NBA news: Gary Payton II, Hawks coaching search, All-star game woes

In today’s NBA news, Gary Payton II has a long road to recovery, the All-Star game was a rating disaster and the Hawks are trying to quickly hire a coach.

The NBA IS BACK TONIGHT after a restful break for the players and a long wait for fans. We have a full slate of nine games tonight starting at 7:00 p.m. ET. In the meantime, here’s the latest in NBA news.

NBA news: Hawks coaching search is moving fast

According to Shams Charania, It seems that the Hawks are trying to fast-track hiring Quin Synder as their next head coach. Other sources including Marc Stein have said that the Hawks see Ime Udoka as another head coaching candidate for the job. While it is unclear which way the Hawks go, It seems that Joe Prunty will not have a long tenure as the “interim” head coach of the Hawks.

While the front office will need to make decisions on whether to keep or trade John Collins and other young-ish players (this is for the final time, not let’s wait six months again), the next head coach will need to keep Trae Young accountable.

Udoka who is a former player could possibly command the respect needed to keep Trae Young accountable. It is unclear whether the Hawks would hire him after his exit from the Celtics which included a suspension for inappropriate sexual relationships.

NBA news: Low NBA All-Star ratings

A lot of people ended up not tuning in to the NBA All-Star Game and it reached record-low ratings. Combined with the alternative broadcast, the game only ended up with 6.79 million viewers. While dips and raises in ratings year by year aren’t really something to worry about from a TV executive perspective, this was a low point for the NBA — the lowest-ever recorded viewership.

All sports are struggling to keep ratings for their All-Star Games. The NBA seems to be struggling the most because the game is quite simply boring. The ratings for the All-Star games will never be as high as they used to be, due to the lack of competitiveness but they could do the Pro-Bowl events version of the All-Star Game to make it more entertaining.

NBA news: Gary Payton II is out till the playoff, at the very least

According to Dalton Johnson, Gary Payton II will be out until the playoffs at the very least. It seems that the defensive specialist may not be back at all for the rest of the season. Based on the report, the second round of the playoffs may be a good guess on when Payton would come back.

The Warriors have a good chance of not making it to that point, as they are nowhere close to being the fourth-best team in the West even with Payton fully healthy. While Payton will mostly likely not play this season, he could play down the road and was a solid return for a player in Wiseman who had practically no value after being in and out of the G League.

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