The 2026 NBA Draft has come and gone. After many weeks filled with rumors and intrigue, the Atlanta Hawks made their selections at No. 8 and No. 23. They even traded up with the Los Angeles Clippers in the second round to snag an additional talented big in the midst of a shocking free fall. Three picks total for President of Basketball Operations Onsi Saleh. The team also pushed Buddy Hield’s guaranteed contract date. The team re-signed CJ McCollum to a one-year contract extension. The team traded for Oklahoma City Thunder wing Aaron Wiggins for two future second-round picks. The team picked up Mo Gueye’s fourth-year team option. The team also extended its head coach, Quin Snyder, on a multi-year deal. The team also promoted the aforementioned Saleh from general manager to President of Basketball Operations.

The Hawks have been busy, to say the least, and we haven’t even reached free agency. The team still has big decisions to make on a guy like Jonathan Kuminga. Do they elect to extend him or trade him? Did they see enough in his time after the trade with the Golden State Warriors to feel great about either decision? Can they get off the Corey Kispert contract? Can they find a way to bring veteran big Jock Landale back as they did McCollum on a team-friendly, one-year pact? Is Zaccharie Risacher, the former No. 1 overall pick who Saleh did not draft, still in their long-term plans going into his third season in the League?

So, yes, the Hawks have been busy, to say the least, and still have a lot to sort out before the start of next season.

There is plenty of time to write about all of those questions for Saleh and Snyder, but there shouldn’t be any question about what the Hawks see in their No. 8 overall selection, Houston guard Kingston Flemings, their lead ball handler of the future. The teams that picked before Atlanta made it easy for Saleh by taking the other Obvious Lottery Lead Guards, Keaton Wagler, Mikel Brown Jr. and Darius Acuff Jr. in order before the Hawks took Flemings. While AJ Dybantsa and Darryn Peterson will be compared to one another for years to come, Wagler, Brown Jr., Acuff Jr. and Flemings will be compared to one another for years to come, too. They’re all different one-and-done guards with different strengths and weaknesses.

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With Atlanta taking Flemings in what could be their last Lottery selection for a while, if all goes according to plan, we can see the Core Five for Saleh’s Hawks starting to come together: Flemings, Nickiel Alexander-Walker, Dyson Daniels, Jalen Johnson and Oneyka Okongwu. Going into the 2027-28 NBA season, the hope is that these five guys are your best five guys, per 100 possessions, of all your heavy-minute five-man lineups. With McCollum in the fold this year, Flemings does not have to be thrust into the lead-guy role just yet. Atlanta bringing back the 13-year veteran could prove to be one of those things we look back on many years from now that ended up being huge for the organization.

While I still have a lot of questions about what Atlanta will do on the wing next season with Kispert, Kuminga, Risacher, Wiggins, et cetera, what the rotation looks like inside will be even more fascinating. Three of the last four draft picks for the Hawks have turned out to be bigs: Asa Newell, Zuby Ejiofor, and Henri Veesaar. Atlanta picked up Gueye’s option. Atlanta greatly missed Landale in their first-round series with the New York Knicks, and he is a player you hope the Hawks can re-sign at least for one more season, like McCollum, as Snyder figures out who sticks and who doesn’t inside long-term.

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Health-permitting, Snyder is going to have lots of options inside. Even more intriguing is that they are all so different. What makes Gueye a really helpful rotation big in the NBA is very different than what could make Newell a really helpful rotation big in the NBA. You want to be able to throw out different looks, particularly in a seven-game playoff series, like Atlanta should be able to do next season inside with offense-first bigs like Newell and defense-first bigs like Gueye. If Ejiofor evolves into a player even close to Okongwu, that’s tremendous value at pick No. 23. I don’t think the lesson for Atlanta down the stretch last season was that the team needed to get bigger inside – even with Landale’s absence against New York proving to really hurt. The lesson was that they simply need more rotation bigs they trust behind Okongwu, seven-footers or not. You need Newell to take a big step in Year 2. You need to trust Gueye more overall. You need to rotate all of your bigs a lot over the course of the regular season so that you don’t find yourself in a situation where you’re SOL in the minutes where Okongwu sits.

NBA free agency officially begins on June 30. The Hawks still have lots of work to do to figure out what the 2026-27 roster will ultimately look like. Saleh and his staff have already done a lot. Saleh has assembled a deep roster. It’s a deep roster that still needs some tweaks, though. Can Atlanta thread the needle and bring back Landale? With Wiggins in the fold, can they find a way to move off Hield and Kispert’s contracts? Can Daniels regain his confidence from deep? What can the team’s third-team All-NBA forward work on this offseason to become a second-team All-NBA forward next year?

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Atlanta was one of the best teams in the NBA from the start of February on. The team has also had one of the best offseasons thus far, but big questions remain for Saleh and Snyder’s team going into next season, where fifty-plus wins isn’t out of the question. It should probably be expected. Like the draft was this week, the start of free agency next week should be very interesting for an Atlanta team on the rise.

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It’s going to be quite an interesting summer for the Atlanta Hawks. The first round of the 2026 NBA Draft will take place on Tuesday night, where, as it stands, the Hawks will make two selections at No. 8 and No. 23 if President of Basketball Operations Onsi Saleh elects to keep and use both first-round picks. Last summer, the New Orleans Pelicans came to Atlanta with a home-run trade offer that netted the Hawks this year’s Lottery selection at No. 8. The Hawks could go a lot of different ways with the No. 8 pick. They could even trade up. They can trade back. Who knows? Nobody saw a trade like the one with the Pelicans coming this time last year. It’s one of the many things that make this time of year so much fun in the NBA. Atlanta likes to maintain a level of optionality. One of those options is that they are a team that could trade for a player like Boston Celtics’ star wing Jaylen Brown.

But should they?

Reasonable minds can disagree on matters like whether the Hawks should be the potential third team in a deal that nets them the Atlanta native. Brown has been named an All-Star four seasons in a row. He is coming off a season in which he finished sixth in NBA MVP voting and was voted a second-team All-NBA player for the second time in his career. (Potentially relevant: The last two teams that have made it out of the East have been led by second-team All-NBA players in Jalen Brunson and Tyrese Haliburton.) He averaged 28.7 points per game, the highest of his professional career. He got to the line at the highest rate of his professional career at 7.5 attempts per game. He had the highest assist rate of his career. His 36.6 usage rate was in the 100th percentile across the League and the highest of his career. With Jayson Tatum out for most of the regular season, a lot was put on Brown’s plate, and he played at a level that kept Boston from sinking in the East like Indiana did this year without their injured star guard Haliburton.

That doesn’t mean the Hawks should give up assets to acquire Brown. Some teams make sense for Brown if the Celtics do ultimately decide to break up the Jays. The Milwaukee Bucks make more sense if they’d like to avert years and years of despair wandering the wilderness post-Giannis. Orlando makes sense as a team that’s desperate to break through. Miami makes sense for any star at any point. Los Angeles, too, for both the Clippers and the Lakers. What about Portland, Utah, and New Orleans? Those three seem eager to start winning a lot more right now. Brown, who will turn thirty in December, helps any of those teams win more right now.

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Atlanta, though? Not so much. Atlanta is more on the Oklahoma City path. (Obviously not in the future-picks way, but, really, nobody else in the League compares to the Thunder in that department.) Johnson just made his first third-team All-NBA team. He broke through as a bona fide star for the Hawks. Onyeka Okongwu has proven to be a core piece at the five. Dyson Daniels has to figure it out to some degree with his perimeter shot, but he’s a winning player and does so many other things at an elite level. He’s a core piece on the wing, too. Nickeil Alexander-Walker just won Most Improved Player and, again, is a winning player who pairs well in the backcourt with a savvy veteran like CJ McCollum or whichever guard Saleh takes with the eighth pick in the draft on Tuesday night. The main core, though, Johnson, Okongwu, and Daniels, are 24, 25, and 23, respectively. Alexander-Walker is the oldest at 27.

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With Shai Gilegous-Alexander, he was 26 when the Thunder won the NBA championship last season. Victor Wembanyama is 22 and propelled the San Antonio Spurs to the NBA Finals way ahead of schedule. (Dylan Harper burst onto the scene as his future co-star as a rookie, too, at 20.) There is a fine line between doing what the Thunder and the Spurs were able to do and what the Magic and Grizzlies have not. You need some luck, a lot of luck, really, but you also need patience.

Atlanta fans should continue to be patient. The team transformed into a beast in the East from the beginning of February onward. They beat the NBA world champions more times than anyone else this postseason. Their biggest challenge is the hardest thing in sports – going from good to great. There are always a lot of good teams in the League, but only a select handful, if that, of truly great teams. But they can get there without acquiring a star player like Brown. They can add the best player available at No. 8 on their board Tuesday night. They could always run to pick up the phone if and when New Orleans calls. They could do a lot of things on Tuesday night and the rest of this summer that would continue to push them towards becoming a truly great team.

Atlanta can get to where they want to go without going Star Chasing. They have one on the roster, and they could take another one at No. 8. Or they could trade up. Or they could trade back. They, like the Thunder and the Spurs, could follow lots of different paths that could ultimately build a team that pushes for 50-plus wins routinely if they land the plane correctly. When you add a star like Brown, the timeline would change drastically for the Hawks. Saleh does not have to do that, though, like the Magic might want to. Or the Heat. Or even the Pistons, who just won sixty games and didn’t reach the Eastern Conference Finals.

The Hawks are in a good spot with their current timeline and their current core. There has never been a better time to be young and talented in the NBA. Just look at the Spurs. Last year, the Thunder won a title with their three best players being 26, 23, and 24. Johnson will turn 25 next season. The Hawks are in a great spot with their own star and their own core pieces. For Atlanta, nailing their Lottery pick on Tuesday night is the play, not adding a player like Brown, as great a player as he is. That’s a play for Detroit, or Orlando, or Los Angeles, or several other previously mentioned teams across the association.

The play is to stay the course, stay flexible, keep your young core together, keep the helpful veterans like CJ McCollum and Jock Londale, and see where next season takes you. See where Year 2 of third-team All-NBA player Johnson takes you. Could he transform into a second-team All-NBA player next year or the year after? See where Zaccharie Risacher and Asa Newell take you in Year 3 and Year 2 of their young careers, respectively. Could the No. 8 pick be as immediate an impact as a Kon Knueppel, Stephon Castle, Cedric Coward, Keyonte George, et cetera, et cetera? Atlanta has lots of options right now, but if they were to add Brown, those options would drastically dwindle. That’s an all-in addition, but the Hawks aren’t quite there yet, and that’s OK, too.

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The New York Knicks are your 2025-26 NBA champions. The Knicks were a brilliant team that just closed out a brilliant season. They were a team that reeled off 13 straight playoff wins at one point in their championship run, their first NBA championship since 1973. The core of Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, OG Anunoby, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Mikal Bridges led the Knicks to a 16-3 postseason record, and that five-man unit finished a fantastic +13.9. From the miraculous comeback win in Game 4 to go up 3-1 against the San Antonio Spurs to the legendary 45-point close-out game performance from Brunson, the Knicks earned their first championship in 53 years.

One interesting footnote about this title run, which will be lost in the archives for every NBA fan outside the Greater Atlanta Area, is that the Atlanta Hawks were the team that bested the Knicks the most. Indeed, Atlanta beat New York twice in their first-round series and went up 2-1 before getting thoroughly pummeled and losing in six games. The only team to beat the NBA champions twice this postseason. After losing Game 3 to the Hawks, the Knicks would not lose another game until Game 3 of the NBA Finals. Something clicked for New York in Game 4 for head coach Mike Brown’s team, and they never looked back.

But there are lessons to be had from the Knicks’ title run for Atlanta. One includes the Knicks, and last year’s Eastern Conference champion, the Indiana Pacers, and their best players: Brunson and Tyrese Haliburton. The latter was named a third-team All-NBA player in 2024-25, and yet, Indiana pushed the Oklahoma City Thunder to seven games in last year’s NBA Finals. Brunson, this year’s NBA Finals MVP, has been named a second-team All-NBA player the past three seasons. Even sweeter for Brunson, he was able to knock out both Cade Cunningham’s Detroit Pistons and Victor Wembanyama’s Spurs during his all-time great playoff run, both of whom were named first-team (and first-time) All-NBA players for this season. Neither Brunson nor Haliburton has ever been voted a first-team All-NBA player in their NBA careers, and yet, it hasn’t mattered in the slightest as both have led their teams to the NBA Finals in back-to-back seasons.

This relates to Atlanta in two ways.

First, there is a lot of debate about who Atlanta Hawks President of Basketball Operations Onsi Saleh should take with the No. 8 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft. There should be a litany of intriguing guards, and one gigantic big, available when the Hawks make their selection later this month. While all are interesting and talented, none are projected to have the upside or intrigue of AJ Dybantsa or Darryn Peterson. However, Brunson was a second-round selection by the Dallas Mavericks. Haliburton was drafted 12th overall by the Sacramento Kings. Donovan Mitchell, who was a first-team All-NBA player last year and a second-team All-NBA player this year, went 13th in the 2017 NBA Draft. Jamal Murray, who played a gigantic role for the Denver Nuggets’ championship in 2023, went 7th overall in the 2016 NBA Draft. Point being, whether it’s Mikel Brown Jr., Keaton Wagler, Darius Acuff Jr., or Kingston Flemings, if Atlanta takes a guard at No. 8 rather than No. 1 or No. 2, the Hawks could still find a future All-NBA player in that spot.

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Secondly, both the Knicks and the Pacers knew what they had in Brunson and Haliburton and went for it. New York made bold trades for both Towns and Bridges in a commendable effort to surround Brunson with the best pieces possible to try and win a championship during his prime. Indiana traded for Pascal Siakam. Both had two quality bigs who flourished in their roles, Towns and Robinson for New York, and Myles Turner and Thomas Bryant for Indiana. They were Super Teams, but with an emphasis on the ‘team’ part. The New York and Indiana front offices just built two fantastic teams that proved to complement their star lead guards.

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For Atlanta, do you look at the success of just building around Your Guy, even if you’re not certain they’ll ever be top-5 or even top-10 players in the Association, and change gears with Jalen Johnson? More specifically, with Johnson turning 25 in December, do you look to take guys at No. 8 and No. 23 who you feel can best supercharge the roster around your own third-team All-NBA player? Johnson might not be a lead guard like Brunson or Haliburton, but he is a point forward poised to become a multi-time All-NBA player who just had a 23/10/8 season in his breakout year. For Saleh, has Johnson shown you enough to push you towards building the best possible contender around a player with Johnson’s skillset? Ultimately, should the focus in Atlanta for the next two to three seasons be defined by what Johnson can ultimately be and by what Saleh concoction of role players he can ultimately surround his do-it-all forward with?

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With eight different champions across eight seasons, parity is at an all-time high in the NBA. If you’re Atlanta, you have a franchise cornerstone who may not be a perennial first-team All-NBA player like Shai-Gilgeous Alexander or Wembanyama. However, he could be like a Brunson or a Haliburton, a perennial second- or third-team All-NBA player. We came very close to those two guys winning it all the last two seasons in the NBA.

The Hawks were 27-16 after dealing former franchise cornerstone Trae Young to the Washington Wizards this season. From February 1 to the end of the regular season, the Hawks were 6th in the NBA in point differential, one spot ahead of the Knicks, per CleaningTheGlass. From the tenth of February to the end of the regular season, the Hawks were 3rd in point differential.

That’s pretty, pretty good.

Atlanta’s current roster makeup is both strong and intriguing. They have big offseason decisions to make on CJ McCollum, Jonathan Kuminga, Zaccharie Risacher, among a few others, but Atlanta’s core of Johnson, Dyson Daniels, and Oneyaka Okongwu is a solid foundation. Quin Snyder is a good NBA head coach, and the team just locked him up to a multi-year extension. Perhaps Saleh packages No. 8 and No. 23 to move up. Perhaps Year 2 Asa Newell is a helpful rotation big next year who provides a different and effective look for opposing bigs. Perhaps Kuminga, after a full offseason with the team, takes a big step next year.

The Hawks proved to be an excellent basketball team from February on this year. While a lot of fans might think the Hawks are still looking for their guy to guide them to the NBA Finals, he might already be on the roster in Johnson, who might already be the best overall player, or certainly has the highest upside, for the franchise since Dominque Wilkins. Atlanta, like New York and Indiana, might already have its overlooked star who can ultimately guide the franchise to where they want to go. The Knicks and Pacers built around Their Guy in this era of extreme parity at the top. Will the Hawks do the same around Their Guy?

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Giannis Antetokounmpo might be on the move this summer. Indeed, after thirteen seasons with the Milwaukee Bucks, the former two-time MVP and ten-time NBA All-Star might be wearing a different uniform for the first time in his Hall-of-Fame career next season. Giannis, who finished in the top six in MVP voting for seven consecutive seasons before this season, is still a top-five talent in the League when healthy. With Giannis turning 32 in December, it’s fair to start wondering a bit about his durability moving forward after he played in just 36 games this past season, the fewest amount of games he had ever played in his NBA career. What interests me most about Giannis this summer, though, is that if the Bucks do in fact trade him, he reportedly would like to stay in the Eastern Conference.

That would be incredibly wise for Giannis. Just take a gander at the heavyweight slugfest that is the Oklahoma City Thunder versus the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Finals. That series has now reached a winner-take-all Game 7 for a chance to face the Eastern Conference champion New York Knicks, who have won eleven straight playoff games. Two things can be true for New York: 1) They are an elite basketball team that has consistently throttled their competition this postseason, who can also absolutely win the title, and 2) They have had an easier road to the Finals than, say, the Spurs, if they win Game 7 in Oklahoma City. Even with Nikola Jokic in his prime, the Denver Nuggets haven’t reached the Conference Finals since 2023. After reaching the Western Conference Finals two years in a row, Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves were bounced by the Spurs in the Conference Semifinals this season.

It’s different out West.

Whichever Eastern Conference team trades for Giannis will have a great shot to make the Finals next year. You might not say that if a team like the Golden State Warriors, Portland Trail Blazers, or either of the two Los Angeles teams out West traded for the 2021 NBA champion this summer. The Thunder and the Spurs are not going anywhere, at least not anytime soon. They’re younger, deeper, and are armed with a treasure trove of future draft picks and roster flexibility as they try to keep their contention window open for as long as possible around their superstars.

In the East, the Detroit Pistons could be a six-seed next season, and it wouldn’t be all that shocking. What does Jaylen Brown’s future look like in Boston? What does Tyrese Haliburton look like coming off the torn Achilles tendon he suffered in the NBA Finals last season for the Indiana Pacers? Will the Knicks have the same good fortune of good health next season, too?

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If the Celtics, the Miami Heat, the Toronto Raptors, the Cleveland Cavaliers, or even the Orlando Magic were to trade for Giannis this summer, you should not be surprised if that’s the team that reaches the NBA Finals out of the East next season. Even with his forgettable, injury-riddled season this year, Giannis averaged 28/10/8 while attempting just under ten free throws a game. None of the teams in the East that have the assets to swing a deal for Giannis should overthink any of this. If you can trade for Giannis this summer, you should try and trade for Giannis this summer – but this only applies to teams in the East.

There has been some selective amnesia when it comes to the Heat in the Playoffs of late. Sure, Erik Spoelstra’s team has been a Play-In team for four consecutive seasons, but they also reached the NBA Finals as the eighth seed in one of those seasons. This is not the Atlanta Hawks we’re talking about here. Before this season, the Heat had reached the Conference Finals in three of the last six seasons. If the Heat is the team that ultimately trades for Giannis, would it not be expected for the team to find similar success over a six-year stretch that concludes Antetokounmpo’s prime?

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With Boston, it’s similar in that you should not overthink it, even if it required sending Brown to Milwaukee in the deal. You won a championship with Brown and Tatum. There is nothing left to prove there – the duo won and won a lot. The folks who didn’t believe in that wing tandem were proven wrong. With the NBA having a different champion every year for the past seven years, which is uncharted waters for the League historically, there are no guarantees that Brown and Tatum would ever bring the city of Boston another ring – but Giannis and Tatum might. Like Miami, there is no downside to trading for Giannis. In the East, you take that swing ten out of ten times.

It’s the Magic that entices me the most, though, for Giannis. The history between the Orlando front office and Giannis is interesting. Who Orlando would have to give up in the deal is interesting. Orlando went up 3-1 on the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. The Magic haven’t reached the Conference Semifinals since 2010. We’re a few years away from nearly two decades of Magic postseason dread. The franchise got the No. 1 pick. They took the big swing and traded for a big-time shooting wing. They have drafted well and are a team that every NBA fan looks at and says, “Wow, they have a lot of guys on this team that I like,” and yet, none of it has translated into any postseason success whatsoever. I love the idea of the Magic usurping their in-state rival, the Heat, with a better trade package to Milwaukee. Giannis in Orlando isn’t the postseason slam dunk that it would be in Miami or Boston. (The team doesn’t even have a head coach right now.) Nobody thought the Pistons would win sixty games this year or the Pacers would reach the Finals last year. Unlike the West, the East is always open, even for the Magic.

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We shall see where Giannis ultimately lands this summer. If the reporting is accurate and Giannis would prefer to remain in the East, it would make the most basketball sense. If healthy, he would be in a position to play in a lot more meaningful postseason games than if he were to try and make it all work out west. Guys like Jokic, Edwards, Luka Doncic, and Kevin Durant are trapped. The Spurs and Thunder are two Death Stars atop the same conference. Who knows with the East? Who knows any year with the East? So if you’re Giannis, why would you ever leave? Life is good for a top-5 player in the East, and I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon.

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It was a very successful season for both the Detroit Pistons and the Atlanta Hawks in 2025-26. I don’t suspect it would be a surprise to anyone if they both won 50-plus games next season. Both franchises are in a great position to win many basketball games over the next couple of seasons with at least one certified star player in Cade Cunningham and Jalen Johnson, respectively. Two stars that fans of both franchises should be delighted to watch lead their basketball team for a long time. They also have one other interesting thing in common right now — both franchises used a top-5 pick on a wing in the 2024 NBA Draft that fell out of the rotation down the stretch this season. Those two players, Zaccharie Risacher, who the Hawks selected at No. 1 overall, and Ron Holland II, who the Pistons selected at No. 5 overall, are suddenly on the outside looking in on two franchises that are trying to become real, bona fide championship contenders.

For the Hawks, the Risacher dilemma stings a bit more. Frankly, it has to sting more with Hawks taking Risacher at No. 1 overall, weak class or not. Atlanta lucked their way into the No. 1 overall pick between Victor Wembanyama and Cooper Flagg draft classes. It’s not Atlanta’s fault, but it doesn’t make it sting any less.

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The Pistons missed at No. 5, No. 7, and No. 15 in recent years, but their No. 1 overall pick is already a top-10 player in the NBA. Detroit also lucked out in having the No. 1 overall pick in a draft where the No. 1 overall pick was obvious.

The Hawks took a player at No. 20 overall a few years prior and have developed him into a star who joined a select few to put up the kind of numbers he did in his first All-Star season in Atlanta. Different paths for both franchises to find their franchise cornerstone, but both drafted and developed their best player.

Time is more on Atlanta’s side, though, as the Pistons were the best regular-season team in the East this season. The timeline in the Motor City has sped up. There is a lot more pressure to win now in Detroit than there is to win now in Atlanta. Similar to the angst of whiffing on the No. 1 overall pick, there is a lot of angst that follows being the No. 1 seed in your conference and not even advancing to the conference finals. (Not to mention narrowly avoiding a first-round upset to an eight-seed, too.)

The Pistons have huge offseason decisions to make on their core guys in Jalen Duren, Ausar Thompson, among several other key players, while the Hawks have already locked up their key core guys in Johnson, Dyson Daniels, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and Oneyka Okongwu. Sure, they have to decide on what to do with guys like Jonathan Kuminga, Corey Kispert, CJ McCollum, Buddy Hield, and Jock Landale. Most of those are big decisions for Atlanta, yes, but you could argue that the electric run of wins and fun from the middle of February onward bought the franchise a lot of grace, even with the brutal demise at the hands of the New York Knicks in their first-round series. The Hawks were a delightful underdog story this season in the East after the Trae Young and Kristaps Porzingis trades, while the Pistons looked like Goliath, only to be eliminated in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.

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It’s not as though the Hawks don’t have any big decisions of their own to make this summer. Atlanta has the No. 8 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, and it would be an upset if the franchise did not take a guard or a big man with the selection if they stay at that spot. The last time we saw Atlanta, they averaged 88 points per 100 possessions in their blowout elimination loss to the Knicks, per CleaningTheGlass. Their offense, particularly in the halfcourt, got away from them after Game 3. While it was a jarring way for the Hawks to be eliminated at the time, New York is up 2-0 on the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals as of this writing and has won nine-straight playoff games. That first-round exit, as painful as it was, proved to be perfectly reasonable.

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To advance further in the postseason next year, Atlanta has to get bigger to help Okongwu, and perhaps that includes Michigan’s Aday Mara and his outrageous wingspan at No. 8. They also need their first-round pick from a season ago, Asa Newell, to become a factor, too. The Hawks have a long offseason ahead of them, but as thin as the frontcourt was down the stretch for Atlanta, the depth there could be flipped in quite a hurry. Mouhamed Gueye is in the final year of his deal, and Atlanta has a team-option decision to make on him, but you hope that’s picked up, and then see where things are next summer. He’s a plus-defender and a winning player for Atlanta. Landale proved to be a welcome late-season addition and provided another look inside for Snyder. His absence was felt majorly in that series against the Knicks. Okongwu is a fantastic player on a fantastic contract. That’s several different bigs with several different skillsets for Snyder to mix and match next season. It doesn’t mean Atlanta will be able to have quite that much depth, and we’ll see what they do at No. 8, but there are lots of reasons for optimism to help support Okongwu and prevent the Hawks from finding themselves in a situation inside as they did against New York this postseason.

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The Pistons have to pay Duren this summer. Tobias Harris is an unrestricted free agent. They’ve got fine rotation bigs Isaiah Stewart and Paul Reed under contract for next season, but Detroit, like Atlanta, is in a position where finding the right amount of shooting and defense to advance further in the postseason is quite complicated. Thompson and Duren are both tremendous players, but can they both be in Detroit’s best five-man lineups that advance to the NBA Finals? Do they prioritize selling high on one of those two guys to find Cunningham a veteran All-Star or borderline All-Star as the Robin to his Batman? What we know is the Pistons are a great team now with a top-10 player, well, now. Do they roll the dice with Thompson and Duren developing more offensively to make it all work with Cunningham and company?

I wonder if the same angst is shared by the Atlanta front office when it comes to Kuminga and Risacher, particularly due to the unique kind of all-around awesome player that Daniels is. The Great Barrier Thief is, admittedly, my favorite player on this team and an absolute delight to watch with the ball and without it. He is a winning player in so many ways, as evidenced by his +10.8 rating per 100 possessions, behind only McCollum at 10.9. (It should be noted that McCollum did play around 1,400 fewer minutes with the team than Daniels did last season after being acquired by the team in the Trae Young trade with the Washington Wizards.) He is a critical core piece, and while his three-point shooting improved a bit down the stretch – he shot 3-of-7 from deep in the final two games against the Knicks – you can’t bet on a major leap forward in the long-distance shooting department for a player like Daniels with just how bad it was over a huge sample size this season. You live with that, though, because he is an excellent driver, finisher, defender, and passer. It just means that Kuminga and Risacher have to be reliable threats from deep. More is on everyone else’s plate offensively, particularly Risacher and Kuminga. It means Risacher has to give you more, or it means Kuminga has to give you more, particularly in the postseason when things slow down, and the Hawks can’t crush teams in transition nearly as often.

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It would not be a surprise for Risacher and Holland II to play in the NBA for many years to come, but most of those years may not be with the team that drafted them. If the Hawks decline Kuminga’s team option, but then elect to re-sign him to a long-term extension, that probably does not bode well for Risacher’s long-term future in Atlanta. Or maybe they find a taker for Kispert’s contract this summer, and the team kicks the can down the road on having to decide between Kuminga and Risacher. If the Pistons envision Thompson and Duren as part of their long-term core with Cunningham, how does Holland II still fit into those plans after shooting under 25 percent from deep in his first two seasons in Detroit?

The Hawks and the Pistons are two teams in the East trying to become what the Boston Celtics and the New York Knicks have been the last two seasons. Two teams that have the right combination of offense and defense to be considered bona fide contenders. To get there, they will have to make tougher, faster decisions on players like Holland II and Risacher. The Wizards can wait on Alex Sarr. The Utah Jazz can wait on Ace Bailey. The Hawks and Pistons can’t wait for Risacher and Holland II.

With Daniels and Thompson, does that cancel out Risacher and Holland II? Do they have to move them now rather than risk another season where they aren’t mainstays in the rotation on two teams trying to compete at the top of the East? What the Pistons and Hawks resolve to do with both former lottery picks will be fascinating nonetheless. The teams have done so many things right, particularly on the margins, of late, and have a strong foundation. Now, though, to get to that next level, it’s almost a game of Jenga, where one bad decision here on one of these guys could bring the whole thing tumbling down.

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Before Sunday afternoon’s NBA Draft Lottery event, the Atlanta Hawks had the best odds at landing the No. 8 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft. After leaving Sunday afternoon’s NBA Draft Lottery event, the Hawks landed the No. 8 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft.

It’s an undeniable bummer for Hawks fans, but it wasn’t a devastating development Sunday afternoon like it was for the Indiana Pacers or the Brooklyn Nets.

There is plenty of time to write about who the Hawks should target with the No. 8 overall pick, but for now, I thought it’d be best to simply write my three biggest reaction thoughts coming out of Sunday afternoon’s developments.

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Let’s start with the biggest positive: the reason the Hawks were even in a position to be drafting this high after winning 47 games this season is that Hawks general manager Onsi Saleh fleeced the New Orleans Pelicans front office a season ago in a trade that ultimately netted the Hawks Asa Newell and the better of the Pels and Milwaukee Bucks pick in this year’s draft for the latter to move from pick no. 23 to pick no. 13 and take Derik Queen.

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There were no guarantees where that NBA lottery pick would ultimately land for the Hawks, though. The Hawks prepared for this opportunity to capitalize on a bit of lottery luck, were it to find them this year. Their process for the last year has been sound: trading Trae Young, trading the No. 13 pick for No. 23 and a 2026 unprotected lottery pick, acquiring Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Kristaps Porzingis, and re-signing Dyson Daniels to a team-friendly extension. All of which were very smart moves in Saleh’s first season as the lead decision-maker for the Hawks.

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It’s not Saleh’s or the Hawks’ fault that their lottery luck came in perhaps the worst year possible this century. Obviously, sneaking into the No. 1 overall pick in 2026 rather than 2024 would have been the preferred result for the Hawks, but that is not what happened.

Saleh, who just finished as a runner-up for the NBA Executive of the Year award, has hit a lot more than he has missed in his first season. His trade with the Pelicans last summer was a great one, even with the pick ultimately landing at No. 8. Both things can be true.

Second, with the eighth pick, the Hawks will need to take a lead ballhandler to eventually replace CJ McCollum or a big man to share minutes with Oneyka Okongwu. It’s early, but the NBA Draft Knowers seem to be mocking former Louisville one-and-done guard Mikel Brown Jr. to the Hawks, which makes a bunch of sense. The most realistic options seem to be some combination of Houston guard Kingston Flemings, Michigan big Aday Mara, fellow Michigan big Yaxel Lendeborg, Tennessee wing Nate Ament, and Arizona wing Brayden Burries.

The most important thing is that the Hawks will be able to add a really good prospect at No. 8 who can help them in one of those two ways. The absence of Porzingis for much of the regular season was a major problem for Atlanta, and the same was true with the absence of Jock Londale in the team’s first-round series with the New York Knicks. McCollum was a key part of Atlanta’s dominant five-man starting lineup down the stretch of the regular season. His struggles in the series against the Knicks also shone a bright light on what Atlanta needed help with going into next season. In a perfect offseason, McCollum returns and Londale returns, as both proved to be fantastic fits for head coach Quin Snyder’s team. They just need additional reinforcements. Perhaps that’s just a year older Asa Newell inside and a guard like Flemings or Brown Jr.?

That’s why an Ament or a Burries would be harder to see than a Flemings, Brown Jr., or Mara. Atlanta already has a logjam of unproven long-term answers there between Zaccharie Risacher and Jonathan Kuminga, along with Corey Kispert’s contract. You also learned that Dyson Daniels, who does everything well except shoot threes, and Alexander-Walker, who just won Most Improved Player of the Year, are two core guys on great contracts with the team, along with Johnson and Okongwu. If Saleh strictly goes best player available at No. 8 and on Atlanta’s board that player happens to be another wing, I would understand making the selection. However, it would also really complicate things with the roster, particularly in that one area.

Lastly, there is a bit of additional pressure on Saleh here. With Atlanta winning 47 games a season ago and a large portion of their core locked up on fantastic contracts for the next several seasons, this could be the last time Atlanta is drafting this high for a while, even with the pending NBA Lottery reform. (Unless New Orleans or Sacramento calls, then you never know.) Whether it’s Brown Jr., Flemings, or Mara, or whoever, they really need to hit. With the uncertainty surrounding what Risacher is or can still be going into Year 3, it’d be huge for the franchise if they can add one more key high-lottery piece to their young, fun core of players in Johnson, Daniels, Okongwu, and Alexander-Walker. If you nail this pick, you worry about what Kuminga or Risacher are or could still become less. You’ve just got to nail this pick because Atlanta is very close to another run of sustained success if the team can find one more long-term answer at No. 8 to pair with that five-man lineup that was a +21.4 per 100 possessions last season.

It can happen.

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The Atlanta Hawks continued their winning ways in Detroit on Wednesday night. The Detroit Pistons were without their star guard, Cade Cunningham, but the No. 1 seed in the East still gave Atlanta head basketball coach Quin Snyder’s team all it could handle.

With the victory, the Hawks would be the five-seed in the NBA Playoffs and would face the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round, rather than either the New York Knicks or Boston Celtics, who are both battling it out for the two-seed down the stretch of the 2025-26 NBA regular season.

The Hawks, who have now won fourteen of their last fifteen basketball games, made a statement on the road last night in their overtime victory over the best team in the East, a team they’d lost to in all three of their previous meetings this season.

Let’s dive into my three takeaways from last night’s victory.

Atlanta’s Backcourt Was Everything Last Night

Nickeil Alexander-Walker had 14 points in the first quarter. Both teams were on fire from everywhere on the floor to start the ball game. With around six minutes to go in the opening frame, the Hawks were shooting over 80 percent from the floor. It looked as though it was going to be another big scoring night for the NAW, but he only scored seven more points, including overtime, the rest of the game.

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It was the Hawks’ other backcourt starter, the veteran McCollum, who carried Atlanta to victory last night. He, like Alexander-Walker, started the game hot. McCollum connected on his first three attempts from deep. When McCollum and Alexander-Walker are rolling, particularly from deep, the Hawks are a really tough team to deal with, particularly because of how consistently good Jalen Johnson and Dyson Daniels are around them, with both being triple-digit threats every night out.

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But it was McCollum, late in the fourth quarter, and then in overtime, making one big shot after another. In the fourth quarter in particular, McCollum was hitting shots in a variety of ways. He was drilling shots from deep, sometimes on one foot with the shot clock winding down, hitting huge and-1 opportunities, and even some in the mid-range. The longtime NBA veteran is a delight to watch when he’s playing like he did last night in Detroit, and he was the biggest reason the Hawks beat the Pistons for the first time this season.

What The Heck Happened In The Third Quarter

The Hawks had a 92.7 percent chance of winning this basketball game with 52.9 seconds remaining in the second quarter when Atlanta led 69-50, per ESPN. The Hawks took an eighteen-point lead into halftime. It looked as though there was going to be a lot of garbage-time minutes in the fourth quarter, given where things were headed.

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Then the second half happened. The Pistons started the third quarter on a 16-0 run, and in less than half a quarter, the Hawks’ nearly 20-point lead had completely evaporated. They trailed at points in the third quarter. It was a jarring turn of events and a testament to J.B. Bickerstaff and his team for how they rallied at home after getting blown out in the first half.

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It was another veteran, not McCollum, who came up big for the Hawks in the third quarter, though – Gabe Vincent. He hit two huge threes in the third quarter and scored all of his points in this brutal frame for Atlanta. Without his jolt off the bench, that also included two steals, Atlanta might not have won this game. (Alexander-Walker also hit a huge pull-up three in transition late in the third quarter that felt huge at the time, too.)

Dyson Daniels And Jalen Johnson Were Great, Too

Johnson tied McCollum in most points scored for the Hawks last night at 27. However, it’s easy to recount all of the latter’s makes, while Johnson is so good and so efficient that he can coast to 27. He was two rebounds shy of another triple-double and played winning basketball all night long. He passed the ball, drew a lot of fouls, converted at the line, and continued to be the do-it-all star for Atlanta. But on nights where McCollum is hitting some of the shots he did, particularly late in the game, Johnson’s consistently elite play can be overlooked.

For Daniels, who continues to be the best watch for Atlanta, does so many things that impact winning, too. He nearly finished with ten offensive rebounds alone and finished with 13. He added two steals, assisted on two threes for the Hawks, and nearly had a triple-double when he took zero free throws and made zero threes.

Atlanta doesn’t have enough remaining games to catch the Cavaliers, New York Knicks, or Boston Celtics, but they will face the latter in two of their next three games. The first one is Friday night in Boston.

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The Toronto Raptors are smack dab in the middle of the Eastern Conference. At 39-29, Toronto would be the No. 5 seed in the NBA Playoffs if the season started today. The Raptors are likely to finish with their best record since their 2021-22 squad that won 48 games and lost in the first round of the playoffs. The Raptors under Darko Rajakovic have gotten a little bit better each of the last three seasons. It’s a similar rise to that of former Raptors head coach Dwane Casey, who went on his first three seasons at the helm after replacing Jay Triano. Toronto went from 23 to 34 to 48 wins in those first three seasons under Casey. Interestingly enough, the Raptors’ Net Rating in Year 3 under Casey was +3.5, and it’s now +2.2, good for 12th in the NBA. Casey guided those Raptors teams in the mid-2010s to 48 or more wins for five consecutive seasons. Is history about to repeat itself in Toronto?

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The Raptors’ preseason win-loss projection was 39.5, and with 14 games remaining on their schedule, Toronto should clear that number with ease. Coming into the year, Toronto had finished the regular season with a winning record just once in the last six seasons. The preseason expectation was more in the Play-In Zone, but to Rajakovic’s credit, the team has exceeded preseason expectations and could certainly make it out of the first round in the East for the first time since 2020. Toronto is 6th in the NBA in defensive rating, and their Expected W82 is 47.4, so right at that 48-win total, the 2021-22 Raptors team hit.

Toronto had two players make the All-Star team this year in Scottie Barnes and Brandon Ingram. Barnes and Ingram, along with Jakob Poetl, Immanuel Quickley, and RJ Barrett, are all signed through next season. That’s important, as the five-man unit that’s totaled 647 possessions together is +10.7. In fact, Toronto’s top-6 lineups in possessions played all have positive plus-minuses. It’s a solid team across the board. The Raptors are a solid professional basketball team that is also having a very solid season in the NBA.

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It has to be a bit of a sigh of relief for Bobby Webster and Toronto’s front office that the Raptors are playing at the level of a team pushing for fifty wins in the East, per CleaningTheGlass. We already knew the team nailed the Scottie Barnes selection years ago. In three of the last four seasons, Barnes has been in the 80-plus percentile in Efficiency Differential. Barnes is a winning player in so many ways, but he is shooting 29 percent from three this season, his second-worst percentage in his young NBA career. However, he also has the best eFG% of his career this season. Through five seasons, his shot diet has never included enough threes to account for 30-plus percent of his overall attempts. Barnes is just a very unique best player to have on a very solid team in 2026.

It’s fair to wonder with this team if they can be the Detroit Pistons of next season. The Pistons won 44 games a season ago and sit at 50-19 with thirteen games remaining in the regular season. The key difference is the ceiling, particularly on offense, between the Pistons’ star Cade Cunningham and Barnes. So there are some obvious similarities and some key differences between the two franchises. The Raptors’ calling card is their defense. Both are top-10 defenses this year, but the Pistons are right on the line of having a top-10 offense. It’s imperative to be in the top 10 in both to be a serious contender, as the Raptors were fifth in both metrics when they won the title in the 2018-19 season. The biggest wonder this year has been if the Pistons could get into the top-10 in offensive efficiency, and I suspect the same will be true for Toronto if this season is the start of another great run in Raptors basketball. You know they can defensively, but, as of right now, you have to really squint to see a top-10 offense in their immediate future.

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Perhaps a lot of it comes down to the development of Ja’Kobe Walter, a 2024 first-round pick. Or maybe it’s their 2025 Lottery pick out of South Carolina, Collin Murray-Boyles. The latter has been a plus-player in the 5-man lineups he’s played the most with this season. He’s played with two five-man lineups that have amassed more than 100 possessions together this season to a final total of +13.6. Murray-Boyles’ shot chart is significantly different than Poetl’s and is likely a big factor in where Toronto’s offense can go in the next couple of seasons, particularly next to Barnes at the 4. Similarly, Walter’s development in the backcourt is also important. With a modern shot-chart diet of threes and shots at the rim, what he ultimately evolves into on the offensive end matters for Toronto. 61 percent of his shots this season are threes, and he’s shooting better than league average at 37 percent. He’s shooting a super-efficient 44 percent on corner 3s, too. RJ Barrett will be an expiring contract next season, so Toronto needs to find out what Walter is or could be sooner rather than later.

Early returns on Murray-Boyles and Walter have been good. The Raptors have seemingly advanced out of the Lottery for a while, which makes Murray-Boyles and Walter, too, extremely important over the next several seasons. Ingram has been a success story and an All-Star in Toronto. Quickley and Barrett have been excellent in their increased roles. Poetl’s a seemingly Forever Solid big. It’s been a surprise to see Toronto be firmly out of the Play-In conversation this season, but the Raptors are in the middle of the East now. It can get old fast for fanbases to be stuck there, just as it can get old fast for fanbases to be stuck in the Play-In. Toronto probably needs some development luck with Murray-Boyles or Walter to move out of the middle, or maybe it’s just Barnes reaching another unexpected level offensively. Either way, the Raptors are a good team that figures to be good for the next couple of seasons. There is nothing harder in sports than going from good to elite, and that’s now the big question that faces Toronto this season and beyond.

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Let’s dive into my three key takeaways from last night’s win for the Hawks.

Dyson Daniels makes a huge impact all night long

Daniels started the game strong for the Hawks, dishing three assists and scoring two buckets at the rim in the first quarter. Outside of a Jalen Johnson floater or a Nickeil Alexander-Walker corner three, there is not a shot or look I feel better about for Atlanta than Daniels fighting his way through traffic inside. He’s either going to find a trailing Johnson for a dunk as he did late in this game, find somebody open on the perimeter, or he will lay it in for two easy points.

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Daniels impacts the game in so many different ways for the Hawks night in and night out. A common thing I write down on my trusty yellow notepad during games is whenever Atlanta looks out of sorts for any significant stretch of time, Daniels probably isn’t in the game. He played 36 minutes last night, and those 12 minutes he was off the floor were glaring. Only Oneyka Okongwu, who was fantastic in the first and fourth quarters tonight, had a higher plus-minus in this game than Daniels at +25 to +20, respectively.

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Daniels had a huge contest, stopping Marvin Bagley Jr. at the rim in the fourth quarter. The Hawks had forced 12 Mavericks turnovers with 6:54 left in the third quarter, with Daniels playing a large role in that. Overall, he flirted with a triple-double, posting a 14/7/10/3 line on the night. Daniels had the highest AST% of the night at 30.3% for the Hawks. That percentage fell in the 94th percentile on average, per CleaningTheGlass.

He did go 0-for-2 from three-point land, and while the Hawks broadcast encouraged Daniels to take those open threes, at 13% on the season now, I think it’s more of a Giannis Antetokounmpo situation from deep, where he should probably not ever shoot any threes, at least not for the remainder of this season. He’s too good at too many other things and doesn’t have to make any threes to be one of the Hawks’ best players every night out.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker’s Hot Shooting Continues

Alexander-Walker led the Hawks in scoring with 29. He was five-for-eight from three-point land overall, and drained two threes late to put the Mavericks away for good. I’ve written a lot about how good Alexander-Walker has been in his increased role with Atlanta this season, and this was another game where he was fantastic once again for the Hawks.

Alexander-Walker has been a big reason why the Hawks have won seven straight basketball games. Over his last three games, Alexander-Walker is 14-of-26 from deep. He’s scored 23 or more points in each of the last three games. Since the Hawks’ loss to the Miami Heat on February 20, Alexander-Walker has been hot from deep.

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When Alexander-Walker, along with Daniels, has nights like this to support the team’s All-Star forward Jalen Johnson, it’s a really fun and exciting team.

As the Detroit Pistons have swept the Hawks 3-0 in their season series, you hope the wins keep coming for Atlanta so they can avoid a first-round date with Cade Cunningham’s club. If Alexander-Walker keeps shooting like this from deep for a while longer, the Hawks just might be able to do that.

Hawks withstand vintage Klay Thompson and Khris Middleton Performances

I have watched Klay Thompson and Khris Middleton play a lot of basketball over the years—a lot of basketball. So, it was both exciting and frustrating to watch as two all-time great No. 2s on NBA championship teams continued to give Atlanta’s perimeter defenders all sorts of problems for most of the night in 2026.

In the third quarter in particular, Thompson and Middleton shot four of five from three-point land and six of seven from the field overall. The Mavericks stayed in the game largely due to what Thompson and Middleton were able to do in that third quarter against the Hawks. It can be a bit disorienting to watch both guys at this stage in their careers – where DID the time go, that sort of thing – but it felt like 2015 again watching multiple Hawks wings try and hang with the future Hall Of Famer on the perimeter to no avail in that third quarter.

Next up, the Brooklyn Nets come to State Farm Arena as the Hawks try to push their current win streak to eight games.

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The Detroit Pistons fell on the road to the San Antonio Spurs last night. The team has now lost back-to-back games for the first time in 2026 and just the third time overall this season. The Pistons are tied with the Boston Celtics for second in point differential at +8, only trailing the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder. Detroit can only lose six more times the rest of the way to reach the 60-win threshold. The team that lost sixty-plus games two seasons ago may very well win 60-plus this season. The Pistons haven’t won over 60 games in the regular season since the 2005-06 team that made it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals. The Pistons won fifty or more games for seven consecutive seasons between 2001 and 2008. Every Pistons fan is hoping for a similar run this season as the team closes in on fifty-plus wins.

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With so much attention on the NBA’s tanking problem of late, it’s easy to overlook all the great stories around the Association this season. Charlotte Hornets fans should be overjoyed about both their present and future. Toronto Raptors fans should be pleasantly surprised. New York Knicks fans should be thinking about a championship. In a season that hasn’t included one minute of Jayson Tatum, the Boston Celtics are still bona fide contenders, in what fans may have assumed might be a gap year. Out West, the aforementioned Spurs have arrived. The Phoenix Suns are eight games over .500 in mid-March. The Houston Rockets are still a top-4 seed without Steven Adams. The list goes on and on. There are great stories in so many places around the NBA.

But none better than the Pistons. Particularly if you’re a fan of the team. Former No. 1 overall pick Cade Cunningham looks to be a lead guard who will push to be in the MVP conversation for years to come. Another former lottery pick, Jalen Duran, made his first All-Star team this season. This franchise’s Expected W82 was 18.3 two seasons ago, but it skyrocketed to 59.7 this season. As of this writing, the Pistons are No. 2 in defensive points per possession, per Cleaning The Glass. If that number holds, it’d be their best team defense since the ‘07-08 Pistons. That run of excellence in the early 2000s was defined by Detroit being a consistently top-10 defensive team. With a defensive nucleus of Duren, Ausar Thompson, Isaiah Stewart, Cunningham, and Ron Holland II, you don’t have to squint too hard to see head coach J.B. Bickerstaff maintaining this level of defensive production in the years to come. When the Pistons won the 1990 NBA Finals, the team was second in defensive rating. They were second the last time they won the NBA Finals in 2004. They’re second in the NBA right now in defensive rating.

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The Cade Cunningham part of the equation is fascinating. His offensive scoring numbers are down, but the team has never been better. His 50.4 eFG% is in the 43rd percentile in the NBA, per CleaningTheGlass. However, he’s in the 96th percentile in assist percentage for his teammates in the NBA, per CleaningTheGlass. He’s been a league-average shooter from deep and at the rim, but he’s still distributing the basketball at an elite level. Cunningham is in the MVP conversation at 24 years old, despite not being a super-efficient scorer. His season-long plus-minus of +415 is sixth-highest in the NBA, where he’s surrounded by winning basketball players like Derrick White, Nikola Jokic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, etc.

The pressure is on teams like the Knicks and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the East. The Pistons haven’t won fifty-plus games in nearly 20 years. Knicks and Cavs fans saw this season as the year to get out of the Eastern Conference if they were ever going to do it, with no Tatum, or so they thought, and Tyrese Haliburton standing in the way. The Knicks made a coaching change and seemingly have the most pressure to break through of the bunch. The Cavs traded for James Harden ahead of the 2026 NBA Trade Deadline. Donovan Mitchell has been excellent in Cleveland for a while now. How do Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen fare this postseason? And yet, the Pistons sit atop the conference, in a prime position to spoil the party for both franchises.

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This is not to say the Pistons fanbase won’t get antsy in the years to come if they are winning fifty-plus games but never reaching the NBA Finals. However, Detroit has a lead guard who can be the best player on a championship team. The Hornets and Raptors are great stories, but they don’t have a player like that. Most teams in the League do not. Their ceilings don’t feel the same as Detroit’s with Cunningham and Duren. Some Detroit fans, I’m sure, hope this season ends with a championship, and it very well might, but the hope is that this is just the first of many runs atop or near the top of the Eastern Conference. They can dream about another seven-year run like the team enjoyed in the early 2000s. New York and Cleveland fans are thinking about the now. Boston fans have been there, done that. Detroit fans haven’t been here in twenty years.

Detroit is the party-crasher in the East this season, and it’s the best play to be for any fanbase in the NBA right now.

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It felt like the game was already over when the Atlanta Hawks jumped out to a quick 7-0 lead against the Washington Wizards on Tuesday night at State Farm Arena. Head coach Quin Snyder’s team, with its new starting five, started the game the way it needed to. The Hawks began the fourth quarter with a 36-point lead, but with so much garbage time in the final frame, the final score of 119-98 did not paint a good picture of how the game went.

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Even with All-Star forward Jalen Johnson leaving the game early with roughly 7:00 minutes remaining in the first quarter and never to return, Atlanta did not miss a beat. Key starters Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Oneyka Okongwu, and Dyson Daniels registered a collective in-game plus-minus of +69 in the blowout win over the Wizards.

With Johnson not returning to the ball game, forward Mouhamed Gueye got the start in the second half and took advantage. There was one sequence in the third quarter where Gueye had a steal, one of two he forced on the night, and then dunked it on the other end. In all, he added 11 boards, a couple of steals, and was a solid +3 in his 18 minutes for the Hawks in Johnson’s absence.

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Jonathan Kuminga, who was acquired by the Hawks along with Buddy Hield at the NBA Trade Deadline in a deal that sent Kristaps Porzingis to the Golden State Warriors, made his debut for the Hawks. The man who wears No. 0 could not have started his Atlanta Hawks career on a higher note than the show he put on against the Wizards last night. Kuminga had 27 points in just over 24 minutes, was 9-of-12 from the field, and 3-of-4 from deep. Kuminga flashed in transition, made several great passes, and showcased his elite athleticism by slamming home a couple of dunks.

Kuminga’s 27 points did not feel forced. He, along with every other Hawk, moved the basketball well all night as Atlanta racked up 33 assists. Atlanta leads the NBA in team assists per game at 30.4, and it’s easy to see why on nights like last night. The Hawks are perfectly content to eschew a good shot for a great shot when the moment calls for it. Five Hawks had three or more assists in this game. You wonder what that final assist tally might have been last night had Atlanta shot the ball better from 3, as the Hawks were a frigid 12-50 from three-point land.

Dyson Daniels continues to be a really interesting player to watch. One of my favorite things about him as a basketball player is how often he successfully drives into the paint. He’s a winning basketball player in many ways, as his AST% ranks in the 99th percentile, per Cleaning The Glass. The bizarre three-point shot stuff does not matter because he’s so good everywhere else on both ends of the floor. 51 percent of his shots come at the rim, which is in the 95th percentile in the NBA, per Cleaning The Glass, and although he needs to improve at his overall makes there, he’s solid enough. He’s an elite offensive rebounder for his position and is fifth in steals per game. It’s never a surprise when he has the highest single-game plus-minus for the Hawks, like he did last night against the Wizards.

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Outside of Daniels doing all the little things well and Kuminga scoring from everywhere on the basketball court, I thought about something: Is Alexander-Walker’s corner three the best look the team can have on any given offensive possession? Alexander-Walker splashed two in the third quarter. You knew the second both shots went up, they were going down. The former Minnesota Timberwolves guard is shooting 46 percent on corner threes this season. He shot 47 percent from three in the corner last year, so the increased usage and role haven’t affected him in the slightest from that area of the floor. Of course, the answer is still any shot by Jalen Johnson. Still, I maintain there is no look I feel more confident about with the Hawks than an open Alexander-Walker corner three.

But the biggest takeaway was what Kuminga did in his debut. (And maybe how much every team in the NBA could see a Justin Champagnie off the bench who was 4-of-6 from three for the Wiz.) It’s going to be fascinating to see how Snyder manages his minutes and what lineups he inserts Kuminga into down the stretch here. When he’s shooting like he did last night, you can envision a lot of minutes at the three. Zaccharie Risacher certainly looked more comfortable and energized coming off the bench in that first quarter. He was solid overall, particularly on the glass and on defense, but he’s shooting 28 percent from deep over his last ten games. I wonder how Snyder experiments with Kuminga, Risacher, Corey Kispert, and even Daniels at the three, the rest of the way.

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The Atlanta Hawks are back in action tomorrow at 7:00 PM EST on the road against the Philadelphia 76ers. Just 26 regular-season games remain for head coach Quin Snyder’s group. The Hawks sit at 26-30 on the season, and are riding a three-game losing streak coming out of the All-Star break that they would very much like to end in the City of Brotherly Love tomorrow evening.

With the time off from watching Hawks basketball, I’ve had some time to think about what big things I would like to see from the club in these final 26 games of the regular season.

Let’s dive into them.

Figure Out If Jonathan Kuminga Is A Keeper

Imagine telling any Atlanta Hawks fan in January that one of the biggest points of interest for the club after the All-Star Break will be whether or not Jonathan Kuminga proves to be a keeper for the franchise. After months and months and months of speculation over his cloudy future in Golden State, the former No. 7 overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft was traded to the Hawks along with Buddy Hield for Kristaps Porzingis. Kuminga is yet to make his Atlanta Hawks debut, but there isn’t a more fascinating figure to watch on this team over the next two months. The Hawks need Kuminga to be available sooner rather than later because they have to decide this summer whether or not to pick up the second year of the two-year extension he signed with Golden State before this season. His long-term potential fit in Atlanta is tricky, particularly with former No. 1 overall pick Zaccharie Risacher needing lots of minutes down the stretch at the same position. It will be interesting to see how Snyder manages the rotation once Kuminga is available to play – does Corey Kispert see a decline in minutes at the three? How does that work with Risacher, too? Does Snyder try Kuminga more as a stretch four behind Jalen Johnson? The Jonathan Kuminga Experience is going to be fascinating no matter which route Snyder and the team choose follow.

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How Does Nickeil Alexander-Walker Fit With Atlanta’s Core The Rest Of The Way

The Atlanta Hawks made a big bet on Nickeil Alexander-Walker in their sign-and-trade with the Minnesota Timberwolves last July. Alexander-Walker is under contract with the Hawks through the 2028-29 season. The Hawks’ brass nailed their NAW projection, as he has blossomed into one of Atlanta’s best stories this season. He’s a funky player who is a lot of fun to watch, especially when he gets hot from deep. The question is what role suits him best for the rest of this year and beyond? Alexander-Walker’s assist usage percentage is extremely low for an NBA lead guard, but he ranks in the 83rd percentile in points per 100 possessions, per Cleaning The Glass. He doesn’t turn the ball over at a high rate and does a good job drawing fouls. He’s great at corner threes. He’s a plus-player for Snyder, no question. Johnson and Daniels are the two most important players for Atlanta, but with Porzingis in Golden State, Alexander-Walker is next on that list. I’m curious to see what the McCollum-NAW-Daniels-Johnson-Okongwu five-man lineup continues to show in the point-differential department. I’m curious how Daniels and Alexander-Walker continue to share the backcourt and how to stagger that trio, McCollum included, the rest of the way.

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Play Mo Gueye A Lot More

Mo Gueye is a better player than Asa Newell right now. Newell is much more intriguing as an offensive big, while Gueye is much more intriguing as a defensive big. Gueye is also three years older than Newell. However, the Hawks are +1.7 points per 100 possessions better with Gueye on the floor this season. In 515 minutes last season, Gueye had a team-best efficiency differential at +9.4. Only Kispert has a worse efficiency differential in Snyder’s rotation right now than Newell’s -7.4. Newell could be a nice rotation piece down the line for Atlanta, but Gueye is a nice rotation right now for the Hawks. I’d like to see Snyder commit to Gueye consistently, particularly with Porzingis out of the picture.

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The NBA All-Star break came at a great time for the Atlanta Hawks. The club limped into the break on a three-game losing streak. Two of those three losses came against the Charlotte Hornets, who have now passed the Hawks in the Eastern Conference standings. The Hawks seem destined for yet another quick Play-In exit this spring, but we have a long way to go before we talk about the Hawks losing in Charlotte 138-111 to end their season, or something along those lines.

Let’s stay positive: the Hawks have a five-man lineup that is working. In 139 possessions together, the five-man lineup of CJ McCollum, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Dyson Daniels, Jalen Johnson, and Oneyka Okongwu is +25.1. It’s the best lineup that Atlanta has trotted out this season that has played more than 100 possessions together. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, I suppose, as the aforementioned five are also Atlanta’s five-best players right now. This lineup, working without a true point guard, already has me thinking about next season.

In May 2024, nearly two years ago now, the Atlanta Hawks caught a break from the Basketball Gods when they won the 2024 NBA Draft Lottery. Or at least it felt that way at the time. Second-year wing Zaccharie Risacher is a fine player. It seems likely that he will play in the NBA for many years to come. He’s already a league-average shooter from deep, which is obviously important for his career trajectory. However, he has an 18 percent usage rate, and 93 percent of his threes have been assisted this season. He doesn’t get to the free-throw line often. He’s near the bottom in the League in AST%. However, in the two lineups where he has played a combined 881 possessions this season, both units have a positive plus/minus. Oddly enough, the lineup Atlanta needed to play its best this season – Trae Young, Dyson Daniels, Zaccharie Risacher, Jalen Johnson, and Onyeka Okongwu – didn’t work as they were a -22.1 on the floor together in their brief 93 possessions.

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McCollum, whom the Hawks acquired in the trade that sent Trae Young to Washington, is an unrestricted free agent this offseason. The veteran guard will be 35 to start next season, so I wonder if he and Atlanta agree to a new deal that keeps him here for another year or two. He is not the same player he was in Portland, but he has his moments, like that first quarter against Minnesota a few nights ago. On a team that doesn’t feature many shot-creators, McCollum has been valuable in his brief time in an Atlanta uniform. Retaining McCollum could be important for general manager Onsi Saleh this offseason, as the veteran has fit in nicely and should be featured as a first-guy-off-the-bench player next season. This is especially true if that five-man lineup continues to show well over the Hawks’ remaining schedule.

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The Hawks could find themselves with the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft once again. The New Orleans Pelicans likely won’t have the worst record in the NBA, as the Sacramento Kings have lost fourteen straight games. Given where things stood just a few short weeks ago, the Hawks still maintain a great chance at picking within the top-4 in the 2026 NBA Draft. If the ping pong balls deliver for Atlanta in that fashion, the Hawks will be in a fantastic position to land one of Kansas’ Darryn Peterson, BYU’s AJ Dybantsa, North Carolina’s Caleb Wilson, Duke’s Cameron Boozer, Tennessee’s Nate Ament, or even Houston’s Kingston Flemings.

If the Basketball Gods are kind, the Hawks will pick somewhere in the top-4 in the 2026 NBA Draft. With Johnson, Daniels, Alexander-Walker, and Okongwu, you feel good about those four on the floor together in crunch time. They should each be considered part of your immediate core. Alexander-Walker has made a huge jump in his expanded role in Atlanta, and it’s fair to explore what he might look like paired with a high-usage backcourt mate like Peterson or Dybantsa.

Risacher, Corey Kispert, Mouhamed Gueye, and Asa Newell project as helpful rotation pieces next season. The Hawks will need to add another big man in the offseason. McCollum as a third guard would be really nice, depending on who the Hawks land in the lottery this summer. Wilson, Ament, or Boozer are not the cleanest fits next to Johnson. Maybe Illinois’ sharpshooter Keaton Wagler is an option for Atlanta.

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The more I write about it and the more I think about it, the case for Ament to be No. 3 on Atlanta’s board after Peterson and Dybantasa works. Daniels and Ament would be a great 1-2 punch for Atlanta’s perimeter defense. Ament doesn’t have to be a four to thrive in Atlanta. He has shown a lot more playmaking over the last month in Knoxville, too. A young core of Johnson, Ament, and Daniels is compelling. If Peterson or Dybantsa are there when Atlanta is on the clock, they are the pick. However, I think the cleanest Johnson-Daniels core pairing after that pivots to Ament.There is some Jayson Tatum-Jaylen Brown logic to a long-term pairing of Johnson and Ament.

It’s exciting, though. That Peterson or Dybantsa could wind up in Atlanta. The five-man unit of Peterson-NAW-Daniels-Johnson-Okongwu is extremely fascinating. Same if you insert Dybantsa in for Peterson. Those are your home-run scenarios. After that, it doesn’t get dicey, but it does get complicated. Boozer would be tempting at the No. 3 slot, but I don’t like the long-term fit next to Johnson and Johnson projects as a multi-time All-Star in Atlanta. You already have your Star Duke Forward. You need either a high-usage guard that can defend or a long wing who can defend multiple positions and join Daniels in establishing a higher floor defensively for head coach Quinn Snyder’s team next season.

The NBA season is not over – we’re just on a brief break. The Pelicans could catch the Kings or Wizards at the bottom of the standings. The Milwaukee Bucks could shock us all and do the same. Most importantly, the Hawks’ five-man unit’s success with McCollum, Alexander-Walker, Daniels, Johnson, and Okongwu could serve as a continued reminder of how good and how fun the Hawks could be with Peterson or Dybantsa in that spot next season.

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I don’t know if the Cleveland Cavaliers will win an NBA championship this season. I do know that they have continued to make moves that put them in a great position to. As of this writing, the Cavs are 33-21 and just a game-and-a-half back of the Boston Celtics for the 2-seed in the Eastern Conference. If the NBA Playoffs began today, Cleveland would play the Toronto Raptors, which could be a major problem, as the Raptors are 3-0 against the Cavs this season. The Cavs have won four straight games and have won nine of their last 10 overall. Cleveland is also 14-8 against Western Conference teams this season. There is a reason for hope and optimism for the Cavs right now.

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The Cavs took a big swing by sending Darius Garland to the Los Angeles Clippers for James Harden ahead of the 2026 NBA Trade Deadline. Cleveland included a second-round pick in the deal, too, and then the 11-time NBA All-Star was a Cav. The Beard has played in two games for Cleveland, the Cavs have won both, and Harden has posted a line of 23/8/6. The Cavs are fifth in offensive rating, trailing four other title contenders, the Denver Nuggets, Boston Celtics, New York Knicks, and Oklahoma City Thunder, in that order. Garland has appeared in just 26 games this season, while Harden has nearly doubled that output with his 46. At 36, Harden is still routinely available. He plays 35-plus minutes a night and is averaging his highest PPG since the 2020-21 season, a year he was an All-Star and finished 13th in MVP voting. Harden’s addition to Cleveland was a worthy gamble, and one all NBA fans could win come playoff time with three of the top five offenses in the NBA residing in the East.

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Before Harden, the Cavs made a bigger swing for Donovan Mitchell. The former Louisville star is 9th in the NBA in WS. He is sixth in VORP. Mitchell has been a fantastic player for the Cavs. Mitchell has been an All-Star every year in Cleveland. His numbers across the board are remarkably consistent from the time he got to Cleveland to now. The Cavs gave up a lot to acquire Mitchell in 2022. It included three unprotected first-round picks that went to Utah, two pick swaps, Lauri Markkanen, Collin Sexton, and Ochai Agbaji. The Jazz have not qualified for the postseason since the Mitchell trade. Cleveland has won 65 percent of their games since the start of the 2020 NBA season. They could clear 100 wins combined over the last two seasons if things continue to trend in the right direction for Cleveland this season.

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It was obviously a disappointment for Cavs fans to get bounced in the Eastern Conference Semifinals last season after finishing with the best record in the East. We’re coming up on eight years since the Cavs last made the NBA Finals, much less the conference finals. But that could change this season. The East is wide open at the top. Cleveland, Boston, New York, and Detroit all have compelling cases to make the NBA Finals this year. None would be a major surprise.

The Cavs have continued to do the little things well, too. J.B. Bickerstaff was a good coach for Cleveland for a long time. They replaced him with Kenny Atkinson, who should be a good coach for a long time. Cleveland sent DeAndre Hunter to Sacramento for Keon Ellis and Dennis Schroder, two guards who should really help them. They’ve drafted role players well of late. They’ve missed on guys like Hunter and Lonzo Ball, but they addressed both before the trade deadline this season. Cleveland’s front office has done a whole lot more right than wrong for a long time now.

They just need some luck, as so many other teams not named the Oklahoma City Thunder do, too. Nobody really believed in Cleveland last year, even as the team accumulated 64 wins. After that second-round exit, nobody will believe in the Cavs again this postseason.

A first-round date against Toronto is something the team should want to avoid. The Raptors not only have the Cavs’ number, but they are playing with fool’s gold based on where folks thought they’d be before the season.

The Indiana Pacers made it out of the East last season. The Cavs could make it out of the East this season. With a top-10 offense and a top-10 NETrtg, the Cavs are in the mix. They did what they were supposed to do and got better at the NBA Trade Deadline. That does not mean they’ll end their Eastern Conference Finals drought this season, but they have done the most important thing you want to see as a fan – lead with boldness and try.

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In the blowout loss, the newly acquired from Los Angeles, Gabe Vincent, played 19 minutes off the bench. Jock Londale played 18 minutes off the bench. Buddy Hield entered and quickly exited the game after five minutes of action. Asa Newell started both halves at the four and was 1-for-5 from the floor. CJ McCollum started for the Hawks and had 18 in the first. Atlanta’s defense was horrific, as the Timberwolves had 81 points in the first half. It’s a troubling trend for Atlanta, as the Hawks are dead last in the NBA in defensive efficiency over their last three games.

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The Hawks did what they usually do without their star forward Jalen Johnson in the lineup this season – they lost. Atlanta is 1-5 this season when the first-time All-Star is not available. The Hawks are also 0-3 when their pesky guard Dyson Daniels does not suit up. They were both unavailable last night, so the final result should not have been a surprise for the folks who watch a lot of Hawks basketball.

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That’s not the crux of this piece, though. The Hawks are now 26-29, which feels like something they’ve been every year for half a decade now. It’s an Atlanta professional sports problem, really. If you ask any Atlanta Falcons fan to guess the team’s record for any of the last five years, they would guess something in the ballpark of .500 or just a couple of games below it. The Hawks have an average win percentage of 47.5 percent over the last four years. Their franchise's average win percentage overall is 49.3 percent. The Hawks have a win percentage of 47.3 percent this season. It’s inescapable. Or at least it’s starting to feel that way.

The Hawks still have 27 games left to play. They’re in the Play-In if the season ended today. A spot they’re all too familiar with, where they’re sandwiched between the Miami Heat, who knocked them out in this same scenario last season, and the Charlotte Hornets, who have won nine of their last ten games. It is very unlikely that the Hawks win two play-in games and make the playoffs this season.

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Outside of watching the all-around brilliance of Jalen Johnson most nights, what’s the hook for Hawks fans over these final 27 games? It’s a weird rotation with guys like Londale and Vincent in the fold. Corey Kispert looks like a nice rotation piece for the next couple of seasons – he had a drive last night where he finished with his left hand on Rudy Gobert that was especially impressive. Alexander-Walker is a funky player in the best ways. His quick sidestep threes are a delight to watch. He’s a great rebounder for his position. He plays hard all the time. Outside of Johnson, he’s my favorite player on this year’s Hawks team.

One of the key You Have To Watch Atlanta Down The Stretch points should be former No. 1 overall pick Risacher. Last night was a great example of why that is not the case. With Johnson and Daniels unavailable, and a rookie starting next to him with Newell, it was a nice opportunity for the wing to have a nice night. Instead, he went 1-for-9 from the floor, an ugly 0-for-6 from deep, in 21 minutes of action. Risacher is not a terrible NBA player, but he’s not a great one right now. He’s also just not a fun watch most nights. Riscacher, like the Hawks over the last five seasons, is painfully average. He’s fine.

The You Have To Watch Atlanta Down The Stretch point is really Jonathan Kuminga. The Mystery Man from Golden State is yet to debut for the Hawks. Vincent made his debut for the Hawks last night. McCollum and Kispert have played for the Hawks. Hield made his brief cameo last night in the Twin Cities. All eyes are on Kuminga, a polarizing wing who may or may not be in Atlanta’s long-term plans. I don’t know, but I’d love to find out.

With nothing to play for outside of another quick Play-In elimination in a couple of months, lots and lots of Kuminga minutes make sense for the Hawks. Is he a three or a four? The 23-year-old has appeared in just 67 games over the last two seasons. I have no idea what Kuminga is in Atlanta. Outside of watching Johnson and Alexander-Walker play a really fun, winning brand of basketball 27 more times this season, the intrigue lies primarily with Kuminga.

While we’re on Kuminga Watch, Atlanta will be a Weird Watch. It’s an odd mix of talent right now. The Hawks are truly awful defensively right now. But Johnson is a true cornerstone piece. Daniels and Alexander-Walker could be, too. I have changed my mind on Okongwu too often to count. Even weirder, the Hawks could welcome another No. 1 overall pick into the fold this summer if the ping pong balls bounce the right way for Atlanta for the second time in three years.

It’s all weird for the Atlanta Hawks.

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There are lots of bad teams in the NBA right now. You have the Indiana Pacers, the Washington Wizards, the New Orleans Pelicans, the Brooklyn Nets, the Utah Jazz, and the Sacramento Kings. All different, but all bad nonetheless. The latter now owns the worst record in the NBA at 12-40. The Pelicans also have 40 losses on the season, but they have notched one more win than the Kings. The tremendous trio made up of Monte McNair/Wes Wilcox/Mike Brown in Sacramento basketball already feels like a lifetime ago. As doom and gloom as it is right now in Sacramento, the Kings do have their first-round pick in this year’s draft, which is not something another team with 40 losses in the West can say. In fact, the Kings own their own first-round pick the rest of this decade.

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That’s something, right?

Just take a gander at the starting five for the Kings on ESPN’s Depth Chart page. Those names include Russell Westbrook, Zach LaVine, DeAndre Hunter, DeMar DeRozan, and Domantas Sabonis. That’s 20 All-Star appearances among those five names – only Hunter has never made an NBA All-Star team. The former Virginia wing is also the youngest in the group at 28 years old. With Keegan Murray out due to injury, what stands out most about this 5-man unit is that all should not be on the Kings past today’s NBA Trade Deadline.

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But the Kings just traded for Hunter, which I will get to later on in this piece. The Kings have their own pick in what looks to be one of the best NBA Drafts in a long time. But they need to do more. Murray doesn’t project as a multi-time All-Star, and although he’s 25 now, he could easily integrate into the next timeline for Sacramento if they were to pivot that way starting after the 2026 NBA Draft. For everyone else in that temporary starting lineup, they should be somewhere else. The collection of Westbrook, LaVine, DeRozan, and Sabonis could all help lots of teams going for it right now, and yet all of them may be with Sacramento past today’s NBA Trade Deadline.

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The Kings have made one quasi-major move ahead of today’s trade deadline, trading Dennis Schroder and Keon Ellis to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Hunter in a three-team deal. Reserve veteran big man Dario Saric was sent to the Chicago Bulls in the trade as well. It was an uninspiring deal for the Kings, as Ellis was maybe the team’s best trade chip, outside of Murray and Sabonis. Moving off Schroder is fine, but moving off Ellis, too, without getting a young guard in return like Sam Merrill, Tyrese Proctor, or Jaylon Tyson is a bit sad if you’re a Kings fan, I imagine. Ellis seems like a perfect complement to James Harden and Donovan Mitchell when the Cavs stagger their two star guards at different times this season. For the Kings, Hunter doesn’t fit their timeline, or at least he shouldn’t, and you moved a guy seemingly everybody else in the NBA Media Conglomerate likes as a throw-in to get a guy who will be an unrestricted free agent after next season.

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I think a lot about GMIB’s Tom Ziller and his piece on his Kings fandom at SB Nation from half a decade ago now. It’s got to be just as dispiriting as ever for a franchise that looked as though they were finally turning the corner as a stable organization with McNair, Brown, Wilcox leading the way and a core of quality NBA players in Sabonis, Murray & De’Aron Fox. The Kings won 48 games in the 2022-23 NBA season and made the playoffs for the first time since Rick Adelman was the head coach in 2005-06. One playoff appearance in two decades is brutal. Just brutal.

That 2022-23 Kings squad was No. 1 in the NBA in ORtg. First! Now, this year’s Kings are on pace to have their worst DRtg in franchise history at 120.6. It’s the third-worst figure in the NBA this season. They also have the second-worst offense in the NBA this season. The Kings are a bad basketball team, but they are also both a bad AND old basketball team. It’s just not where you ever want to be in the NBA. The saving grace, though, is that the Kings have their first-round picks through 2030. There is still time to move guys like Sabonis and LaVine. If you’re general manager Scott Perry, you look at what the other bad teams in the West have done: Utah, Memphis, and Dallas are all making moves. Different kinds of moves, with the Jazz readying to compete next season while Memphis and Dallas are shifting their focus to their young guys in Cooper Flagg, Cedric Coward, and Zach Edey. Ja Morant has been linked to the Kings, but Morant does not make any sense for the Kings.

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So we’ll see what the Kings do today and later this summer. We’ll see where the ping pong balls fall in the lottery. The Kings could wind up with a Darryn Peterson, AJ Dybantsa, or Cameron Boozer, and things look a lot better sooner rather than later. Look at how fast things deteriorated from that 2022-23 playoff squad to now. The same could theoretically happen the other way. It starts with moving Sabonis and LaVine. Maybe DeRozan, too. It continues with some lottery luck. It could all happen, but, man, I understand if you’re a Kings fan reading this and don’t expect it to happen.

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