of the NBA and NBPA Anti-Drug Policy.
Per ESPN, Collins does plan to appeal the suspension, but in the meantime, the Hawks figure to be flying low. Collins’ 17.0 points and 8.8 rebounds per game doesn’t just grow on trees and it also represents a severe blow to a Hawks’ defense that climbed from 27th in 2018-19 to 11th in rating in 2019-20.
Collins represented a sizable portion of that, ranking second on the team in defense box plus-minus.
All of this likely points to an additional increase in usage for Trae Young, who trails only ball stoppers James Harden and Kawhi Leonard among players with at least 100 minutes played this season. In turn, that means more of this.
https://twitter.com/ATLHawks/status/1191900095253336064
This feels problematic, considering two numbers. One, heading into San Antonio’s game Young didn’t even average 30 minutes per game; and two, they’ve been abysmal the second he takes a seat to get a drink: per John Schumann of NBA.com, the Hawks only average 92.7 points per 100 possessions without their budding star guard, good for a positive net rating of 21.4.
The Eastern Conference still has the feel of one in which you can make the postseason, even without cracking the 40-win barrier. But if the young Hawks find themselves in an uphill battle because of a tough November, they’ll be forced to treat the rest of the year like playoff games, even without the guarantee of actually making them.