The Hawks are not competing for an NBA championship. An absolutely cataclysmic set of injuries would have to occur for them to even leap into that conversation. However, just because they’re not near the top doesn’t mean they should or will go into Trust The Process mode. There are different levels of success for every franchise and the owners and front office set the bar for expectations for their team.
The Atlanta market may get a bad rap for their lack of support of the Hawks, but it’s absolutely true that selling out the building every night would be nearly impossible if Atlanta were to go into the tank for a few years. Even if going full Process would be the best thing for Atlanta’s future championship hopes, competing year in and year out for a top-four seed in the East and a second-round playoff exit is more palatable for the business side of running the team.
This season, the Hawks are no different than they’ve been every year since the arrival of Al Horford in 2008, with the notable exception of the 60-win 2014-15 season. They’ll win somewhere between 40 and 50 games and exit the playoffs in a calm and orderly fashion. This formula has worked for the Hawks for a decade and looks to be continuing into the future.
Read More: Is it time for the Atlanta Hawks to trade Paul Millsap?
This summer, Atlanta will have several notable free agents, led by their franchise player, Paul Millsap. They’ve already dealt one pending free agent in Kyle Korver, who netted them a replacement shooter and a first-round pick from the Cleveland Cavaliers, which was thought to have opened the floodgates for Millsap, Thabo Sefolosha, and others to be on their way out of town. Instead, the Hawks went on an immediate run after Korver was traded and now find themselves in the comfortable position of being in the morass of teams in the middle of the Eastern Conference’s second tier.
Toronto, once thought to be clearly the second-best team in the East, has slid back to the rest of the pack trailing Cleveland and has opened the door for any of the others in that group to steal the opportunity to be summarily executed by the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals. Boston has all-world scorer Isaiah Thomas, but questions continue to swirl about how their defense will hold up in a playoff series. Washington surged up the standings but has nobody convinced that one good month means they’re favorites for the East Finals. The front office in Atlanta were looking themselves in the mirror in early January and coming to grips with the fact that their team would need to be rebuilt, but the last month and change may have shifted their focus.
As constructed, there isn’t anything that sticks out as a major need for Atlanta to continue to compete this season. They’ve committed to Dennis Schroder as their point guard of the future, the emergence of Tim Hardaway, Jr. has given them another option on the wing to complement the defensively-focused Kent Bazemore and Sefolosha, and the three-headed dragon of Millsap, Dwight Howard, and Mike Muscala forms their big-man rotation. Throw in mostly competent play from backup point guard and veteran rookie Malcolm Delaney and Hawks University students Taurean Prince and DeAndre’ Bembry, and there aren’t very many holes on this roster that require an immediate upgrade. Outside of trading multiple pieces for a superstar, the Hawks probably won’t be buying at the deadline.
Very little about Atlanta’s future is set in stone. Schroder signed a four-year extension before the Oct. 31 deadline to keep him in Atlanta for the foreseeable future, but the Hawks don’t have anybody else on the roster who will absolutely be on this team going forward. Howard and Bazemore both signed monster contracts in the offseason, but a rim-protecting, rebounding center always has a trade market and the dearth of quality wings in today’s game means that Bazemore can always be moved. If the Hawks were to tear things down, Howard would almost certainly be shopped around, as his age would no longer matches the timeline of a rebuilding team.
Other than Schroder, Howard, and Bazemore, the majority of Atlanta’s roster will be free agents this summer. Rookies Delaney, Bembry, and Prince are locked in, but Atlanta has four key free agents coming: Millsap, Sefolosha, Muscala, and Hardaway, who is a restricted free agent coming off his rookie contract. Mike Scott, Tiago Splitter, Mike Dunleavy, Jr., and Kris Humphries are also possible free agents this summer, but it’s hard to imagine those guys would have any value on the trade market.
Millsap and Sefolosha are on the wrong side of 30 but still have a few years left in the tank; bringing them back on short-term contracts would help bridge the gap for Atlanta as Schroder and the young guys get more experience and are ready to take over the team in a few years. Muscala has proven himself to be a solid big off the bench who can knock down a jumper, protect the rim, and most importantly, can bounce between positions to play with either Millsap or Howard. Hardaway’s improvement this season may bring with it a large offer in restricted free agency, but restricted free agents can sometimes fall through the cracks. It will probably be worthwhile for the Hawks to let Hardaway go out and get an offer from another team and choose whether or not to match it.
Muscala and Hardaway are young and won’t command large contracts this summer, so keeping them on the team past the deadline will be prudent whether the Hawks have a fire sale or not. Millsap and Sefolosha, on the other hand, would be the first names out the door if Wilcox looks at the landscape and decides to pivot in a different direction.
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Sefolosha is one of the more interesting wing options who may be available. Teams close to the top of the league can always use another defensive wing (I’m looking at you, Clippers) and the Hawks may be able to leverage multiple offers to get a decent return.