Atlanta Hawks: Grading their NBA draft and offseason moves

What did the Atlanta Hawks actually do in the offseason?

Even before the draft, the Hawks knew they were potentially building a team that might have needed to fill a John Collins-sized hole. There were even rumors of trading up with Cam Reddish as the bargaining chip, but they never came to fruition. So with the 20th pick, they drafted an athletic 6’9″ two-way player in Jalen Johnson. Even though Atlanta was lucky Johnson fell that low in the draft and that his skill set seemed to be the perfect combination for success nowadays – fans’ immediately questioned if this was a replacement. But spoiler alert, he just added more depth.

The culture of the organization took a big swing in the right direction by giving officially hiring Nate McMillan as head coach and signing him to a four-year contract. This was followed by signing Jordan Bell to the Summer League team. Not to say that a 6’8″ undersized center who played on four different teams in his four NBA seasons will fix anything, but again, it is a step in the right direction.

But to really get the dust moving, Kris Dunn was traded for Delon Wright. Dunn, missing the final five games of the regular season and only playing in five through the playoffs, two of which he got less than three minutes in, will likely not be sorely missed in Atlanta. Instead, now Wright who costs $1.7 million more than the also departed Bruno Fernando and Dunn, is also much better than both. An eight-year veteran and secondary playmaker who plays defense is a great way to replace dead salary.

The good news kept coming as Lou Williams chose to re-sign with the Hawks. There’s a visceral intuition telling me Sweet Lou might just retire in Atlanta. Especially since his value is only heightened with the return of Okangwu in the second unit. Solomon Hill is also coming back as a solid replacement guy for a team that did suffer a lot of injuries. So even though he has less of an offensive arsenal than some minor league Pro-Am players, he doesn’t clog up the salary.

The pressure for Collins to still resign kept building as Gorgui Dieng signed the dotted line also. Not exactly an ‘Embiid stopper’, but he is a solid stretch big veteran that can add value to a team off the bench. Tony Snell departed to join the Portland Trail Blazers. To be fair, though, he probably already stepped out of the rotation long ago because of his lack of offense.

But a player who was only a Hawk for one season in order to dump Dwayne Dedmon’s money, would most likely not be a serious factor in Collins’ big decision. What would however be is Trae Young agreeing to a five-year, $207 million extension. Then just like that, Collins stamped his name in Atlanta’s future with a five-year, $125 million contract of his own.