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.
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.
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?
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.