NBA Season Preview 2017-18: This is the Dennis Schroder season for the Hawks
It is kind of weird to think about a large group of us, but for any fan that got into the NBA in the last five years, the Hawks have always been at least pretty good. In fact, for any fan that has started following the league in the last 10 years, Atlanta has been a playoff staple.
But it hasn’t always been that way and sadly for many Hawks fans, 2017 is going to be closer to the 1990s Hawks than anything they have seen over the last 10 years. While the Hawks won’t matter in the grand scheme of things this season, though, there is a pretty interesting question that will dog everything they do in 2017-18: Is Dennis Schroder good enough to be a big part of the next phase of good Hawks teams?
The first part of that question — is Schroder good? — is one of the more difficult parts of answering it. So far in his career, Schroder has proven to be good at shooting the ball a lot, making fans angry and buying really cool cars. He has also proven to be not so good at making 3-pointers, playing consistent and mostly taking good shots.
To be fair to Schroder, his being on the floor did significantly impact the Hawks offense last year. According to NBA.com, Atlanta’s True Shooting Percentage dropped a bit from 54.7 percent to 53.2 percent when the Hawks’ starting point guard sat. That, along with an offensive rebounding percentage drop from 24.1 to 22.8 percent, meant Atlanta’s offensive rating with Schroder on the floor was 2.9 points per 100 possessions better than when he sat.
And there are reasons why all of that makes sense. Schroder is getting quite good at utilizing his speed to get to the rim, where he took 37.4 percent of his field goals last season. Add improving finishing — he shot 55.8 percent from 0-3 feet last year — and Atlanta has a weapon as even when he misses the help Schroder draws theoretically opens up offensive rebounding chances for his big men. Combine all of that with fairly bad backups, and Schroder’s on/off offensive numbers will likely be strong once again this season, even for a bad Hawks team.
But can he prove to be more than just a player with some nice on/off numbers? More than a player that shows flashes of greatness before throwing it away with a terrible jumper? That is what Atlanta needs to find out this year.
Luckily there are some pieces to help. Taurean Prince had an exciting second half of the season last year and looks to be the next good Hawks wing. John Collins is going to have issues at times on defense, but he looks likely to be a nice pick-and-roll partner for Schroder, who loves to throw up some alley-oops. We all want Kent Bazemore to bounce back and give Atlanta another good wing player. Ersan Ilyasova and Mike Muscala should give Schroder room to operate by pulling bigs outside the paint.
If Schroder is able to up his game to another level, by either improving on defense or getting even more efficient on offense, Atlanta can probably feel confident they have a point guard for their next playoff run. At just 24-years-old, Schroder still fits with the rest of the “Baby Hawks” like Collins and Prince. Add on a big time prospect via a lottery pick from this season and suddenly things may not be as bad as they look in Atlanta.
The problem for Atlanta is the chance Schroder doesn’t make even a small leap. Suddenly the Hawks would have a point guard locked into a multi-year deal who has been a starter for years and isn’t the easiest personality to manage. And with the glut of good point guards around the NBA these days, moving that deal for something of value won’t exactly be easy. Plus, Schroder isn’t exactly the type of player that ages well considering how important his speed is to his game.
Add it all together and suddenly a relatively boring season for a tanking team becomes very interesting. While the Schroder decision probably won’t make or break any future Hawks title chances, it could have lasting impact on the franchise.
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Because, as we have seen with the Hawks over the last two generations of fans, a few important decisions could make the Hawks a joke for 10 years like the 1990s or a playoff mainstay like during the late 2000s.
No pressure, Dennis.