Atlanta Hawks: Nate McMillan should be in the COY race (again)

The Atlanta Hawks have had the same roster from the start of the season to now, but something in the past two months has looked quite different.

They’re winning more games, not blowing fourth-quarter leads and beating teams that they’re supposed to.

Who’s responsible for this significant difference? Well, it’s Nate McMillan.

Nate McMillan should be in the COY race for the Atlanta Hawks

This season under Lloyd Pierce, the Hawks were 12-19 and barely playing good basketball. Most notably, it seemed at times that there was never a plan on offense and the Hawks were just having fun. In all honestly, it couldn’t have been that fun if it wasn’t resulting in wins.

Fast forward to the Nate McMillan era, and the Hawks are 17-6 when he’s coaching (including Pierce’s three-game absence) and are having fun while winning. McMillan’s offensive scheme is predicated on ball movement and player movement, not just star power.

Earlier in the season, the Hawks were losing winnable games and losing them in the fourth quarter. Since March 1st, they’re ranked first in fourth-quarter net rating, and seventh in net rating overall. You could try to deny that coaching matters, but you’ll be putting yourself in a tight spot.

Most of the wins the Hawks have had recently aren’t against some of the best teams, but those are the same games that they were losing earlier in the season. In this league, you can tell you’re a good team if you beat the teams you should beat.

One of the biggest things McMillan has done that positively affected the team is to open up everybody’s individual game.

To name a few, Bogdan Bogdanovic and Danilo Gallinari are being used to their strengths as shooters. Clint Capela continues to be a force in the middle and looks like a potential defensive player of the year. Onyeka Okongwu is finally looking like a serviceable backup center with more minutes. Not to mention, Trae Young has improved as a floor general and is not forcing the action, but is also knowing when to turn into “Ice Trae”.

Young has been able to get more rest than in previous seasons because he has help. The offense may still run through him, but the team will still be in good shape if he isn’t on the floor. It’s McMillan’s offense that’s getting these other players opportunities, and they’re taking advantage of them in every game.

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To make things even more impressive, McMillan has been without De’Andre Hunter, Cam Reddish, John Collins, and Kris Dunn for most of his time and the Hawks are still winning. What they won’t tell you is that the Hawks are one of the three teams this season that have lost the most man-games to injury, and are still 29-25 and fourth in the Eastern Conference.

Lou Williams has come in a short time and made a big impact on the team. Tony Snell continues to shoot the three at a league’s best percentage at a preposterous 57.1 percent.

You then have players like Brandon Goodwin and Solomon Hill who probably wouldn’t get minutes if everybody was healthy, but are still able to bring a spark to the team with their dog mentality. If it’s one thing you can say about this Atlanta Hawks team, they’ve been resilient through all the injuries and stayed competitive.

This isn’t the first time McMillan has shown that he could win without his star players. Oladipo only played 19 games last season, and the Pacers managed to finish the season 45-28 and fourth in the East. He turned Domantas Sabonis into an All-Star, Myles Turner into one of the best defensive big men, and Malcolm Brogdon was the head of the offense.

At this point, it looks like McMillan can win games with just about anybody on the floor, and that should garner the attention of everybody around the league. McMillan deserves to be in the Coach of the year race (again).

Of course, when thinking about the history of the award, it usually goes to the coach with the best record. In that case, Doc Rivers, Quin Snyder, or Monty Williams have the best chance of winning the award. The fact that he will only coach his team for a couple of months by the end of the season will be somewhat disqualifying as well. Regardless, McMillan is not the “sexy” pick for the award, but the major turnaround of this team deserves some type of recognition.

He doesn’t have a team that’s loaded with All-Stars, but he has a group that plays well together and can compete with those super teams on any given night.

There’s still a question of what he’ll be able to do with a fully healthy team, but if it’s close to what he’s doing now, the Atlanta Hawks could be a team not to make light of.