2021 NBA Playoffs: Contender or pretender with all 16 teams
2021 NBA Playoffs: Contender or Pretender – Atlanta Hawks
An NBA team with its eyes on winning multiple series will want to build a team with certain characteristics. You need a lead creator, an offensive player who can create for himself and others at a high level. You need a wing defender who can take on opposing stars and a rim protector who can guard inside. You also need enough depth with differing skill sets to mix-and-match based on strategy and need.
The Atlanta Hawks have all of that, at least on paper. Trae Young is a blossoming offensive star, De’Andre Hunter and Clint Capela are defensively stout, and they have 12 players to rotate through for their postseason rotation. Being as how we haven’t seen this team in action for a playoff series, it’s an unknown whether all of these parts will fit together as well as the Hawks hope.
Positively for Atlanta is that they get to start their postseason lives against a lesser opponent, the fourth-seeded New York Knicks who were much closer to 7th than they were to third. While the Knicks certainly bring a stout defense to the table, they also have tentpole stars without playoff experience and an offense propped up by toothpicks and shoestrings.
After the Knicks, though, the Hawks would need to beat the impossibly large Philadelphia 76ers, a much more daunting task. After that a matchup with either Brooklyn, Milwaukee or the team that defeats them. The Hawks are getting better every year, but they are not quite at the level of competition needed.
Verdict: Pretender