After Landry got canned I always throught Korver was an in interesting position with Fields getting him the job, and then him probably being a big reason Quin came. Plus his quotes about how he thought he’d be coaching one day but ended up in the front office somehow.
Wish Kyle nothing but the best he’ll always be a Hawk
Nothing too egregious and no names named but it seems like he’s making a habit of taking subtle parting shots on his way out. Nothing for any of the players to take personally but I wonder if they’re rolling their eyes?
Is Trae Young going to be State Farm Arena’s newest villain soon?
Hawks expiring contracts:
Lu Dort - $17mil
CJ Mcollum - $21mil
Jock Landale - $14mil
Buddy Heild - $9.7mil
Sam also mentioned that we can kick the can down the road again and be $40ish million under the cap next summer - so it does seem like Onsi is positioning us to be able to absorb a massive contract at some point in the next 8-14 months.
Grade for Atlanta: A-
What this means for Hawks: Atlanta continues a strong offseason with another shrewd trade. It wouldn't seem that way based on the draft pedigrees of the three players involved in this trade, as Risacher was a No. 1 pick and both Dort and Nembhard were undrafted. Ignore the draft record, though, and Dort is clearly a more valuable player, both in the present and future, than Risacher. The 27-year-old wing is still in his prime age range and only a year removed from being named to the All-Defensive first team, where he joined Dyson Daniels, now his new teammate in Atlanta. Whether Dort and Daniels can function together offensively remains to be seen, but between Dort, Daniels and Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Atlanta now boasts one of the best defensive trios in the NBA.
The Hawks finished 10th in defensive rating last season and could easily push into the top five in 2026-27. Dort also gives the Hawks another useful rotation player, period, which is a necessity for Atlanta to improve next season. As I wrote when analyzing Atlanta's trade for another Thunder player, Wiggins, the Hawks ended last postseason with what was effectively a six-man rotation, and one of those six players (Jonathan Kuminga) won't be back. Dort and Wiggins on the wings, plus Nembhard and No. 8 pick Kingston Flemings in the backcourt, should help address that weakness. As for the price to acquire Dort, it's possible that giving up on Risacher this early will prove foolish in the long run. He's a 6-foot-8 wing who's still just 21 years old, which makes him among the most valuable player archetypes in the NBA. But Risacher is fairly expensive ($13.8 million in 2026-27, with a $17.4 million team option for 2027-28), and he hasn't looked the part of a future star, or even a future starter for a contender, in his NBA career to date. His statistics were essentially the same or slightly worse across the board in his second season compared to his first, showing little development, and he'd lost the trust of Atlanta coach Quin Snyder.
Risacher played just 23 total minutes in the playoffs, and the majority of those came in the second half of the 51-point blowout loss that ended Atlanta's season. Out of 41 No. 1 picks in the lottery era, Risacher ranked 39th in box plus/minus through each player's first two seasons, per Stathead, ahead of only infamous draft busts Anthony Bennett and Michael Olowokandi. Typically, a future contributor has demonstrated more evidence of his ability on the court by this point in his career. Andrew Wiggins -- whose BPM was still much better than Risacher's -- is the only success story among the players at the bottom of this list. If this were a retrospective draft grade, the Hawks would receive failing marks for selecting Risacher at No. 1 instead of Alex Sarr (who went second) or Stephon Castle (who went fourth). But Atlanta viewed that mistake as a sunk cost and turned Risacher into a better player in this trade.
Obviously nobody is going to shed tears for Tony Resslers wallet but the Hawks did flat out choose to earn less money in order to improve the fan experience next season. If you're like me and you had the Fanduel app all season long you're saving $140 from being able to watch the games on an antenna.
It benefits everybody if the Hawks can look at the numbers at the end of the season and see that giving us free games produced positive results for them.
At the trade deadline the Pelicans were asking for a “Desmond Bane Like Trade Package” of 4 FRP’s, and that has reportedly been lowered to 3.
With the Celtics in the fold and their newly acquired draft capital from the Brown trade - I don’t see any reason for the Pelicans to back down from these demands.
So I think Zacch + Buddy + 2027 FRP + a future FRP is probably what gets this done. It wouldn’t surprise me if we do this tbh. I think this might be our last chance at a “splash” this offseason. And if we don’t give Zach playing time and see improvement - neither of which are guaranteed - I do think our backs are up against the wall a bit because there is a chance that his trade value plummets if we have a repeat of last season.
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First the Lakers traded into the 2nd round to get Veesaar and then we snuck in and got him - forcing the Lakers to trade back out of the 2nd. Oof.
Next it seems like Onsi was sure enough that he was about to make a big trade that he guaranteed Buddy’s money for salary filler. There was an unnamed 2nd team reportedly bidding for Kessler besides the Lakers. Suddenly crickets for two days before the Lakers overpaid for Kessler.
I’m pretty confident that we had an offer on the table that Utah was ready to accept and Pelinka had to do something so he didn’t completely strike out on Luka’s demands.
Now Onsi did certainly take an L on the Buddy guarantee but that could only be temporary. We are ready to go after the next big name center that becomes available. But you know what? Pelinka might have just made Luka the best player to never win a championship - because they do not have a championship core and don’t have the assets to build one.
Ps- To the swaths of big dummies that called me a casual and downvoted my Kessler trade proposal thread - Onsi’s offer was probably similar to what I proposed. Which is why Pelinka included picks and pick swaps. lrn2basketball. k bye.
I see on the website that outside beverages aren’t allowed. For those that have been, do they have free refill stations available? That’ll probably be the deciding factor on if we decide to brave the heat or not lol.
We are filled to the brim with expiring contracts. We guaranteed Buddy’s money so we could use it as trade filler. We were never going to try to be big players in free agency this off season anyways. Hell we even gave Jock a pretty sizable one year deal that would be very helpful in a trade. We have 6 tradable FRP’s at our disposal.
I’m convinced that Onsi has decided to address the center position by going big game hunting for a proven vet. He utilized our remaining cap space in a way to make us as desirable of a trade parter as possible for the next 8 months. I think by the trade deadline he’ll have made his move for a center and then after that we’ll be holding onto assets until it’s clear whether Ant wants to leave the Timberwolves or stay.
Is this a badly kept secret in NBA circles? 🤔
Zuby’s shooting form is completely workable and if our coaching staff helped Onyeka to become a top 5 stretch big in the NBA, they can turn Zuby into a 34% or 35% 3 point shooter on decent volume. Granted, Zuby is two years older - but I definitely think he’ll be an average 3 point shooter who can defend 1-5. The type of player a championship contender needs off the bench.
*Yes I know Onyeka’s final year in college was his first