Atlanta Hawks 2025 Preview: Minutes for Okongwu with Porziņģis?

Atlanta Hawks 2025 Preview: Minutes for Okongwu with Porziņģis?

Let’s talk about the Atlanta Hawks. They’re making moves. They’re going to be pushing right up to the top of the standings. Well, I guess that’s their hope. Let’s talk about the big questions. Michael Bolton. Thanks, Josh. It’s Michael Bolton here, and it’s time for another episode of the Locked On Fantasy Basketball Podcast. Let’s get to it. Let’s get to it. Indeed. You are Locked on Fantasy, your daily NBA fantasy podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. your team every day. Hello and welcome to the locked on fantasy basketball podcast brought to you by basketball monster. My name is Josh Lloyd and why do I write like I’m running out of time. I’m also the lead fantasy analyst at basketballmonster.com. And today’s episode is brought to you by Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account, and use the code locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase. Thank you also for making Lockdown Fantasy Basketball your first listen every day. We are free. We’re available on all platforms. also thumb it and bang it and comment and leave all that stuff down below. We’re talking Atlanta Hawks. So, let’s talk about the Hawks right now. So, we’re talking Hawks and that means of course it is the one and only Brad Roland that is back on the show once again to talk about this Atlanta Hawks team. I know you’re super excited to be here Brad because this is something I’m sure you mark in your calendar. It’s a yearly tradition. The yearly tradition that we ask is is this the year that Clink Capella is out of the way and Yakar Kongwu starts? Well, we’re here. We’re here. we’re ready for. Surely this is the year that that’s the case because Clickerella doesn’t play in Atlanta anymore. So surely that means Oh no. Oh no. It’s not because we’ve got we’ve got Christo Pzingus there. So the question here is and this is the question I think everyone wants to know with this team is that will they start big? Will they start Pingis Aong Woo Jaylen Johnson? Because that would mean that Zachary Rische moves to the bench that would mean Jaylen Johnson’s playing out of position at three. Now the question that I’ve asked is how big is too big? And like as we all know Braden, nothing is ever too big. But for the Atlanta Hawks perspective, is that too big? What do you think Quinn Snder loves threes, loves shooting threes? All right. Akong, we’ve started taking a lot more of them. What are they going to do? I think I know what they’re going to do, but what do you think they’re going to do? I think I know too, but I’m not entirely sure yet. One thing I am fairly confident on is that they’re not going to start jailing at the three. If they do that, I’ll be shocked to be honest. I wouldn’t say it’s a zero percent, but it’s it’s very low. Like I’m sure you did. I’ve seen some depth charts making the rounds that are trying to fit that particular alignment in. And I always push back like people ask me and I say there’s not really any chance of that. Jaylen could play the three. It’s not it’s not like he can’t play there, but he’s a four primarily. His game is suited to be a four. To your point about Clint Snyder, the way they want to play, he’s much more of a four. And also, you know, there are decisions to make about which center they start, for example, but Zachary is a priority in the organization as we’ve seen as well. And I mean, I know there are splits on him, but he’s number one overall pick a year plus ago, had a relatively good rookie season, but I wish if you had reasonable expectations for him. Y and I I’d be surprised if they suddenly said, “All right, Zack, we’re coming off the bench, so we could have this strange three big alignment.” So, throw in the Porzingis injury risk and everything else and uh that that line I’d be very shocked about. Honestly, I I’m definitely writing maybe not in full-on pen like permanent marker, but maybe a softer pen uh Risha, Jon Johnson, and one of the centers. And the question is which of the centers starts and which one does not. We’ll just quickly use this to talk a little bit about Rishcha because I I as much as I I don’t love Rishcha necessarily as a long-term prospect. I think you’re right that if your expectations were correct, if they were reasonable, he had a good season. And again, if you take the lens of what last year’s draft was, where there’s no real high-end sort of players and the guys that were picked in the top three or four, you consider guys that would normally go seven, eight, nine, whatever in a regular draft, like like what you could you couldn’t be more happy with that sort of production from a guy that you would and again the Hawks were the what 12th pick or whatever last year and they ended up with number one and the result they got out of that pick is exactly what you would want for that sort of a player and he did shoot incredibly well down the end of the season. He was unbelievably inconsistent. He would have games where he’d go nine of 10 and then he would shoot one of seven for three games in a row and then he would do nothing else in other categories and he would sort of just be this shooter that would get everyone excited about these big performances and stuff would tail off. We also know that they kept his minutes pretty low like they kept him in a really reasonable like for a guy 25 minutes as number one overall pick and a starter is really low and I expect that that is going to rise this season. We we saw the shooting we saw it spike up. What is the other thing that you think that we’re going to see that Ricochet does this season? People go, “Ah, oh, I didn’t say that last year.” Yeah, I think that’s, you know, more consistency there in general would be helpful. Um, you know, statistically, I think he’ll be more of a rebounder in year two. Like that was a weakness of his for sure. Yeah. And I’m not sure he’s ever going to be a great rebounder, but he’s he has the length, he has the instincts. He was just very physically weak as a rookie, which which again was kind of expected. He’s he was very skinny. Played the whole year at 19. And if you’ve already seen I mean even just photos of to him and watching him a little bit in Euro basket tuneups and things. He’s gotten bigger. He’s gotten stronger. That’s been a priority that they wanted to put on him. Um and that should lead to some more physicality defensively and also to some more rebounding I think for him. I think you know other than that he’s never going to be like a stat stuffer guy. I don’t think I don’t think he’s going to ever be one of those guys that averages you know seven rebounds and seven assists a game. Like he’s not going to do that. But I think that maybe he gets up to like that five or six rebounds a game area as a small forward. Um part of that will be playing more like you said. I think that’s right. They wanted to play him whenever he was healthy last year, but they definitely wanted to keep a not a full-blown cap on him, but certainly wanted to be reasonable with his minutes coming off of a long summer and all that a year ago. But some of the restraints I think will be off of him and you know just trying to be better in the floor game and also again just more physical defensively which doesn’t necessarily pop up in fantasy radars but certainly gets him on the floor more because they they’re going to want him to be able to maybe flash to the floor on on occasion. He has the length to do that right now in his rookie season. He was under physical to be able to do that at the NBA level. Like he had to try it sometimes because they were so short-handed. But I think generally speaking, him playing the three full-time, being more physical, being bigger will be helpful, especially and also that will help him finish better on the rim, too. Higher two-point percentage, which should help his efficiency overall. I think, yeah, we’re going to talk Jaylen Johnson towards the end of this show, so we’ll cover him a little bit later. I want to talk about the two centers because we actually saw it last season finally. It didn’t happen at the start of the year, but eventually Necroong, who took over the starting center job from Clint Capella, he was playing big minutes. He expanded his game. I thought he was really good. Like I thought he was the sort of player that we said, “Hey, maybe they should be seeing what he can do as a starting center for four years and I thought he did that.” And now we’re in a situation where I Yes, Porzingis is going to deal with issues with his knees and his ankles and I don’t know whatever case of leprosy that he had that caused him to miss four months at the end of the season last season, he’s going to miss games. So I I don’t know whether a Kong Woo is going to pencil in as the opening night starter. I think that his minutes are still going to be pretty good. I think that a Kongu and Pzingus will um play together as well. But I guess the question is going to be like given the presence of Pingus and the unlikelihood that they’re starting together, it does put a cap I think on what a Kong Woo is able to do minutes wise if unless Pzingus is out. Is that how you see it that he’s going to be sitting as like a 27 minute a night guy? be running mainly with the three guys which sort of puts Muhammad Gay in a bit of a back seat where you’re going to have Johnson, Porzingis, Aongu taking those 96 front court minutes. Yeah, I would project that generally. I mean, we’ll talk about Porzingis more, but I think at a at a bare minimum, even if he is healthy, Porzingis, he’ll sit some back tobacks like he’s going to miss some games. Like that’s just the reality. So, you know, as far as nights when both are available, I would certainly project a Kong Woo in that 27 28 minute range. He’ll play center when Porzingis is not. He’ll play with Morzingis and there’s enough there of a role to kind of mirror what his overall season looked like last year. He was playing more than that down the stretch, but if you factor in the Capella time, too, I think he ended up in that 27 28 range. That’s a similar projection to where I’d have him right now. Again, bumping up to like probably the mid-30s on nights when Zinggas is out, barring foul trouble because they’re uh their center depth is not good behind those two guys. That’s great to have those two guys who any almost any team go yeah we’d love to have these guys starting but behind them it’s um I guess that’s Muhammad Gay like who’s not really a center either like there’s there’s actually no third center on this team is there as far from I’m trying to think off to my head there’s no one there’s no other center no that’s it I mean I I’ve that’s the one thing about this roster as we’re talking that they don’t really have I mean you know backup point guards there is always a popular topic in Atlanta but at least they have guys you can say are point guards like Kobe Buffkin can point guard like he’s more guard even if you don’t like him. Um Mo can play center. I mean we saw him play there a little bit last year down the stretch but but they also purposely didn’t have him play center for a large swast of last season. Like he was playing the four next to Don Barlo at times. He played the four in College Park uh in the G-League last year. Um so I think that as of right now certainly on a night where Porzingis is unavailable, it almost has to be Mo as the backup center, but they think he’s more of a four unless that’s changed in the last I don’t know month since I’ve seen the Hawks. Um he’s more of a four. So yeah, it’s it’s the one spot on the roster. It’s like kind of interesting and especially when you factor in Porzingis’ lack of durability. It is going to be a real question heading into the season and perhaps that that’s what they’ll use their last roster spot on at some point. The other thing is they they drafted Asa Newell who’s also a four. Like he’s not really a five and he’s a rookie and he’s going to be bad initially and all that sort of stuff. But we’ll just quickly talk about Porzingis because I think we all know who Porzingis is as a player. We know he’s going to hit threes. We know he’s going to block shots. We know he’s going to he’s probably a subpar read boundary for his size, but he’s an unbelievable offensive weapon. He’s a really good defender. He’s improved so many parts of his two-point game, all that sort of stuff. But it is yeah, availability where the big problem lies with Pingus. I think the main part and I just want a really quick sort of discussion. The main part of this is they got pausing basically for nothing. So this to me indicates that they think all right, we’re in here like we are we are pushing, we are going hard, we are going we are going for the top of the Eastern Conference here. We think that we are at least an Eastern Conference Finals caliber team. And I I think that’s probably the main part of that. And we and I’m going to talk about this in so many of these shows about teams. You just need a lot of good players and it doesn’t matter about this guy’s blocking this guy and this in position. You just you just need good players and you need to deal with the fact that guys are going to be in and out and hurt and resting and not having it and throwing effort at guys and whether Pzingis is he’s not their key player, but it’s just another piece of that where they’re saying we’re pushing in to a degree now and we’ll see where it goes. That’s how I’m viewing that book because we know who he is as a player, but to me it’s more of an organizational directional, you know, pointer versus a so good that KP’s here. Yeah. For me, it’s not only this, but for me, he’s a ceiling raiser for them. if if he is healthy and that’s a huge if and they know that but if he is healthy he is really really good and a guy they just have not had anybody like this really ever in the Trey Young era you know especially with a guy who can actually be a full-time centerized player that can shoot the way he does and now there are few very few guys in the league they could do that but um they’re not committing to him long term right now he’s an expiring contract they’re kind of doing the dance of understanding what he may or may not be for them but if it if it does work it does raise the ceiling to like you said, levels of that conference finals level team and they’re kind of operating like they have seven starters going into the season. They have seven guys and yeah, me too. And then you the next the next tier down of your your Luke Canards and whoever else, but they have seven guys that they think are starting caliber players. And I I tend to agree with them on that. And yeah, in a different world, I’m sure and I know there are people that are complaining about Aongu being blocked now, but it’d be different if they couldn’t play together, but they can. Akongu can play the four next to Porzingis. Brazing just shooting unlocks so much of everything else for everybody. And also he gets to benefit from Trey Young who’s the best passing point guard he’s ever played with. So there are different things that kind of go on here, but um we all know the questions. He’s averaged 50 games a season for his career. He’s played 501 games in 10 seasons. Yep. If he plays if he plays that much or more, they’ll probably be healthy. Sorry. Happy about that. If he plays 20 games, then they won’t. But in the in in the meantime, it’s like, all right, if he plays 65 games this year, and he’s done it a couple times in his career, they’ll be dancing in the streets. So it’s that simple. in some ways because the player himself, he’s obviously very valuable when he’s out there. We’re going to come back and talk about a new player from last season and that’s Dyson Daniels. When we come back today’s episode though, it is brought to you by Game Time. You might be logging on, you’ve signed into your ticket account, you’re waiting for these cons tickets to go on sale, but you lose your spot. There’s an internet dropout. Something happens and you don’t get to see what you want to see. Live music should be about making memories and not dealing with that stress of ticket shopping. And that’s where Game Time comes in. Game time makes getting concert tickets faster and easier than ever. The prices actually drop as it gets closer to Showtime. You can save up to 60% off with their killer lastminute deal. So instead of trying to find those promo codes or endless scrolling or waiting in line in cues and rooms that always seem to time out game time, you get the panoramic seat views. You get the price that you see is the price that you pay. And that game time guarantee has your back with cancellation protection and more. So take the guesswork out of buying tickets, concert, show, sports, whatever it is with Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account, and use the code locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. again. We’ll create the account, redeem the code, L O C K E D O N B A for $20 off. Download the Game Time app today. Last bit of tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Okay, so last season, Dyson Daniels was in the mix for defensive player of the year. Last season, Dyson Daniels did win most improved player. He saw a larger role on this team. He moved across in the Dejonte Murray deal and was way better than Dejonte Murray. Even before DeJonte Murray got hurt, he put up steel numbers that the NBA has not seen since Alvin Robertson in the 80s, averaging three steals a game. He somehow was a below 60% free throw shooter, which I don’t really know what the hell happened there. I guess my question is, and you’ve already alluded to this a little bit, in terms of ball handling and backup point guards, is what can Dyson do now offensively? because I wasn’t say he was bad offensively. He was fine. I I would say at at points of the season he was able to improve parts of his game, but with that lack of guard depth, is he going to be pushed into that? Because like we talked about Nik we haven’t actually Alexander Walker is here. He’s quite similar to Dyson Daniels guys that both came into the league as point guards but have transitioned to be basically full-time twos and threes and wing defenders. Do you think that Dyson gets those ball handling reps? Do you think NL Alexander Walker gets them? Like what does Dyson do now? Or is it more, hey, we’ve got Porzingis. Can you just keep focusing on defense? Yeah, it’s a little bit of all of that honestly, which is not a sexy answer, but it’s the reality. Um, Dyson is, it’s funny, there was a lot of focus and justifiably so on three-point shooting, right? Cuz he didn’t really take them in New Orleans. He took a little bit more and shot 34% which is like a respectable number. But admittedly, those are mostly open looks, right? He’s not taking a bunch of contested shots. He’s being left open a lot. Um, but he made enough to keep defenses honest, and that’s that’s number one. Like, he’s that has to happen more. But the real growth area for him offensively was that he his two-point volume went through the roof. It was double the volume of attempts per round possessions than it was in New Orleans. He was aggressive getting to the rim, and they like that. They encouraged that from him. It should be easier for everybody to drive on this team. That includes Trey Young, too, with Porzingis on the floor. and no Capella to be honest even though I defended Capella for a long time he was a clogger of the offense to be sure so that helps Dyson as far as the role is concerned I think you’ll see pretty much every combination um with Trey Young off the court you’ll see Daniels and Alexander Walker in the defensive terrorist back court defensively you’ll see Daniels with um Canard and they like they they like Canard a lot as a ball handler honestly like obviously Canard cannot defend point guards but he can operate an offense we’ve seen I think the Hawks are that’s one reason why they’re bringing him in. But you also see Kobe Buffin. You’ll see Dyson take on some more. There were games last year where Dyson was kind of the primary ball handler when Trey Young was unavailable. And there was mixed results to that for sure. In certain matchups, he might he might not have the juice to get by as a primary defender, but he does have that ball handling ability. His assist rate jumped last year as well. I think he can do enough of that. And that was an emphasis going into the summer that he said when he talked to us on the way out of town was like, “Hey, I want to be able to do even more on offense.” And I think that the Hawks are going to encourage that. They want him to be aggressive. He’s never going to be a 20 point scorer or whatever, but he does have enough juice and that history of of being a point guard helps him. Like he has the mentality of someone who can initiate offense and that’s going to be useful to them. I think that’s literally how he came up in the game. Like he was a point guard in Australia. He was a point guard uh for the GIN. He was a point guard in New Orleans for the first year or so. And that two-point thing that you mentioned, I hadn’t actually looked at that. his three-point attempt rate went from 43% of his shots being from three down to 26. Like he his three-point attempts, even though his minutes went up by 11, his three-point attempts went up by 0.9 a game and his two-point attempts went up by 6.2 per game. Like it was a real change to see him doing way more in that in that mid-range and and around the rim versus him being more of a spot-up guy, which of course when you’re not a good three-point shooter, being only a spot-up guy is an interesting sort of use of that, especially now when you’ve got Trey Young who’s going to do that. You’ve got Chris Espingus who’s going to do that. You got Zachary Rishet who’s also going to take a lot of threes. So that is I guess a little bit of an interesting um development. Now one thing that I I talk about on this show a lot is that when somebody has a real outlier season like Daniels did in in what he did with steals, you your expectations should come in that think he’s still going to be awesome at it. He can still very easily lead the league in steals. But if he drops down 10% 20% still means two and a half steals per game guy. And I think that’s where people’s expectation should lie because if he was able to increase his steel rate the amount that he did last season, there is always a risk that that can drop back off. What did you see like defensively from him in terms of the steals to to I guess maybe even to rebut that idea that hey maybe those steals dropped down? Was there was was it luck involved? Was it just him being like especially with Alexander Walker now being that double because they didn’t have that other sort of guy last season. Is he’s gonna have to do less of that like passing lane sort of work which might bring it down or am I just talking out of my ass? No, I look if you ask me to project his deals per game number, it’s going to be lower. Like he he could do it. He could repeat it. I’m not saying it’s impossible because he definitely could. Yeah. But if you’re projecting, you can’t project three a game because only because it’s such a historical outlier and maybe we’ll both look foolish on that. But the reason there are reasons on both sides like his deflection numbers backed up his steel numbers. like he led the league in deflections by the a similarly comfortable amount. So it wasn’t like he was getting an outlier percentage of them becoming steals. Um the Hawks gave him free reign and I think he’ll still have free reign this year. Perhaps the Alexander Walker edition you could argue it might unlock him more. Um or you could say hey Dyson might have more of a primary responsibility that says hey we don’t want you to gamble as much sometimes. Um I can see both those things and the Hawks haven’t really communicated that yet. you know, Dquil still being new and all that, but um you know, last year I think the number two guy in the steels per game leader board was like 1.9. Like he it wasn’t even close. Like right if if you ask me to say will he lead the league again in steals, I I think he’s going to leave the league again. But leading the league again with like 2.4 instead of 3.0, you know, does that make sense? Like Well, you the Hawks have got like a the guy that was traded for Dyson Daniels, Dejonte Murray, led the league in steals one year at like 2.4. I think the next year he averaged 1.7 or something like that. Like not to say they’re the same guy steals, but this is this is historically just what happens. Actually, Dejonte was second per game in steals last season anyway at two per game. Like that’s that just happens. And like if Dyson is still 2.5, I I think he’s probably more realistic. Like that’s still a great number and it’s still going to have tremendous value to the Hawks and to people playing fantasy. But we got one more guy that we’re going to come back and talk about Brad. And that is a player that’s had two two breakout seasons in a row. I’d say is a fair way of categorizing what Jaylen Johnson did. came from nowhere to be a starter and be awesome and then sort of took it up again last season except as it is in both of those seasons. He um he got hurt again and this one previously it was like a broken hand and then 17 ankle sprains and then last season we had a torn shoulder issue. Now Jaylen has shown many different improvements in his game uh over these last two years. He’s shown improved in shooting and he’s taken his usage up. But one thing that we saw last season and again we’re because we’re professionals Brad we’re going to tie the the through line here that there’s no backup point guards. There’s no backup point guard. Jaylen Johnson’s assist rate went straight up last season. So is he that guy like in that sideline? Ricochet can’t really do that. Pingus definitely can’t do that. Daniels has that point guard background. So does Alexander Walker, but you know they’re not that sort of guy. But is Jaylen just that guy now in a similar vein to I’m not LeBron, but he’s not LeBron. Julius Randle does that and Nicola Joic as big man or Bameabio has done that in the past. Just he is the guy that like we’ll just put it in his hands now and and he’ll run a lot of the offense. Yeah, I I don’t see him making another leap as a assist guy, but the one that he did make I think is pretty real. You know, 20% assist rate last year. I think he averaged five per game or so and in 35 minutes a game when he was playing and that feels real to me. You know, I’ve always kind of resisted the point forward moniker for Jaylen because in the half court, he’s not been the most polished creator, but he does have the on ball ability that, like you said, a lot of guys on this team don’t have. Um, he hasn’t really played point guard, so to speak, in the half court, but when things break down, if Trey’s off the court, like he’s the one that’s going to have the ball in his hands to kind of take those not great shots or like kind of, you know, have to force some stuff. And that’s part of the deal. That’s maybe also why his efficiency might have gone down a little bit last year. he took some more difficult shots which is gonna that’s part of the burden of being a you know top two guy in your offense is that you have to take some bad shots every once in a while. So the passing is real, the vision is real. He’s a transition force. I think a decent amount of his assist came on the break when he gets a lot of attention and he can find cutters. He can make the simple pass. Also some complicated passes. So um I think the usage rate will either stay where it is, maybe even go up a little bit. I think he’s another guy that will benefit from more spacing with pretty much always some sort of shooting at the five at all times versus playing with Capella a lot. And he was always kind of tasked with playing with Capella a lot and that it’s hard for everybody. So I think Jaylen putting up 19 10 and five like he did last year seems very reasonable to me. Again, he’s a great rebounder at the four. Like a really really really great rebounder for a guy who’s not like 610. Like he’s probably 67 and a half. He flies around. But the passing I think is real and the the jump that he made last year should continue because he’s going to have the ball on his heads a lot. I It’s interesting that you said do you think his usage might rise? I actually think it might decline slightly just by adding Porzingis but I think that he’s in terms of it’s if you’re going to use the like traditional usage statistic in terms of you know plays finished which he was at 23 and a half last season. I think he probably drops down to like 22. But in terms of just time with ball in hand or true usage or box creation, I think it goes up because I think that he’s going to have the ball in his hands. He’s going to be creating for others. He’s probably going to be more efficient at creating, but also shooting as well just by taking some of that offensive responsing or scoring responsibility away a little bit. Not that it’ll be a huge drop off, but yeah, I would say that if Pzingis didn’t come to Atlanta, I’d be looking at Jaylen Takara. He’s going to be a 22 point scorer per game this season. That’s what I would have expected from him. you know, bit of an uptick in efficiency, just continue to grow. But with Porzingis there, I think that probably pulls it back, but we might get an extra assist per game. We might get a little bit of extra, you know, two to, you know, seven extra percentage points on his true shooting or something like that. And he becomes that key number two. He’s going to be everyone’s popular pick for first time all-star this season. If he stays healthy, I’m pretty sure he’s going to get it to be honest. I think he was in that mix even last season with how he was playing. And I just think we always is when we’re when people are drafting in in fans leagues. I think people know this is that you’re always looking for what is the what are the small little changes that happen because for the most part a lot of things stay the same like in production and and rates and that sort of thing. So what are the things that change and I think that again we’re just going to see him have to take more of that creation responsibility in in this grouping because it’s just how the team looks like it’s set up to me. And I think he’s got I think he’s got that ability to do it. I think that um we are going to see him as a um allstar, but the question is remaining. We’ve already talked about this with Porzingis. Are you worried about Jaylen’s ability to stay healthy? I’m I’m not. They all seem relatively fluky. Like if you break your hand and then your shoulder gets put out of place and then in the in the middle of it you sprain your ankle. They’re not related. They’re not like your knee has been cut open 17 times here and it’s all cooked. But the truth is he just hasn’t played. How worried are you? Is it a play style thing? which is where if you go to Memphis and talk about John Ram like a lot of his injuries are play style related. How do you see that with Johnson? Yeah, I don’t always see a play style issue which is good which is good for projecting forward. You know the only thing that was been kind of chronic which we joked about earlier was the ankle stuff but they’ve he’s wearing different shoes. He’s wearing high tops now. I’m not worried about that at this point. It was more of a recurring like same it was basically the same injury like he did last season he didn’t have any didn’t think so. No. So it’s um and like you said it’s it’s a torn labroom like it’s a not a fluke injury but it’s not one that’s like you would associate with being injuryprone like Al Horford has a similar injury and Al Horford has been playing for 20 years so it’s uh I’m not worried. I I I will also say I’m notoriously slow to give out the injuryrone label. I think Porzingis has earned it. Are you slower than me? Like I I push back on it incredibly hard. Yeah, I do. I do too. I think Porzingis is like all right 10 years of this we could probably put some someone on him. Jaylen, I’m not like if you were asking me to project Jaylen’s game as long as he is and by all accounts he’s going to be healthy for training camp. I I’m not gonna project him to be playing half the games. Like I think he’s going to be a guy that you can throw out there for 65 70 games and hopefully he does that. You know, he he did play 70 as a sophomore in the league and I think even with a game or two of DMPS that season early in the year. So he has done it. He has played a full season. Not with this workload. One thing I am a little bit gonna look at is maybe he plays a maybe a couple minutes less per game. He was averaging about 36 minutes a game last year. Um, I’m not saying that’s why he got hurt, but when you have Porzingis, when you have a little bit more depth, maybe they can bring that down to 34 or whatever, which is what might might hurt his his per game averages, but not he’s he’s still going to play a lot. And, you know, fantasy wise, there’s nobody behind him that’s like going to threaten him at all. Like, he is the sun, moon, and stars at the four for the Hawks. So, I think they’re all the stars are aligning. If the Hawks are good, like I think they’re probably going to be. the first time all-star thing is just it’s almost too obvious. You know, like last year he last year he had the numbers and and the team wasn’t good enough. This year if they are winning more than they lose and he’s averaging, you know, 20 and 10 at the at the at the voting spot, it’s like, all right, it’s pretty pretty natural jump to make. Yeah. Yeah, I think it is relatively Yeah. If he just does what he’s done the last two years and just sort of ramps it up 5% like we’re there. Like it’s we’re already there. Just again just needs to be on the court. This team Brad is going to be really exciting to watch. There’s a lot of things to happen. We haven’t really covered things like Alexander Walker or Canennady in huge detail. And we haven’t even mentioned Trey Young who I just think again Brad like if you had to like he’s he’s going to lead the league in assists. I think we we all pretty comfortable in in suggesting that it would take a pretty big upset for that not to be the case for this season. His usage actually was was pretty strong and again I think it’ll be the same. I think what what okay this is not necessarily related to anything specific that we’re talking about here but Trey Young is known for his you know his shooting his logo threes and all that sort of stuff we’ve seen him do it and his passing is awesome he’s one of the best passers in the NBA easily top five you might go top three on that Trey Young I feel at some point is due to have a season where he hits 39% from three like it’s never really happened he’s never been that he’s like 34 35 if he has one of those years where it just becomes 39 that is what takes this team to being that conference finals team because if he just goes from someone who takes a lot of them and hits them at below league average slightly to being an elite shooter well then it’s over I think in terms of other East teams competing at least in terms of you know get taking them out of that dreaded playin mix there’s no nothing to suggest that that will happen this season but to me that’s the the thing that I do expect will will happen at some point one season he’ll have a year where it’s just it just goes up yeah I mean I think he put up a 38 at one point uh a few years ago I think it and the one year he made all NBA I think he think he shot so but even then like you’re you’re right and also not to go back to the well again to a guy that I love but Capella not being there I think is probably Trey gets the most help of anyone maybe with that like a guy as small as he is operating with as little space as the Hawks have had in the last couple years has really hurt him that’s more of an inside the arc thing but I think some of his efficiency has dipped in large part because he he’s he’s a small guy and it’s hard to get into the get into the paint and finish if you’re 6’1, if you don’t have space. So, I think having Porzingis will help there, too. And I think his overall efficiency will will jump. How high it jumps is a certainly an open question, but he’ll get to the line like you said, the passing he has this crazy stat where he is increases assists per game in every single season, which is really hard to which is really hard to do when you’re this high. Like he’s maybe can he do it again? I don’t know if he’s beyond 11.6. I’ve got him project I’ve got him projected at 11.7 for this season. So, that would be that’d be again no jump for Trey. So maybe he’s he he’s good, Josh. That that’s the take away for Trey Young. He’s good at basketball. He’s good and so are you, Brad. And everything about the Hawks you’re going to have covered over on the Lockdown Hawks podcast for us this season, which should be, fingers crossed, a really productive one for this team. Thanks again for coming on and uh and talking about the Hawks with me. I appreciate you having me always. It’s a delight to be here. And that is the Atlanta Hawks. And we didn’t we didn’t have to talk about Clinkapella yet. We still managed to do it. And we also managed to talk about a Neker Aong Wu maybe being a Sarda. I don’t think he’s going to, but I still think you should be very, very comfortable with a Kong Woo as a fantasy guy, which of course we’re going to talk about more as we get into September with all of these teams. You know what to do though. In the meantime, you hit the double bang, you subscribe, you thumb up, and you leave all your comments down below. Guys, we are done here. Thank you so much for listening everyone. See you. I’ll be back before you know I’m gone.

NBA Fantasy Basketball – Atlanta Hawks Season Preview. Josh & Brad Rowland (@LockedOnHawks) break down the likely starting five, rotation battles, and draft values for Trae Young, Kristaps Porziņģis, Jalen Johnson, Onyeka Okongwu, Zaccharie Risacher, Dyson Daniels and more. With Porziņģis now in Atlanta (plus additions like NAW and Luke Kennard), minutes and usage shift across the frontcourt and wing—raising questions about Okongwu’s role, KP’s health/maintenance, and how much playmaking Trae will shoulder.

Topics: projected starters and minute tiers, Johnson’s year-three surge potential, Risacher’s rookie path (3-and-D vs. on-ball reps), Daniels’ steals/defense translating to category leagues, and where Kennard’s shooting fits.

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0:00 Introduction and Hawks overview
2:12 Hawks starting lineup discussion
4:53 Zaccharie Risacher development
6:34 Onyeka Okongwu and Kristaps Porzingis
11:07 Porzingis impact on Hawks
15:08 Dyson Daniels offensive growth
21:38 Jalen Johnson’s role and development
25:32 Johnson’s injury concerns
28:56 Trae Young’s potential improvement
30:22 Conclusion and outro