Earlier this week, the shrewd decisions of the Washington Wizards – uncharacteristically shrewd ones, to be blunt, given their general level of roster management over the past couple of decades – were worthy of a praise piece here at Heavy. Today, the Wizards’ Southeast Division compatriots, the Atlanta Hawks, deserve the same.
But to a much, much larger degree.
Not only have the Hawks built the foundations of what could be a very good team – they have done while being able to keep adding to it in the future. They are managing assets, they are acquiring quality players, and at no point are they overpaying to do so.
Hawks Came Out Of The Gate Storming
The Hawks’ offseason started with a bang when they agreed a deal – to be finalized next week – that will see them acquire Kristaps Porzingis from the Boston Celtics. The deal sees the Hawks taking advantage of the merciless cost-cutting of the 2023-24 NBA Champions, in the sort of deal that historically they would have been on the reverse side of.
In exchange for the 7’3 Latvian unicorn, the Hawks needed only to relinquish Terance Mann (an excess player brought about as a part of the Bogdan Bogdanovic trade to the L.A. Clippers at the most recent deadline, rather than a targeted acquisition of their own), Georges Niang (same as Mann, but arriving via the Caris LeVert from Cleveland trade instead), the 22nd pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, and a future second. That was all it cost to acquire a stretch big, shooter and rim protector, who should cohere excellently with Trae Young’s passes and expand the offensive playbook while also improving the defence.
And the Hawks were not done there.
Excellence At The Draft
During the draft, the Hawks again took advantage of another team’s excessive urgency.
When it became apparent that the New Orleans Pelicans really, really wanted to draft Deriq Queen out of Maryland, but were not confident that he would fall to them, the Hawks leveraged that fact. In exchange for a trade down of merely five spots – and still getting the guy they wanted, Asa Newell, anyway – the Hawks were able to acquire an unprotected 2026 first-round pick, in what has been described as one of the worst trades of a generation.
Only a few years ago, the Hawks made several trades in order to move up four spots, from #8 to #4 to select De’Andre Hunter, who with respect has yet to get to the level to merit it. Just as with the Porzingis deal, the Hawks are now the ones using the leverage, rather than succumbing to it.
Next up, within the first two hours of the free agency window opening, the Hawks were announced as the winners of the bidding war for one of the market’s best shooting guard options. As was long rumored in the run-up to the signing period beginning, the Hawks were indeed interested in Nickeil Alexander-Walker – an excellent three-and-D combo guard who can also handle the ball in a pinch – and were able to outbid all other competitors in signing him to a four-year, $62 million deal.
Great Free Agency Business
Finally, while all this did see LeVert leave the team – agreeing to sign with the Detroit Pistons, an anticipated move that became a necessary one once the Pistons’ own play for Alexander-Walker was unsuccessful – the Hawks nonetheless managed to get something else to work with during their free agency machinations.
By turning what could have been a straight signing of Alexander-Walker into a sign-and-trade, the Hawks were able to use a portion of their enormous $25 milliontrade exception – one created in last year’s trade of Dejounte Murray, that had been considered one of the best trade assets in the league. Acquiring Alexander-Walker in this way, without touching their mid-level exception, meant that it in turn could then still be used on someone else.
With that extra mid-level exception, the Hawks went on to sign Luke Kennard, most recently of the Memphis Grizzlies to a one-year, $11 million deal. The 29-year-old Kennard is one of the league’s best shooters, if not the best, being the most efficient three-point shooter in NBA history with a minimum of 2,000 attempts.
The Hawks, then, through their own strategizing and foresight, were able to work the margins and sneak in an extra Kyle Korver type. They are keeping the plates in the air, spending money and building a quality team on an obvious timeline. This is exactly how team building should be. And in doing so, they also improved their assets situation.
Because Kennard’s deal is only for one year, he too can now serve as a tradeable contract at the next deadline, especially if paired with the unprotected Pelicans first, allowing the Hawks to put together an extremely tempting package to dangle in front of whichever team is the most urgent at the time of the February 2026 trade deadline. They can compete in any bidding war they wish to enter. The Hawks are not just playing the transaction game well – they are leading the way with it.
Hawks Now A Contender?
There is one single enormous potential point of failure with the Hawks as constructed – Trae.
By deliberately acquiring players who did not need the ball in their hands much to succeed, the Hawks run the risk of imploding if ever Young is not around to do it. All title-contenders need luck, of course, but to have a roster designed with such a reliance on one player – one who cannot be mimicked by a rental – means the Hawks will want to channel all of their luck into keeping Trae healthy.
“Title contenders”, though, seems like something that can be said about next year’s Hawks. With the additions of Porzingis, Alexander-Walker and Kennard, the continued growth from defensive wizard Dyson Daniels, Onyeka Okongwu and Zaccharie Risacher, and the return to health of Jalen Johnson, the Hawks have put together a fearsome front eight rotation.
If the Hawks are not a contender for the Eastern Conference Finals next season, it will be a great surprise. And if they are not a contender, they have the assets, and seemingly the nous, to make sure that they very soon will be.
* – This post was edited after publication because the author got confused about which TPEs were created when. There’s a lot of information to process in a short time frame, and he’s getting older, bless him. It now accurately reflects that the Hawks’ incumbent TPE was used to acquire Alexander-Walker, not a new one created by LeVert’s departure, as there are no reports saying that LeVert will be signed-and-traded.
The Atlanta Hawks are Having the Best NBA Offseason Of Anyone