The Atlanta Hawks and new general manager Onsi Saleh drew rave reviews for their offseason work in 2025. The move that drew the most attention was a complete and utter heist on draft day when the Hawks acquired an unprotected 2026 first round draft pick from the New Orleans Pelicans in a transaction that still has the league buzzing five months later.
In addition, the Hawks pulled off a three-team trade with the Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets, netting Kristaps Porziņģis as a potential game-changing piece at a discount price. However, there was a third move that the Hawks made that, at least to this point in 2025-26, is making the biggest impact.
Is Nickeil Alexander-Walker the best NBA free agent signing of the 2025 offseason?
Many of the most prominent free agents in the NBA elected to return to their incumbent teams this summer. That list includes LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, James Harden, Julius Randle, and Fred VanVleet, plus a couple of restricted free agents (Josh Giddey, Jonathan Kuminga, etc.) that stayed home as well. However, a few starting-level players did change teams, and Nickeil Alexander-Walker is very quietly excelling in Atlanta.
Alexander-Walker inked a four-year contract with the Hawks for approximately $15 million per season, effectively making "mid-level exception money" in his new home. (Note: Alexander-Walker's deal was ultimately consummated as a sign-and-trade, but that was merely a quirk of the NBA's roster-building system). At the time, that deal was greeted with relative warmth in the die-hard NBA community, noting that the Hawks added a sure-fire rotation player at a reasonable cost and embracing Alexander-Walker's ability to contribute to winning as a 3-and-D player in the backcourt. On top of that, Minnesota's loss of Alexander-Walker created real questions for the Wolves in that the full-time backcourt partner for Anthony Edwards remains in flux.
Still, Alexander-Walker was not the kind of free agent that would move the needle for non-diehards, and most of the focus was on the wild Pelicans deal and how the Hawks might integrate Porzingis. Make no mistake, those remain major storylines in Atlanta, but a closer look at Alexander-Walker's first month with the Hawks points to the reality that he has been, by a relatively wide margin, the best free agent addition in the league.
Alexander-Walker cemented his place in the NBA landscape in 187 games with the Timberwolves, transforming from a journeyman to a core piece of a Western Conference Finals team. A lot of his contributions were on defense, however, and Alexander-Walker averaged only 8.4 points per game across those two-and-a-half seasons. He did provide offensive value as a floor-spacer, burying 38.4 percent of 3-point attempts, but it was a relatively small role for the versatile guard on the offensive side.
Fast-forward to 2025-26 and, in part due to Trae Young's injury absence, Alexander-Walker is playing a larger role in Atlanta's offense and thriving as a result. In 14 appearances (11 starts), he is averaging a whopping 19.7 points per game for the Hawks, including a career-best 38-point effort on Thursday against the San Antonio Spurs. Impressively, Alexander-Walker is not just riding a hot streak from 3-point range, as he is shooting only 35.6 percent (down from his Minnesota levels) even while taking more on a per-game basis. Instead, it has been Alexander-Walker's work as an off-dribble creator that has turned heads in Atlanta.
Alexander-Walker is attempting 7.7 two-point attempts per game, marking a career high by a wide margin, and he is shooting 56.5 percent inside the arc. That uptick is heavily prompted by an increase in drives, as Alexander-Walker is attacking the rim with 9.2 drives per game. That number is a drastic change from the 4.0 drives per game he averaged in each of the last two seasons with Wolves, and Alexander-Walker is finishing well, converting 60 percent of his shots on drives (per Second Spectrum) and creating 2.3 free throw attempts per game on those plays.
It certainly helps that Atlanta's offensive ecosystem featuring 5-out spacing in direct contrast to what Minnesota has leaned into with Rudy Gobert on the floor. With that said, Alexander-Walker is simply letting it rip as a creator much more often than he was in Minnesota, which was perhaps part of the reason he chose Atlanta rather than a return to the Wolves or another destination.
After only a month of results, it is far too early to declare ultimate victory on any free agent signing. However, the Hawks can certainly feel great about the investment in Alexander-Walker and, on the player side, the 27-year-old is shining in a way that should net him increased recognition as, to date, the best free agent signing from this past summer.