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The Atlanta Hawks were one of the teams who made a huge addition in the offseason. Dejounte Murray was acquired by the Hawks as the San Antonio Spurs decided to go in another direction starting this year. NBA pundits have contrasting opinions on two ball-dominant point guards Dejounte Murray and Trae Young, but one guarantee for this tandem is the excitement level will be top-notch in Atlanta this year.
Head coach Nate McMillan is back with another tour of duty, along with the starting frontcourt of John Collins and Clint Capela. Bogdan Bogdanovic is expected to bounce back from a subpar 2021-22 campaign, while the Hawks fans are eager for De'Andre Hunter to stay healthy and breakout in his fourth season in the NBA. Even with the stacked team, it will be an insurmountable road for the Hawks to win the championship in 2023.
Lack of bench depth
In the opening statements, Atlanta's star power in the first unit will not be enough to compete with the likes of the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Brewers for the top spot in the Eastern Conference. When the Hawks reached the 2021 East Finals, they lost the likes of Kevin Huerter, Danilo Gallinari, and Lou Williams from that iteration of Atlanta.
Several struggles last year prompted the organization to execute huge moves, such as the Murray trade. The bench will likely be led by Bogdan Bogdanovic and Onyeka Okongwu, but that is far from being enough to supplement the starting five. Justin Holiday is another wing who will be expected to log a substantial amount of minutes, but the tough aspect is expecting youngsters AJ Griffin or Jalen Johnson to contribute instantly. Furthermore, a minor injury to any of the first-unit guys will be tough to rectify because of their lack of depth.
Uncertainty of Young, Murray pairing
The Hawks fans are ecstatic that the organization continues to build around Trae Young. The glaring question mark with the tandem of Trae Young and Dejounte Murray is how each player can excel even when the rock is not in their hands. Both have still not proven to do that at that juncture of their career, so that will be a significant challenge in the first few months of the season.
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With an undersized facilitator like Young, the more ideal scenario would be adding a guard with a similar style as Klay Thompson or Paul George. Thus, the challenge would be putting Trae Young in schemes that would lessen the burden on him compared to previous seasons but still put up excellent numbers. For Murray, he will need to become more of a catch-and-shoot threat because he will have a plethora of open looks with the terrific ability of Young to break down defenses every night.
Triple towers at the front court
Other fans may see the triple tower combination as an advantage for the Atlanta Hawks, but it does not seem like it. Clint Capela and Onyeka Okongwu cannot be on the floor at the same time because the floor will shrink due to their lackluster outside shooting. The ceiling of Okongwu is tremendous, but the coaching staff hesitates to play him more minutes because Capela will start being disappointed if he is stuck on the bench.
If McMillan can unleash Okongwu at some point in the season, his full trajectory will be phenomenal for Atlanta. The other issue is how John Collins fits at the four positions for the Hawks. Over the past two seasons, there have been rumors of Collins being unhappy with his role, which may have caused the dip in his numbers last year. The passes from Young have been fantastic, but Collins has trouble contributing in a myriad of ways on both ends of the floor which has caused Atlanta some headaches.
It will be interesting to watch Atlanta this year and how they will be able to maneuver through the regular season with the current roster.
