ATLANTA-Washington 127, Atlanta 99.
Yikes. The Hawks have hit rock bottom…right? Right?!
Well, it can always get worse, but if this isn't exactly rock bottom, the Hawks can certainly see it from there.
After a looming home loss to the Indiana Pacers on Friday that theoretically should have served as motivation, the Hawks were overloaded, outplayed, outplayed and outplayed at every level on Saturday against the weak Wizards.
That this happened on their home court, against a Washington team that came to State Farm Arena with a 6-31 record and whose minus-10.4 points per game was among the worst in NBA history, was, in theory, an embarrassment for a team in “win-now” mode. So much for that: The Hawks are 15-23 and in 11th place in the Eastern Conference. If the season ended today, they would not make the play-in tournament.
Atlanta wasn't hit by injuries either: Seven of its top eight players were available Saturday, which is above average at this point in the NBA season. The Hawks could only point the finger at the roster's limitations and the coach and front office's inability to fix them so far.
Before we move on, I'd like to point out on a half-full note that the Hawks have been in similar situations before. In fact, it's practically an annual event on the local calendar, a peach-flavored basketball fest.
Most notably, they were 14-20 when they replaced Lloyd Pierce with Nate McMillan in March 2021, a season that ended with a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals. They were 17-25 in 2021-22 before turning on the Jets, winning 45 games and beating Charlotte in the play-in. And last season, when they replaced MacMillan with Quin Snyder, they went 29-30 and rebounded enough to beat the eventual East champion Miami Heat in the play-in on the road and two games in the first round of the playoffs won against the Boston Celtics.
“Although our record is great right now, we can be a lot better,” Trae Young said after the game. “It’s a process and I’m not worried.”
Perhaps this story gives the Hawks a false sense of security, as this weekend seems like a good time to worry.
For those who didn't watch, it's hard to put into words how completely lifeless the Hawks looked this weekend. The Hawks had to pick up a few wins in a five-game homestand against lesser opponents, but were instead beaten 126-108 by a Tyrese Haliburton-less Pacers team on Friday and defeated by the aforementioned Wizards on Saturday.
In particular, the parade of opposing layups has become ridiculous. Indiana scored 28 points in the first quarter on Friday. A day later, Washington looked like a veteran, 50-win team that took care of business ruthlessly, easily holding the Hawks to 99 points in the first three quarters.
At the start of the third quarter, it looked like the Hawks had let go of the rope. Check out the “resistance” on this coast-to-coast Deni Avdija ride:
A play later, Young fouled Jordan Poole on a EM play and figured someone would be there to block the ensuing attempt. No one was around as four other Hawks moved slightly back into defense. Poole converted the shot into a 1-1 while Young waved at someone, anyone, to please run back.
The epilogue to Young's request: Washington's next three shots were two dunks and a layup. Good effort, everyone. The Wizards finished the game with 31 fast break points and 60 points in the paint.
The Hawks entered the game ranked 27th in defensive efficiency — just tenths of a point compared to last season — which is an impressive feat in a league that includes the Detroit Pistons. While every scout sees Young's defense as a liability, the Hawks have been better than this in the past.
They were 22nd a season ago and 21st in the conference finals. If we can condemn it with faint praise, Young has also tried to hold his own on defense a bit more regularly this season, including being picked off in the first half on Saturday Washington's Kyle Kuzma tackled when he failed to score a tackle.
Instead, Atlanta's increasing problems on defense are the result of rot elsewhere. In the past, the Hawks have been able to lean on the borderline heroic rim protection of Clint Capela to get the defense back to average despite pathetic attempts to contain the ball, but his days of dominating the paint appear to be behind him.
The Wizards repeatedly challenged Capela in the circle without fear (like in the Avdija clip above), just like Indiana did on Friday. This season, opponents are shooting 61.1 percent at the rim with Capela near the rim, down from 58.8 percent a season ago and 52.9 percent in 2020-21. While Capela's block rate has increased this season, it could also be a function of opportunity: The Hawks lead the league with 29.3 percent of opponents' shots landing in the basket area.
Of course, they have to rely so much on Capela because their starting lineup of Young, Bogdan Bogdanović and Dejounte Murray is so porous.
The Hawks have repeatedly tried to find a wing defender who could provide resistance to the league's star perimeter players.
De'Andre Hunter was selected as that player and received a generous contract extension based on the same premise. But he was never better than average defensively and persistent knee problems have affected his ability to play. Murray was brought in to do the same; He's a disruptive steal dealer, but at 6-foot-10 and 180 pounds, he's far too slight to stop quality wingers from scoring… especially when paired with diminutive Young.
As a result, the Hawks draw dead against almost every Apex wing. Or any other wing. Below, 6-6 Bennedict Mathurin smashes Murray on the block Friday, more or less putting him in the support while pulling an and-1.
As a reminder, it shouldn't have been this way – not when the Hawks lured Snyder from the beaches of Costa Rica to take over in midseason last year, giving them hopefully the best coach of the Young era. Surely Snyder is craving a sunset mojito rather than watching a video of this disaster.
Snyder has had a few small successes: the Hawks are shooting a lot of 3s instead of throwing up long 2s like they did a season ago, there's a little more interaction between Murray and Young than in the offense where it's my turn and my turn am, of 2022. 23 (though still not enough) and Snyder's decision to add Jalen Johnson to the rotation last season paid off, giving the third-year forward a breakout run this season.
On the other hand, 15-23 is 15-23. Atlanta has been outscoring by more than two points per game and has only managed six home wins all season. Previous Hawks resurgences have all featured favorable underlying statistics as harbingers of their revival. This season, her profile is the perfect outline of a lottery team.
While Snyder isn't responsible for the many flaws on this roster, he also hasn't made it greater than the sum of its parts. If the Hawks have any “identity” at all right now, it's that of a loose, relatively joyless team of 9-to-5 middle managers working perfunctory shifts until their flights to Cancun take off on April 15. The Hawks can win if the switches fall and they score 130 points, but there is no reliable alternative path to victory.
That's troubling because this isn't supposed to be a lottery team. Not when there are still two unprotected firsts and a pick swap to San Antonio for the reckless Murray trade – commitments that don't end until 2027 – and not when the specter of the luxury tax still hangs over future roster decisions.
The least bad move for the Hawks from this point forward would probably be to switch to soft tanking that generates a relatively high pick in the 2024 draft (they still have that pick), which could produce both young talents (although this one Draft is not the case). viewed) or a trading chip.
Otherwise, the pressure is on Landry Fields' front office to reshape this team and on Snyder to mold it into something better than what we've seen so far.
Young is an offensive master with clear defensive weaknesses that need to be covered up by the rest of the roster, but the 2021 run has shown how that is possible. Johnson is an emerging force who is under a team-friendly rookie contract for one more season and is the other obvious goalie. After that, everything should be on the table, and league sources say that is indeed the case. (My spies say the Hawks have also described rookie guard Kobe Bufkin as untouchable, but would they back down from a deal for him?)
According to league sources, the Hawks have continued to talk about potential Murray deals. Some will tell you they're nearing the finish line, while others say the Hawks are still on a fishing expedition to determine trade value for him and other key players (like Hunter and Capela).
The overly optimistic extensions for Capela (another year at $22.2 million) and Hunter (three years after that for a total of $70 million) have also slowed the Hawks' team building. Part of the appeal of trading Murray just months after he agreed to a four-year, $114 million contract extension is that his contract could be the bait to push Capela, or especially Hunter, into a deal .
On the other hand, there is little chance that they will get anything close to what they gave up to acquire it.
If the Hawks plan on focusing on one area of focus next season, it would be helpful if some of their younger players could get involved. Bufkin was injured last week but had previously hit the ground running in the G-League. It seems like playing him should be a higher priority than sending out 25-year-old two-way Trent Forrest.
Likewise, 2022 first-rounder AJ Griffin has been relegated to the bench while the Hawks use veteran retreads Wes Matthews, Garrison Mathews and Patty Mills; That might have been justifiable when the goals were set higher at the start of this season, but we are long past that point.
In the meantime, the only good thing about the NBA is that it gives a team a quick chance to redeem themselves. The Hawks will get another chance at home against a losing team on Monday with their showpiece game of the season, the nationally televised Martin Luther King Jr. Day game against Victor Wembanyama and San Antonio.
At least Young still believes.
“Quin is such a spiritual coach and a spiritual person,” he said. “He needs time. He needs people there to listen and just put in the effort to do what he says. And it’s a lot – but it can work, it can really work, and it just takes time.”
Unfortunately, time is running out with the February 8th trade deadline just weeks away and it's unclear how much of that will be awarded to the current version of the Hawks.
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(Photo by Trae Young: Paras Griffin/Getty Images)