Travis Schlenk is the new general manager of the Atlanta Hawks. How will he try to build the team?
The Atlanta Hawks have their new general manager.
The team has secured former Golden State assistant GM Travis Schlenk to be its GM and if how the Golden State monster is any indication, there is a clear way to build for the Hawks.
While the Warriors caught flashy headlines for signing Kevin Durant in free agency, the Warriors became a great team because they were built through the draft. And they also had multiple lottery picks to build with.
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The first piece of the Warriors machine was, of course, two-time MVP Stephen Curry. Curry was drafted by the team with the seventh pick of the 2009 Draft. Curry’s backcourt mate, All-Star sniper Klay Thompson, was the 11th pick of the 2011 Draft. Then in the 2012 Draft, the Warriors took Harrison Barnes at No. 7 overall and Draymond Green in the second round at No.35.
That makes four of the five starters on the 2014-2015 NBA title team that were acquired by the Warriors through their own draft picks.
And that is the way that Hawks fans should expect Schlenk to try and build this team.
Atlanta will not be a super attractive free-agent destination for the foreseeable future and the team has regressed each season since winning 60 games in the 2014-2015 season. Maybe it is time to retool a bit.
The Warriors did not have top-three picks during that run of drafting those great players while Schlenk was in the front office. They were picking in the mid-to-late lottery and finding great value with their picks.
This means that fans should not expect the Hawks to tank, either. They may let some of their own free agents walk that will not be superstars for the team but they will actively try to win with what they do have and not be thinking first about the draft.
Maybe it is best for the Hawks to take a bigger step back for a year, or two, and get a couple of top-ten picks in the draft in order to try and uncover an All-Star or two…or three like Golden State drafted between 2009 and 2012.
The Hawks must, simply, put themselves in a position to draft players with considerable upside and trust their scouts to find those players and their coaches to develop them. This is not a radical idea but it is one that the Hawks have been hesitant to pull the trigger on in past years.
But Schlenk is now the face of a new regime. And he comes from a team that completed one of the greatest roster constructions ever. That construction was almost entirely through the draft and the draft success led to them being a free-agent attraction for a player like Durant.
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The Hawks might need to take a step back in order to gather a few assets. But with what Schlenk has been involved with in the past, that does not mean that they must actively tank to build a contender.