Offseason Approach
Keep things moving forward with retooled core
Actual Cap Space
-$91.6 million
Practical Cap Space
-$91.3 million
Projected Luxury Tax Space
$32.4 million
Under Contract (11)
Kobe Bufkin
Dyson Daniels
Mouhamed Gueye (non-guaranteed)
Jalen Johnson
Vit Krejci ($1.5 million guaranteed)
Terance Mann
Georges Niang
Onyeka Okongwu
Daeqwon Plowden (two-way)
Zaccharie Risacher
Trae Young
Potential Free Agents (7)
Dominick Barlow (restricted – team option)
Clint Capela (unrestricted)
Caris LeVert (unrestricted)
Garrison Mathews (unrestricted)
Larry Nance Jr. (unrestricted)
Jacob Toppin (restricted – two-way)
Keaton Wallace (restricted – two-way)
Dead Cap (0)
None
Projected Signing Exceptions
Non-Taxpayer MLE ($14.1 million)
Bi-Annual Exception ($5.1 million)
Notable Trade Exceptions
Dejounte Murray ($25.3 million)
Bogdan Bogdanovic ($13.1 million)
A.J. Griffin ($3.7 million)
Cody Zeller ($3.5 million)
First Round Draft Picks
#13
#22
Notable Extension Candidates
Clint Capela (veteran extension – through June 30)
Dyson Daniels (rookie scale extension)
Mouhamed Gueye (veteran extension)
Garrison Mathews (veteran extension – through June 30)
Georges Niang (veteran extension)
Trae Young (veteran extension)
Analysis
The Atlanta Hawks season was just about as average as one could get. Atlanta was pretty good with controlling the ball and playing with pace. The Hawks were also an above-average rebounding team. Beyond that, they were in the middle pack in just about everything, minus opponent field goal percentage, where the Hawks were well below average.
Ultimately, it added up to a team that was around .500 all season long before falling in the Play-In Tournament.
To be fair, there were reasons the Hawks struggled to find traction. Jalen Johnson missed more than half of the season. Clint Capela missed considerable time. Rookie wing Zaccharie Risacher played a big role, which ultimately paid off after some predictable early-season rockiness.
If Johnson and Capela play the whole season, and Risacher is the player he was in the second half of the year, Atlanta probably pushes Detroit for a top-six spot. As it was, everything was just kind of meh for a fourth consecutive season.
How do the Hawks break the cycle of lackluster results?Â
Atlanta has a chance to round out their depth a bit more at the draft. The Hawks have a late lottery pick and then another selection in the early 20s. Look for them to target backcourt depth and center depth.
Trae Young and Dyson Daniels are a solid starting guard combo, but there’s not much behind them. Kobe Bufkin still hasn’t found his footing in the NBA. Up front, the Hawks have a couple of free agents, which leaves Onyeka Okongwu as the only returning center on the roster.
With two first round picks, the Hawks should be able to bring in at least one rotation player, plus another player who is a bit more of a project. That would be a solid start to the offseason.
In free agency, the Hawks will at least look at what it would take to re-sign Capela, Caris LeVert and Larry Nance Jr. Pending cost, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see any of the veteran trio return, provided all understand they are filling backup roles and will be paid accordingly.
Capela may look to leave for a bigger role elsewhere, as he’s still good enough to start for a handful of teams in need of a veteran center. That won’t be Atlanta, as Capela is now firmly behind Okongwu in the center rotation.
LeVert played well for Atlanta after being acquire at the trade deadline. The Hawks used him as much as an on-ball playmaker as anyone when Young wasn’t on the floor. That role is still open, and being a third guard in a rotation with Young and Daniels is a good spot for LeVert. He’ll probably need to take a slight discount off the $16.6 million he made last year. A deal in the range of $12 million AAV over two or three years makes sense both LeVert and the Hawks.
Nance is kind of a wild-card. He could be back at Atlanta to provide depth at both center and power forward. This one really comes down to cost. If things go much past $8 to $10 million, the Hawks will probably let Nance walk. A two-year contract worth $20 million is a really good deal for both Nance and Atlanta.
Further down the depth chart, Dominick Barlow and two-way players Jacob Toppin and Keaton Wallace have all shown enough potential to come back. The should pick up their option for Barlow, while Toppin and Wallace could be back on two-way deals.
For outside help, the Hawks should have enough room under the tax to offer the full Non-Taxpayer MLE to free agents. The center market is deep in veterans, especially with those fit for backup roles. Atlanta could also snag a true backup point guard. Either would allow a draft pick to develop without the pressure of filling a rotation spot right away.
To be clear: The above path is likely only open to the Hawks if they don’t re-sign two of their own free agents. Re-signing two of Capela, LeVert or Nance would likely bring the team close enough to the luxury tax that using the MLE would come off the table.
Several Hawks are eligible for extensions this offseason. Don’t expect one for Clint Capela before he hits free agency. It would need to be too team friendly for Capela to forgo seeing what’s out there for him in free agency. Georges Niang, Mouhamed Gueye and Garrison Mathews aren’t extension candidates either, at least not at the moment.
That leaves Trae Young and Dyson Daniels. And those are really interesting extension situations.
Could Atlanta trade Young before extending him? It’s certainly possible. But Hawks ownership hasn’t given any sense that’s something they really want to do. Young also hasn’t agitated for a trade either. But does an extension make sense?
This summer, Young could decline his player option for the 2026-27 season and add four years onto his current deal. That would very likely have to be at a maximum salary, which would end up being $228.6 million over four years. That’s a lot of money to lock into for a player who is an All-Star most years, but has made only one All-NBA team.
If Atlanta is hesitant on giving Young another max deal, they can put things off for a year and see where things are toward the end of the season. The same option of declining the player option and extending would remain in place through June 30 of next season. Delaying does come with the risk that Young could simply choose to opt out and become an unrestricted free agent in 2026. But that’s probably better than simply giving Young another max deal.
Given the uncertainty with Young, the Hawks should try to sign Daniels to an extension this summer. With how good Daniels already is on defense, combined with the leap he took on offense, the floor should be $100 million over four years for the young combo guard. That’s a tick below the $30 million AAV that Jalen Johnson got in his extension, and that feels about right, given role, position and potential. If Atlanta could get Daniels for $125 million over five years, on a similar structure to Johnson’s even spread of salary, that would be even better for the Hawks.
Extending Daniels long-term would give Atlanta the surety of a core of Daniels, Johnson, Okongwu, Risacher, Terance Mann (who was acquired with a three-year extension kicking in next season) and the upcoming draft picks. That’s a solid group to build around, with or without Young in the fold.
After getting unlucky to land the first overall pick in the draft sandwiched in between Victor Wembanyama and Cooper Flagg, the Hawks still did well with Zaccharie Risacher. He looks like a long-term starter at the least, and a potential All-Star on the higher end. Jalen Johnson is on a great deal moving forward. Getting Dyson Daniels in the Dejounte Murray deal looks like a work of genius. There’s a lot in place to like in Atlanta.
This offseason is about the Atlanta Hawks adding some talent to push the team out of the PIT and into the playoffs. But it’s also about not signing extensions that will leave the cap sheet bloated. That’s what’s facing the Atlanta front office this summer. Pretty worrisome? As of this writing, we still don’t have clarity on who will be running the Hawks front office. That obviously needs solved, with a plan for everything else being top of mind.