The Hawks are Finally Going to Miss the Playoffs

The Rebuild
Jul 10, 2017 · 4 min read

For the foreseeable future, the race for the best team in the NBA isn’t going to be that interesting. Unless Kevin Durant decides to leave the Warriors, or LeBron James decides to completely shift the balance of power in the league, or the Cleveland Cavaliers remember that you’re supposed to use free agency to make your team better, not worse, then the Warriors are going to stay on top.

But after this offseason, the race to the bottom has begun. While some teams have decide to throw caution to the wind and attempt to get better with reckless abandon, some mid-tier playoff teams decided to go the way of the tank.

Last year, the Brooklyn Nets were the worst team in the league by a somewhat healthy margin, and they probably got worse, trading their best player to take on some assets and some very bad contracts. They likely remain the prohibitive favorites to snatch the title for the second year in a row, but hell, the Chicago Bulls, the Indiana Pacers, and the Atlanta Hawks are going to give them a run for their money. All three of these Eastern Conference playoff teams said farewell to their best player this offseason, with Indiana trading Paul George to Oklahoma City, Chicago trading Jimmy Butler to Minnesota, and Paul Millsap signing with the Denver Nuggets.

So while Indiana and Chicago got virtually nothing for their star guys, the Hawks got literally nothing. Just two years after winning 60 games and making a run to the Eastern Conference Finals, the Hawks have said goodbye to all five of the starters who once collectively won Eastern Conference Player of the Month.

These players have gone elsewhere to mixed results. Al Horford returned to the conference finals with the Boston Celtics last year, and then added Gordon Hayward for next year. Jeff Teague had an underwhelming season with the Pacers, then fled to Minnesota. Kyle Korver re-signed with the Cleveland Cavaliers. And DeMarre Carroll just got his large salary dumped onto the Brooklyn Nets.

The Hawks didn’t have what it took to hang with the Cavs. They made a smart decision to transition away from that core and try to turn it into something else. Some of the decisions regarding what they wanted to turn it into were questionable, like the choice to get Dwight Howard — which they clearly already regret, considering they moved down in the draft in order to dump him on Charlotte — and the decision to commit to point guard Dennis Schroeder.

But now, after a lengthy playoff streak that spanned across multiple eras in Atlanta, the Hawks are arguably the most empty, asset-starved team in the league. They’ve got all of their future picks, and some other first-round picks that could end up being valuable if some things break their way.

Beyond that, it’s nothing. Their best player is now… Dennis Schroeder? Kent Bazemore? They’re making a combined $31 million, making them both overpaid and essentially untradeable. Miles Plumlee is their third highest-paid player. He has been traded twice in the past six months and is now on his fourth NBA team entering his sixth season.

Their biggest asset now is likely coach Mike Budenholzer. He was the 2014–15 Coach of the Year (which Steve Kerr for sure should have won by the way, but whatever) and he is definitely a good coach. But since that dream season, he has seemingly had a hard time getting his players to buy in offensively — though Atlanta’s defense remains consistently excellent — and his status with the team has been complicated.

After former Hawks GM Danny Ferry was fired for being a racist weirdo, Budenholzer was made President of Basketball Operations. But after the season finished, he relinquished those duties, and the Hawks hired former Warriors assistant GM Travis Schlenk to run the team.

Over the last decade, the Hawks have consistently been one of the smartest organizations in the league. No other team has lost stars and transitioned to the next era so seamlessly — besides the Spurs I guess, but they don’t count — but now they’re in a position they haven’t been in for a long time. They’re terrible. They have plenty of cap room to sign guys or take on bad contracts if they want, but no matter what they do, they’re missing the playoffs next year.

In a way, this is what people have always wanted teams like the Hawks or the Memphis Grizzlies to do. Tear it down, blow it up, rebuild. They lost the two best players they’ve had all decade — Horford and Millsap — for nothing. That was bad. But now there is plenty of room for good.

If I was a GM coming into a brand new situation, this is exactly what I would want. A great coach, and a completely blank roster to work with. This is when we find out just how smart the Hawks really are.

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