It has been clear to me for a while now how this Hawks season will play out. Assuming they make the playoff field, the Hawks will draw the Celtics, Bucks, 76ers or Nets. That’s where the season ends. The first round is the ceiling.
The trades the Hawks made before Thursday’s NBA deadline didn’t change my outlook. The Hawks have a better bench after adding wing players Saddiq Bey and Garrison Mathews and center Bruno Fernando. The Hawks still aren’t good enough to knock off the East’s top teams unless they reach a sustained level of play that we’ve yet to see.
But the new players should help the Hawks finish at least sixth in the Eastern Conference and avoid the play-in tournament. The Hawks began Thursday three games behind the Heat for that slot. If they make the playoffs, the Hawks now have a better shot of upsetting Boston, Milwaukee or Philadelphia. And the Nets no longer are a worry after they traded superstars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.
Hawks general manager Landy Fields didn’t execute a trade that makes the Hawks a true contender. That was unlikely after the Hawks surrendered three first-round draft picks for Dejounte Murray last summer. That left Fields with little draft-pick capital. Then he found a soft market for forward John Collins before the trade deadline.
Fields did the next best thing to making another big splash. He improved the roster without giving up much or ballooning future payroll.
The Hawks acquired Bey from Detroit in a three-team deal that cost them five second-round picks. Fields traded wing player Justin Holliday and center Frank Kaminsky along with two second-round picks to Houston for Mathews and Fernando.
The Hawks sent away two players who weren’t part of coach Nate McMillan’s playing rotation and a bushel of second-round picks. In return, they acquired at least one player who should get regular minutes, Bey. Mathews might also earn a role because he’s a solid defender. Both Mathews and Bey are good 3-point shooters, another weak area for the Hawks.
The Hawks were short on rotation-quality wing players before this trade. Now they are deep behind Murray and De’Andre Hunter with Bogdan Bogdanovic, AJ Griffin, Bey and Matthews. McMillan has more options. He can deploy lineups that emphasize outside shooting or use combinations that give the Hawks a better chance of stopping opponents from scoring.
The Hawks also needed more rebounding and rim protection. Fernando isn’t the answer. He has the size (6-foot-9, 240 pounds), but the only time Fernando has earned regular playing time was for the tanking Hawks in 2019-20. Fernando is back in Atlanta after stops in Boston and Houston.
The Hawks remain in no-man’s land, with payroll pushing close to the luxury-tax line and results that have them headed for the play-in. If they are going to do better than that, the improvement will have to come from within. After Thursday, the Hawks will have 26 games to make a move after failing to do so over the previous 56.
The Hawks followed last month’s five-game win streak with six losses in their next nine games. There are excuses available should they want to use them. Seven of those games were on the road. Trae Young didn’t play in two of the losses. But good teams win more than they lose, even under difficult circumstances.
The Hawks are healthier than they’ve been all season, yet they’re still treading water. The defense remains substandard even after backstop Clint Capela returned to the lineup. Young and Murray continue to lapse into bad decision-making at winning time. The Hawks are a talented team that just can’t be trusted.
They’ll try to do better against a difficult closing schedule. There’s opportunity for them there. The Hawks will play seven games against teams that currently stand fourth through seventh in the East: one against the Knicks and two each versus the Cavaliers, Nets and Heat. That’s a lot of chances to gain a full game in the standings, especially since none of those teams improved their roster with a major trade before the deadline.
The Knicks acquired guard Josh Hart from Portland for Cam Reddish and a lottery-protected draft pick. Coach Tom Thibodeau never wanted ex-Hawk Reddish and now gets a player he does like. The Cavs traded for All-Star Donovan Mitchell in September and didn’t add more before the deadline. The Heat didn’t make a trade.
The Hawks got better. They still would have little chance against Boston or Milwaukee in a seven-game series if those teams are at full strength. The Celtics are the most complete team in the East. The Bucks have Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The Hawks would need a lot of things to go right to beat Philadelphia in the playoffs. These aren’t the same Sixers that the Hawks eliminated in the 2021 East semifinals. Ben Simmons was Philly’s point guard then. He’s a playmaker who doesn’t shoot or drive to the basket. Harden is the 76ers’ point guard now. He’s a playmaker who scores efficiently at a high rate.
At least the Hawks got the Nets out of the way. Brooklyn abandoned its superstar experiment after getting little results from it. Two years ago, the Nets assembled a super team by acquiring James Harden to join Durant and Irving. Last year they swapped Harden for Simmons. Now the Nets are down to just Simmons, who is the most flawed star player of them all.
The Hawks are better than the Nets after the trade deadline. They have a better chance to make the playoffs and should be a tougher out once they get there. That’s probably the best the Hawks could hope for under the circumstances.
