The Atlanta Hawks may be getting overlooked again, and that’s hard to justify after the kind of offseason they’ve put together.
Less than a month remains before training camps open, and the East has gotten tougher. Even so, Atlanta has stayed somewhat off the radar despite last season’s finish and a summer that brought real changes.
CJ McCollum and Jock Landale are back, the Hawks added three rookies - including Kingston Flemings with the No. 8 pick - and they also traded for Lu Dort and Aaron Wiggins, among others. The result is a roster that looks deeper, tougher, and more physical, with Atlanta positioned to fight for a playoff spot again.
The question now is which Hawks are still flying under the league’s radar.
Jalen Johnson fit that label last season and answered it by making his first All-Star team and earning Third Team All-NBA honors. This year, the spotlight feels like it should land on Onyeka Okongwu.
Okongwu has improved every season, but he still doesn’t get treated like one of the league’s better centers. That doesn’t mean he belongs in the top five conversation. It does mean he’s closer to the NBA’s top 10 at the position than most people seem willing to say.
His size keeps him from being an elite rim protector, but he brings value in plenty of other ways. He rebounds better than he gets credit for, makes the right read as a passer and can hit the open cutter, defends both on the perimeter and in the paint, and has already shown he can stretch his shooting beyond the arc.
Dyson Daniels is another Hawk who deserves more respect than he gets.
He has already won the NBA’s Most Improved Player Award, finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting, and made the All-Defensive team in each of the last two seasons. Still, he doesn’t seem to be valued properly around the league.
The defensive reputation is real. Daniels is one of the league’s elite defenders and one of its best at generating steals and extra possessions. The issue is that too many people look only at his three-point percentage and label him a weak offensive player.
There’s no question he needs to shoot better from deep, but his offense brings more than that. Daniels ranked in the 94th percentile in offensive rebounding for a wing per Cleaning the Glass and posted a career-high 23.1 AST%. If the jumper comes around, he has the profile of an All-NBA-caliber player.
Aaron Wiggins was one of Atlanta’s first offseason additions, and the Hawks are betting that a larger role will bring more out of him.
He has been viewed as a Thunder castoff, and his playoff struggles this postseason have only fed that perception. But the Hawks believe there’s more in the tank. Wiggins is a versatile defender and a capable three-point shooter, and he should get a chance to do more offensively in Atlanta.
He looks like one of the team’s best bench pieces and has the kind of profile that could put him in the Most Improved conversation.
In Other News...
Hawks Face A Veteran Roster Crunch They Cant Avoid
Atlantas roster is already at 17 players, and the front office has a familiar summer problem to solve before training camp arrives in 2027: trim the group down to the 15-man limit without undercutting the depth it has built. It is the kind of decision that usually lands somewhere between basketball fit and financial practicality, and the Hawks are clearly spending time weighing both as they sort out the shape of the bench for the coming season.
Buddy Hield and Corey Kispert have emerged as the names to watch in that conversation, each for different reasons tied to role and contract value. Atlanta does not appear to have a simple answer here, which is why the roster crunch has become more than a bookkeeping exercise. The Hawks are still evaluating whether the cleanest path is to cut or move one of those veterans, and the next step will say plenty about how aggressively they want to manage the back end of the roster. [Read more 🡒]
Hawks Fans Have A Real Reason To Watch New Orleans Closely
New Orleans has added another scorer to a roster that already carries plenty of intrigue, and for Hawks fans, the Pelicans are suddenly worth tracking a little more closely. Bennedict Mathurin, who was a key scoring presence for the Indiana Pacers in the 2025 NBA Playoffs, is now headed to a team that already has Zion Williamson, Dejounte Murray, Trey Murphy, Herb Jones, Yves Missi and Derik Queen in the mix, giving the Pelicans even more talent to sort through.
The fit is where it gets interesting. Mathurin brings shot-making, but his limitations on defense and as a playmaker leave New Orleans with another real lineup question to answer, especially with trade chatter already circling parts of the roster. For Atlanta, the appeal is obvious: the more volatile New Orleans becomes, the more closely the Hawks have to watch what happens next. [Read more 🡒]
Hawks Deadline Idea Would Address A Problem Fans Know Too Well
The Hawks interior defense has been a familiar sore spot, and a proposed deadline fix has them looking at a big man who could help clean up the paint without costing them a headline-grabbing return. In the hypothetical scenario, Atlanta lands Jay Huff from Indiana, a move built around the idea that his length and rim protection would give the roster a different look on the back line while the Pacers consider a modest reshuffle of their own.
Any such deal would come down to whether both sides see enough value in the exchange to pull the trigger, since Atlanta would be chasing a targeted upgrade rather than a full-scale overhaul. The appeal is clear for the Hawks: a chance to address a problem fans have watched drag on for too long, with the trade talk centered on fit, timing and whether this is the kind of under-the-radar addition that can actually make a difference. [Read more 🡒]