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The Atlanta Hawks are entering the 2025-26 season as one of the most improved teams of the offseason — gearing up for a playoff push in the wide-open Eastern Conference. They had one of the busiest offseasons, capitalizing on the Boston Celtics' need to trim their payroll by trading for Kristaps Porzingis and capitalizing on the Minnesota Timberwolves' lack of cap space by signing Nickeil Alexander-Walker away from them in free agency.
Whether or not that results in a playoff season, only time will tell, but one thing's for sure: they are positioned to compete for a top-four spot in the conference with their offseason additions. Trae Young needs a certain kind of roster built around him for the Hawks to thrive, and they seem to have done just that — surrounding him with the long, disruptive guards and forwards that could help more than make up for his shortcomings on the defensive end.
With the NBA releasing the schedule for the 2025-26 season, Hawks fans are raring to see their new-look team in action and whether or not they have enough to replicate their magical 2020-21 season where they made it all the way to the Conference Finals and even made it difficult at times for eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks.
Here are a few predictions for how the following campaign will turn out for the Hawks.
Trae Young makes All-NBA, finishes top 10 in MVP voting
Young isn't the most beloved NBA player among members of the media. As talented as the Hawks star is, the issues in his game can be glaring and tend to get magnified. For starters, he is widely-known as one of the worst perimeter defenders in the league, and he's an easy target for opposing teams in pick-and-roll situations.
Moreover, Young plays such a heliocentric brand of basketball; he is one of the most ball-dominant players in the league, and the Hawks can only go as far as he takes them, especially on offense — which is part of his design as a basketball player.
But amid all the criticisms levied against Young, many have lost sight of what he brings to the table. He is an incredible playmaker who brings out the best in his teammates, he is a threat from everywhere on the court, leveraging the threat of his pull-up shot and floater to generate easy shots for his team, and he knows every trick in the bag in pick-and-roll situations.
There is no coincidence whatsoever that Young led the league in assists last season, averaging 11.6 per contest. With the departure of Dejounte Murray, he was once again back in a commandeering role for the offense and he responded with his career-best playmaking season.
Considering how the Hawks have gone all-in on building around Young considering how they put as many rangy defenders around him as possible, Atlanta appears to be poised for a huge season.
With Jalen Johnson returning to take the next step in his game, Dyson Daniels and Zaccharie Risacher improving by leaps and bounds in their second season with the team, and Porzingis being yet another playmaking target for Young in pick-and-pops, the Hawks have a team that is very functional on paper and could, at best, be the third-seed in the conference considering how wide-open everything is.
With the success this Hawks squad is going to achieve, Young will be getting the recognition he deserves, earning himself just the second All-NBA selection of his career (following up his All-NBA Third Team selection in 2022) while finishing in the top-10 in MVP voting with averages of 25/3/12 on 45/36/88 shooting splits.
Jalen Johnson makes the All-Star team, giving Hawks two representatives
Johnson was hyped up as one of the biggest breakout candidates prior to the start of the 2024-25 season, and he did not disappoint. He was a nightly 20-10 threat, and he synergized quite well with Young as an athletic forward who is an easy target for lobs all while being a more self-sufficient scorer in his own right, particularly from within 15-feet.
He was already so much better during his first year as a starter during the 2023-24 campaign, but he took another step last year and averaged 18.9 points, 10.0 rebounds, and 5.0 assists per game before an unfortunate torn labrum in his left shoulder prematurely ended his season. Following Johnson's injury, the Hawks couldn't get much of anything going before they ended up crashing and burning in the play-in tournament despite being the eight-seed.
But now that Johnson is back healthy, the sky is the limit for the 23-year-old forward. With the team around him being much improved and the paint being less clogged now that he's expected to partner with Porzingis in the frontcourt, Johnson will have so much space to dominate the paint for the Hawks.
Johnson looks like the kind of player who'll do so much better on a team with more talent around him, and it's not a stretch to say that he could average 20/11/5 with 1.5 steals and 1.1 blocks per game on 52/33/74 shooting splits. That should be good enough to net the Hawks two All-Star nods (with Young being the other), especially if they have a good record around the All-Star break.
Dyson Daniels finishes second in DPOY voting… again
Hawks fans would argue just how deserving of a DPOY winner Daniels would have been after the historic season he put up last season on the steals front. No one could dream up of a better partner for Young in the backcourt than the Great Barrier Thief, the man who averaged over three steals a game last season.
Alas, guards rarely win the DPOY award, especially in seasons where a notable big man catches the attention of voters. Last season, it was Evan Mobley who drew the acclaim from voters after anchoring the Cleveland Cavaliers' defense during their 64-win season. Meanwhile, Daniels, despite being the most disruptive defender in the NBA, didn't exactly anchor a top defense, with the Hawks ranking just 18th in the league in points allowed per 100 possessions.
The Hawks' defense is expected to be better this year, and there's no reason to expect Daniels to be lesser of a steals threat even with opposing teams game-planning for him more vigilantly.
However, Victor Wembanyama is always lurking in the shadows and after the interesting offseason he's had, he might end up taking the next step in his career — leading the San Antonio Spurs to a winning season by being the most intimidating presence in the paint since the days of Dwight Howard, Ben Wallace, or even Hakeem Olajuwon.
Daniels, in a rough stroke of poor luck, will end up finishing second in the DPOY race yet again in this hypothetical.
Hawks win the Southeast Division, earn the 3-seed in the conference
The Hawks look like the early favorite to win the division; on paper, it looks as though the Orlando Magic will be their only realistic competition. The Miami Heat could always play above expectations as they always seem to do under head coach Erik Spoelstra, but they don't have a star-caliber player like Jimmy Butler anymore to help them punch above their weight class.
Meanwhile, the Washington Wizards and Charlotte Hornets are expected to be doormats yet again for the rest of the NBA.
That leaves the Magic, a team that also made a major move this offseason when they traded for Desmond Bane. Bane helps solve the Magic's biggest issue, namely three-point shooting. Their defense is already elite; once their offense catches up, then the Eastern Conference should be afraid of them.
It remains to be seen, however, if Bane alone will be enough to power the Magic's offense to respectability when they finished last year as the worst three-point shooting team in the league, both from a volume and efficiency standpoint.
The roster the Hawks constructed simply invite fewer questions than the Magic's, so they get the nod as the hypothetical division winner in this predictions piece.
