A strange new feeling in Atlanta

Onsi Saleh has done everything right, but is it enough to make real noise?

I’m not sure this sentence has ever been written before, but everything seems to be breaking Atlanta’s way. Is this… optimism?

Look around the Eastern Conference. Three of the teams that finished above the Hawks (the Celtics, Pacers, and Bucks) have been detonated by Achilles tendons and the Aprons of Damocles. The handful of teams at the bottom of last year’s standings did little to vault themselves higher, and of their peers in the middle class, only Orlando (and maybe Miami) made a play to improve in a significant way.

The two teams clearly above them on paper are far from flawless themselves. The Knicks have the bigger names and more talented roster, but a new coach in Mike Brown could need time to implement his systems and figure out the best rotations. Cleveland should run away with the East in the regular season, but they don’t exactly have an aura of playoff invincibility.

New Atlanta GM Onsi Saleh (promoted to the Big Kahuna role at the end of the season) smelled opportunity. He pounced, making a series of transactions both big and small, every one of which helps the team win now and sets them up for future success, a difficult balance to strike.

Saleh’s work started in the draft, in which he was on the positive end of what one exec reportedly called the “worst trade I’ve seen in a decade.” One man’s worst trade is another’s best, right? The Hawks traded the 13th pick in the 2025 draft (which became Derik Queen) for the 23rd pick (which became rookie Asa Newell, a player the Hawks supposedly wanted to take at 13 anyway) and an unprotected 2026 pick that will be the superior selection from Milwaukee or New Orleans. The odds of at least one of those two teams being really bad (most likely New Orleans) are pretty freaking good.

I can’t give Saleh too much credit here, as New Orleans reportedly approached Atlanta with the gargantuan offer, but hey! The Pelicans flirted with other teams and were rebuffed; at least the Hawks said yes. Saleh has maintained a relationship with a team that keeps making bad decisions (like, oh, trading Dyson Daniels and a pick for Dejounte Murray in 2024, also with the Hawks). That’s valuable work in itself.

With the draft done, Saleh then hit the phones, making a couple of trades that completely changed Atlanta’s rotation.

First, he sent a second and cash to the Wolves in a sign-and-trade for Nickeil Alexander-Walker, who got $61 million over four years with a player option. That’s solid value for one of the best 3-and-D wings around. The contract also has an unusual structure, dropping down in the second year before rising again in subsequent years. That’s an important consideration given that the Hawks will have several key free agents in the summer of 2026, including Trae Young.

The Hawks then killed two birds with one stone (is that offensive?) by alchemizing Terance Mann’s terrible contract into a unicorn.

I assumed they would have needed to attach a first just to dump Mann (a perfectly serviceable rotation guy who committed the cardinal sin of getting paid); instead, they turned the 22nd pick (which became Drake Powell), Mann, and Georges Niang into a healthy, contract-year Kristaps Porzingis and a future second-rounder.

Porzingis is a reliable outside weapon with a strong mid-post game and excellent shotblocking instincts. He’s a better post defender than the departed Clint Capela and a way more capable player offensively. Trae Young has never had a real pick-and-pop threat at the big man spot before, but Porzingis is capable of scoring from anywhere on the floor. He raises the team’s ceiling on both ends.

Porzingis’ health is always a concern, but the Hawks paid virtually nothing for him — and won’t be obligated to pay him in 2026-27 either, given that he’ll be a free agent next year (although they may extend him midseason; we’ll see). If he proves to be too unreliable, the Hawks can let him leave or sign-and-trade him. This is the kind of low-risk, high-reward transaction that every team strives for.

Finally, the Hawks signed Luke Kennard to a one-year deal. I’m not as high on Kennard as many people, but he’s one of the league’s best shooters when healthy with enough playmaking juice to run the offense for short stints. It never hurts to have a deadeye marksman coming off the bench.

Those are strong moves that came cheap. While Cleveland and New York have stronger top-end talent, the Hawks can credibly claim the deepest roster in the East. Depth has arguably never been more critical than it is now, but how will everyone fit together?

Wonderfully, if I had to guess. The Hawks’ key incumbent pieces are a talented group with notable flaws. The offseason additions address nearly every hole on the roster.

It starts with Trae Young, the team’s offensive engine but defensive flat tire. Young has tried harder on defense since coach Quin Snyder took over a few seasons ago, but a beetle could step over that bar, and he remains a bottom-ventile defender. He exacerbates extreme size and athleticism deficits with a poor attention span, necessitating strong defenders at every position around him.

Luckily, Atlanta can do that now. Dyson Daniels came in second in DPOY voting last year, doing everything that Dejounte Murray was supposed to do. He led the league in steals and gamely fought through screens to protect Young on the perimeter. Dyson’s hyperactivity was notable. Frantic dig-downs, doubles, and passing-lane banditry slowed opposing ballhandlers’ processing speeds like malware on a laptop. Is there a passing window there? Yes?:

No!

Jalen Johnson is a very good forward defender with the potential to be a great one. He has rare athleticism, good hands, and the kind of length that lets him recover from increasingly infrequent footwork missteps:

With a better shotblocker behind him and fewer weak links in the rotation to scurry around protecting, Johnson can lock in and become a lockdown one-on-one defender.

Porzingis was never a twinkle-toed, switchy kind of center, and he’s lost some agility due to age and injury. But he's an above-average drop defender who will be better than Clint Capela in a very similar role.

When Porzingis inevitably misses time, Onyeka Okongwu will step in. Okongwu is a poor man’s Bam Adebayo on defense, and I mean that as a compliment. Although he’s frustrated me more often than he’s impressed on the defensive end, it felt like he started putting the flashes together more often after he took over the starting center role from Capela down the stretch. Okongwu has experience at both center and power forward, giving the Hawks more frontcourt flexibility.

Last year’s number-one pick, Zaccharie Risacher, point guard Kobe Bufkin, new addition Alexander-Walker, and returning backup big Mo Gueye provide positional length and defense at almost every position (I’m particularly fond of Bufkin on that end, but he’s rarely healthy). Despite Young’s presence, Atlanta has an outside chance to be a top-10 defense (thanks in no small part to the number of toothless offenses east of the Mississippi).

Because of Young’s presence, however, the Hawks have a very good chance of being a top-10 attack. Last year’s offense managed to creak out a 14th-ranked rating despite a startling dearth of shooting up and down the roster (particularly after they dealt De’Andre Hunter to the Cavs). Young and Johnson had down years (34% and 31% beyond the arc, respectively); both should improve. Daniels did improve from previous campaigns, but 34% on three attempts per game is still awful for a two-guard. Capela is a zero from deep, and Okongwu took most of the season to find his rhythm from outside. Looking back at it now, it feels almost impossible that this team could score in the halfcourt at all. The fact that they did is a testament to Young’s playmaking wizardry. No one has a more subtle command of the ball-fake:

The returning squad members should bounce back from beyond the arc, while newcomers NAW, Porzingis, and Kennard are all very good to elite shooters. When the three-point shooting comes alive, there will be far more room for Young to operate his pick-and-roll game with skywalkers like Okongwu and Johnson diving to the hoop. He won’t need to dip into as many self-created stepback threes, and we should see more ball movement. I’d be shocked if Young misses the All-Star game again.

There is a lot to like, but the Hawks are far from bulletproof. Firstly, they don’t quite have the top-end talent of the East’s other best teams. A Young/Porzingis/Johnson/Daniels core quartet isn’t as good as the top three or four players in Cleveland, New York, or a healthy Philadelphia (stop giggling). Young is the only proven point guard on the roster; if he has a prolonged absence, the team will struggle to score. Atlanta’s three-point shooting should be significantly better, but the road to disappointment is paved with shoulds. A lot rides on Johnson and Porzingis staying available, which is a scary bet to place.

But there’s a mountain of upside in Georgia. If we’re playing the what-if game, we should go the other way, too. What if Jalen Johnson becomes a legitimate no-brainer All-Star? What if Okongwu and KP form a versatile, three-point-bombing, shotblocking frontcourt? What if Dyson Daniels becomes a dangerous(ish — let’s not get crazy) offensive player to complement his peerless perimeter defense? What if Trae Young, undoubtedly seeking a max-level contract extension, levels up further?

A baseline expectation should be Atlanta fighting for homecourt advantage in the first round, but a Hawks optimist (caw, caw) would say the number two seed is absolutely in play. From there, they’d need some luck, but it would be no shock to see Atlanta blast into the conference finals, as they did in ‘21.

The best part? The Hawks have both cap flexibility and a promising draft asset in ‘26 (they owe their own ‘26 swap and ‘27 first to San Antonio) to complement a core that is younger than you think. Zaccharie Risacher was my Rookie of the Year, yet we barely talked about him. He’s 20 years old. Daniels is just 22. Johnson, somehow entering his fifth season, is 23. Okongwu is 24. Alexander-Walker and Young haven’t counted their 27th birthday yet. And most of the deeper bench pieces are fledglings, too. This is a group that can bank on some amount of internal improvement from its core pieces for another few years.

It felt so strange the first time, maybe I’ll try it again: Everything seems to be breaking Atlanta’s way.

(Nope, still weird.)