The Atlanta Hawks face the Miami Heat with their 2024-25 season on the line Friday. Anytime a potential elimination game arrives, there is a tendency to look ahead at what could happen in the offseason. For the Hawks, that means a handful of free agent decisions to go along with a potential rookie-scale extension for Dyson Daniels and a potential veteran extension for Trae Young.
With that in mind, here are three players who may not return to Atlanta for the 2025-26 campaign.
Clint Capela
This is the most confident of the three selections here, and that is why Capela is listed first. After six seasons in Houston, Capela has been with the Hawks for five seasons, and he was an integral part of an Eastern Conference Finals crew. In fact, Capela finished sixth in Defensive Player of the Year voting that season and, if anything, that may have underrated his impact.
Since then, Capela's age has begun to show and, while he is still clearly a rotation player in the league, his days as a firmly entrenched starting center may be over after 11 seasons. Moreover, the Hawks have a young center (Onyeka Okongwu) under team control for several more seasons and, of the two veteran big men hitting the free agent market, rumblings point to Larry Nance Jr. as more likely to return to Atlanta than Capela.
There is still a scenario in which the market does not materialize for Capela and he ends up back in Atlanta on a bargain deal for the team. But that does seem unlikely as of mid-April.
Garrison Mathews
Honestly, this is just a play on contract status. Mathews was on a non-guaranteed contract for the 2024-25 season that paid him just over $2.2 million. By the end of the campaign, he was firmly out of the rotation for Atlanta, even in a season in which Kobe Bufkin was sidelined for the year and the Hawks moved on from both De'Andre Hunter and Bogdan Bogdanovic in-season.
Granted, Mathews was always going to be a supporting piece for the Hawks and, for all intents and purposes, he is a 3-point specialist. The 28-year-old has lived up to his end of the bargain since arriving in Atlanta, giving the Hawks wing depth and shooting 41.3 percent on nearly 11 3-point attempts per 100 possessions. Still, Mathews is going to be a free agent and, while he could return to the Hawks, another team might be able to offer a clearer path to consistent playing time.
Caris LeVert
There is a lot of uncertainty here. Atlanta acquired three veteran pieces at the Trade Deadline but, unlike Georges Niang and Terance Mann, LeVert is not under contract beyond the 2024-25 season. At the same time, LeVert is the best player of the three, and he has been integral in Atlanta as an offensive creator alongside Trae Young, particularly after the Hawks lost Hunter and Bogdanovic to trade along with Johnson to injury.
If all things were equal, the Hawks almost certainly want to bring LeVert back. The 30-year-old wing can handle the ball, defend solidly, and score in bunches in a sixth man role. LeVert is a proven entity and, simply put, you can't have too many players who check those boxes. However, that also makes him appealing on the free agent market, and Atlanta has long been a franchise that draws a pretty firm line in the sand when it comes to spending.
LeVert certainly could be back if he wants to stay in Atlanta and will accept a relatively team-friendly deal. With that said, no one should be shocked if another team plucks him away after only a few months with the Hawks.