The Atlanta Hawks need to be aggressive this NBA offseason. After settling into a point of complacency following their Eastern Conference Finals appearance in 2021, General Manager Travis Schlenk learned the hard way that a team that’s not moving forwards is often moving back.
On 92.9 The Game, a prominent source of the Atlanta Hawks’ local media coverage, Schlenk so much as admitted his own faults for not being aggressive in upgrading the team, stating, “I have to accept that responsibility that maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to bring everybody back. That’s on me.”
While the team did improve upon their standing from that point — going from 16-20 to a 43-39 finish — the Hawks clearly regressed in comparison to their impressive postseason run in 2020-2021. Now, Schlenk has a tall task ahead of him.
With Trae Young due for his extension this summer, nine players on guaranteed deals for next year, and a projected cap space of -$85 million according to Spotrac, the Hawks have little flexibility to try to upgrade their roster.
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Atlanta also has multiple holes to fill with those sparse avenues to do so. They could use a wing defender, a backup playmaker, and a reliable reserve big man to understudy Clint Capela and the oft-injured Onyeka Okongwu.
Most likely, most of these voids will have to be addressed via trade, as Atlanta has a surplus of high-end role players and a lack of depth. It would behoove them to turn one of their larger contracts into several smaller deals and an array of support pieces. But they’ll also have the opportunity to uplift their roster via free agency, with veteran minimum deals and their midlevel exception.
It’s almost impossible for the Atlanta Hawks to free up the full MLE, but the taxpayer level still gives them around $6 million to offer one of their target mercenaries.