Yahoo Sports senior NBA analyst Kevin O’Connor is joined by senior NBA writer Tim Bontemps to discuss Atlanta’s approach to the upcoming NBA Draft and offseason. Check out the full conversation on “The Kevin O’Connor Show” and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
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Video Transcript
The team that I feel like nobody ever talks about is Atlanta at eight.
Mm-hmm.
They just made the playoffs.
Mm-hmm.
They had a really good year.
Yep.
They made a huge trade getting rid of Trae Young.
CJ McCollum had a great year.
They had the Most Improved Player in Okeke Alexander Walker.
Yep.
They’re in a great spot, and they have the eighth pick this year.
Yeah.
And that’s a spot in this year’s draft which is pretty loaded.
But I think Atlanta is in a position to either, “Let’s keep building young, let’s not rush things,” or to be in a spot where it’s like, “Hey, we have this highly valuable asset.
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We have multiple picks.
Let’s, let’s do something.
Let’s do something big.”
So I, I’m intrigued by the paths Atlanta could go this off-season.
Yeah.
It The Hawks are in a really interesting spot, right?
They’ve got the eighth pick.
They’ve got the 23rd pick, which they got, as part of a different deal in the draft.
so they got two first-round picks in this year’s draft, which, as you said, is still very good.
it’s gonna be interesting to see what they do there.
They have to decide what they’re gonna do with Jonathan Kuminga.
He had some interesting moments down the stretch.
but I think the main reason you trade for Jonathan Kuminga at the trade deadline is to have a big expiring contract on that team option this summer to potentially go out and make some moves, right?
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you mentioned the Trae Young trade.
Getting out of that Trae Young contract looks pretty good right now.
However, you did see, especially in that Knicks series, Atlanta had a lot of trouble in the half court generating offense, so do they go get a player with that eighth pick?
You know, whether it’s Mikal Bridges or Keaton Wagler or K- K- Kingston Flemings or any of these guys, you know, Darius Bacob, one of these guards, to be the guy that’s maybe the next, you know, floor general for them going forward.
do they go a different direction at the pick?
Do they move back and get some more assets?
Do they trade it for some impact veteran player now, right?
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they still have s- a bunch of trade exceptions and, different sire exceptions they can go.
If they do decline Kuminga’s option, they can go a lot of different ways there.
you know, it seems like it’s pretty likely they’ll probably have McCollum back on some deal, I would think.
but yeah, like, you know, they just, extended Antu Sile, their GM, gave him a, a deserved bump up to president, gave him a long-term deal.
and we’ll see if they get an extension done with Quinn Snyder.
But the Hawks are in the middle of a lot of stuff, and it, it will be interesting to see what direction they go.
‘Cause they do, like you said, Jalen Johnson’s in his early 20s.
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Dyson Daniels is a young guy.
a good player.
Nyckola Congu is a good player.
They can ext- have a ch- a choice on him to extend in this summer.
He’s a, a terrific player.
obviously Zach LaVine had a disappointing second year.
Hopefully he’ll be able to bounce back and play better.
but yeah, there’s a lot of interesting things going on there up to and including what are they gonna do on draft night.
So they are a team that I think is flying under the radar, but in an Eastern Conference where there’s a lot of things going on, the Hawks are an interesting team to watch, for sure.
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, I think with the new draft, system as well, it’s gonna be very interesting to see the way in which certain teams value their future picks.