Corey Kispert’s first few months in Atlanta never really took off, and that made his slide out of the rotation easy to understand. The Hawks brought him in as a knockdown shooter, but the outside touch didn’t show up the way they needed, and the defensive end left them exposed enough that his minutes kept shrinking as the season moved along.
That’s the kind of arc shooters live with. A move in the middle of a season can throw everything off, especially for a player who had spent several years in one place before landing somewhere new. Sometimes it only takes a little time - and the right setting - for the rhythm to come back.
Kispert offered a strong reminder of that in Atlanta’s first preseason game. In 20 minutes off the bench, he scored a team-high 19 points and went 7-for-11 from the field, including 4-for-7 from three-point range. He was asked to provide offense for the second unit, and he delivered.
The makes weren’t empty ones, either. For a shooter like Kispert, the real value starts with confidence. If he’s going to be on the floor, he has to keep firing and force defenses to pay attention, even when the shot isn’t dropping every time.
That’s why this version of Kispert matters to Quin Snyder. With everyone healthy, it would be easy to say there’s no room for him to jump back into a nightly role.
He lost that spot for a reason last season. But Monday’s showing at least reopened the door, and it did so in a way that’s hard to ignore when he played the third-most minutes on the team.
There’s also a track record that suggests this isn’t a fluke. Kispert shot 35% from deep as a rookie with Washington, then bounced all the way up to 42.4% the following season. That kind of turnaround is exactly why the Hawks may want to be patient before writing off what he can do.
If Atlanta starts the season fighting through team-wide shooting struggles, Kispert could become more than just a preseason bright spot. He already knows the system.
He knows the group. And he knows his job: let it fly.
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Embiid still changes everything for Philadelphia when he is healthy, but the margin for error behind him keeps getting thinner, and that matters in a postseason series where every matchup gets squeezed. The Hawks have their own frontcourt questions to answer, too, which is why internal development there remains so important if they want to turn this into a real advantage. If Atlanta can keep building up that area of the roster, the Sixers may find themselves a little more vulnerable than they expected in a head-to-head matchup. [Read more 🡒]