Possible Atlanta Hawks free agents: Patrick Patterson
In this new era of the NBA that the league has been well progressed in teams necessarily rely on front-court players to be effective scorers from the perimeter.
Power forwards and centers for the Atlanta Hawks collectively shot 176-509 (34.5%) on three-pointers in the 2016-2017 season.
This is an aspect that made the Hawks so successful in their 60-win 2014-2015 squad as well as the team that followed. While Dwight Howard has been good for Atlanta when the franchise moved on from Al Horford for Dwight’s more physically imposing prescience, the team sacrificed that same aspect from the team. That, along with other factors, caused Atlanta to struggle.
We can expect new general manager Travis Schlenk to be aggressive in free agency. Coming from Golden State’s pedigree Schlenk will surely be focused on acquiring perimeter shooting in the offseason. One conceivable option for the Hawks is Toronto Raptors’ power forward Patrick Patterson.
Patterson just finished up his seventh season in NBA after being a lottery in the 2010 NBA Draft from Kentucky. After spending time with the Houston Rockets and Sacramento Kings, Patterson joined the Toronto Raptors in 2014 and in many ways has been a perfect role player for them ever since.
In the past three and a half seasons that Patterson has spent in Canada, the stretch four has made 351 three pointers at a 37% rate. In his past three full seasons, he has made 105, 106, and 94 threes and has a career three-point percentage of 36.8%.
Patterson has also played in 41 career playoff games, all with the Raptors in the Eastern Conference in which he’s made 43 three pointers. He has embraced the role of a reserve player throughout his entire career. In 477 career games played Patterson has 73 career starts and a 10.5 point per game average in those 73 games.
Patterson has been certainly valuable to the Raptors. However, his time in Toronto may be coming to an end. The Raptors have numerous free agents this offseason that they must consider re-signing. Kyle Lowry, Serge Ibaka, and PJ Tucker will all be in the market and should be receiving some large paydays.
On top of all that the Raptors also have several young big men that they are currently developing. Lucas Nogueira, Jakob Poeltl, and Pascal Siakam are all young bigs that will look to take big steps forward with the team next season. Toronto will also have a first round pick in the 2017 NBA Draft that they will look to develop. All of those factored in, Patterson may be more available than initially perceived.
There have also been previous links between the Atlanta Hawks and Patterson formed. Back when the Hawks were fielding offers for Paul Millsap the Raptors had a massive interest in dealing for Atlanta’s All-Star. One player that Atlanta reportedly had serious interest in was Patterson.
Next: How does Jarrett Allen fit with the Atlanta Hawks?
Considering that the Hawks have a big bulk of their front-court from a season ago that will be free agents this summer; names including Millsap, Ersan Ilyasova, Mike Muscala and Kris Humphries, the addition of more depth at the power forward position and with perimeter shooting should be welcoming to the Atlanta Hawks organization.