In the final year before the NBA reforms the draft lottery process, the final stretch of the 2017-18 season will feature one of the most “competitive” races to the bottom the league has ever seen.
Thoroughly entrenched in that race are the Atlanta Hawks, who are currently tied for the worst record in the league and have had a fairly poor season in terms of winning basketball.
Though they’re not playing the most enticing form of basketball in the franchise’s history, this is definitely a good time to be losing as it gives Atlanta the chance to hit the jackpot with a top-five draft pick.
The 2018 draft class, in particular, is flush with franchise-changing upside in the first 7-8 slots, so the Hawks have a good chance of landing a player to build around for the foreseeable future.
We have outlined five players (and a strong honorable mention) that the Atlanta Hawks should have on their radar if they manage to snag a top-five pick. Let’s begin with an honorable mention.
Honorable Mention: Trae Young
Though the Hawks do not have a positional need at the moment at point guard, it’s currently unknown whether GM Travis Schlenk thinks of Dennis Schröder as Atlanta’s point guard of the future.
If he’s not, Trae Young of Oklahoma University is having a historic season in college basketball. Despite slowing down his insane scoring antics from earlier in the season, including a three-point shooting exhibition in which he put up 48 points in a loss to Oklahoma State, Young is still leading the entire country in scoring and assists – an unheard-of feat in the world of college basketball.
For the Hawks, drafting Young with their lottery pick would signal a sea change for the franchise, which chose Schröder over Jeff Teague in the summer of 2016 (in a trade that brought in Taurean Prince with the 12th overall pick).
Schröder would almost certainly be on the move if Young was brought aboard, as Young’s skill set is far more conducive to Coach Mike Budenholzer’s offensive system, which relies on spacing, three-point shooting and ball movement – three things that Young should provide more of for Atlanta.
As he has shown in some of his record-setting performances (the 48 point explosion in which he pulled up from near-half-court or his NCAA record-tying 22-assist performance), Young has a knack for drilling deep treys and for finding open teammates, which would mesh perfectly with Coach Bud’s offensive requirements.
Young’s stock has been dropping of late, but if he somehow fell to the Hawks in a late lottery scenario, the team would be wise to take a chance on a possible generational talent at the point guard position.
DeAndre Ayton
Though our first mock draft gave the slight edge to Dončić, the supreme talents of Arizona University’s starting center DeAndre Ayton have been on our radar for a long time, and he has seemingly skyrocketed his draft stock with some showcase performances in recent weeks.
Most draft boards have Dončić and Ayton neck-and-neck in terms of potential for going number one overall, and with good reason.
Ayton’s chiseled 7’1”, 250-lb body looks NBA-ready, and he is putting up the stats to prove it.
Ayton is third in the country in Player Efficiency Rating with a robust 31.4, and he is averaging 19.7 points, 10.9 rebounds, 1.9 blocks and 1.5 assists per game in 32.6 minutes played per contest.
From the field, Ayton is shooting an amazing 60.6 percent, and he has even connected on 33.3 percent of threes with a strong shooting form. His true shooting percentage of 64.7 percent is also sky-high.
The offensive and defensive potential of the Hawks would automatically skyrocket if Ayton was brought into the fold, and pairing him with John Collins in the frontcourt would give the Hawks a fearsome 1-2 duo put together solely through the draft.
Luka Doncic
We have already discussed the supreme talent that is Luka Dončić out of Real Madrid and provided reasons why he would be a terrific number one overall pick for the Hawks to make.
Though Dončić provides real size with a 6’8”, 218-lb frame, he also projects to be a unicorn with his combination of speed, ballhandling, size and shooting/scoring ability.
Dončić would immediately make the Hawks’ offense better on almost every front, and pairing him with John Collins would make for a lethal pick-and-roll combination.
For the most part, draft boards on every outlet claim Dončić to be the clear-cut best player available. If the Hawks fall too far (as in they win too many games), there’s a chance that Dončić might be long gone. If not, his unique skill set and tantalizingly vast upside would make him a shoo-in for Atlanta’s first pick.
Jaren Jackson Jr.
Triple J’s stock has risen considerably this season, as the Michigan State University Spartans have steamrolled to a 27-3 record in the Big Ten and an AP No. 2 ranking in the most recent poll.
A lot of that success is down to the incredible play of Jaren Jackson Jr., who has been tearing it up in the Big Ten.
Jackson is scoring 11.4 points and nabbing 5.8 rebounds per game in a very limited sample size, as he only plays 22 minutes per game through 30 games this season.
Jackson’s 6’11”, 242-lb frame offers immense length and bulk, and he clearly looks NBA-ready.
Mo Bamba out of Texas (who we’ll get to later) gets all the defensive plaudits, as he is more raw and thus has slightly more potential, but Jackson is breathing down his neck with 100 total blocks this season, 3.3 blocks per game and a mammoth 15.1 percent block rate – which is actually higher than Bamba’s 13.7 percent.
Jackson also projects out to be a better scorer, as evidenced by his stunning shooting numbers. Jackson’s three-point rate is 41.9 percent, which is extremely high for a center, but it’s Jackson’s gorgeous shooting stroke that is more impressive, as it delivers a 43.4 percent clip from downtown on 2.8 attempts per game.
Those attempts would go way up in Coach Bud’s offensive system if the Hawks were able to land Jackson, who (broken record alert) would slide in beautifully playing alongside John Collins.
Jackson might, in fact, be the best pairing with Collins, as Jackson could space the floor for Collins to feast inside and bang around for offensive and defensive rebounds, or they could play side-by-side and use their supreme physical gifts and nose for the ball to vacuum up every rebound and 50-50 ball inside.
Defensively, pairing Collins and Jackson would be a terror for opposing teams, who would have a hard time getting anything going inside with those two long, athletic bigs patrolling the paint.
Marvin Bagley III
Marvin Bagley III out of Duke University has been injured of late, but before that, he was shredding the ACC with stellar performance after stellar performance.
He was playing so well, in fact, that he currently edges out consensus top-two pick DeAndre Ayton in terms of PER with a powerhouse 31.5 (just beating out Ayton by .1 percentage points).
Bagley is a gifted scorer at all three levels (21.2 points per game), and he also gets after it on the boards (11.2 rebounds per game). In terms of efficiency, Bagley is shooting 59.6 percent from the field and 35.4 percent from downtown.
His free throw rate is an immense 49.8 percent, which means almost half the time he touches the ball, he ends up shooting free throws. Sadly, he is only shooting 62 percent from the line, though that is something that the lauded Hawks coaching staff could certainly help with.
Again, pairing Bagley with John Collins up front would prove to be a formidable combination in terms of rebounding and scoring, though the fit here is not perfect – especially when compared to the plug-and-play aspect of Dončić or Ayton’s presence in the Hawks lineup.
Mo Bamba
Mohamed Bamba out of the University of Texas is having a tremendous freshman year.
Bamba projects to be a top-flight defensive talent, and he would also fill a need for the Hawks as a thunderous rim-runner on offense (13.6 points on only 9.5 field goals per game) and a terrifying shot-blocker/rim-protector on defense (Bamba averages a whopping 4 blocks per game in 31.3 minutes per game).
Again, pairing Bamba with John Collins would create a lethal twosome in the frontcourt, and one which would have perhaps the best defensive upside of any Hawks’ frontcourt in recent history.
Though Bamba is exceedingly thin and his 6’11”, 225-lb frame does not quite look NBA-ready, if the Hawks’ draft pick falls below 1 or 2, the team should definitely consider taking Bamba — solely for a chance to improve on their porous 25th-ranked defense.
Next: Atlanta Hawks Players Grades at the All-Star Break
These are just a few scenarios, but the top of this draft is absolutely stacked, and the Hawks have a unique opportunity to grab a gifted young player that could transform this team’s fortunes for many years.
Though this Hawks team might not be the most engaging, be patient – the fruits of this tough season will bear out if Atlanta can nab an amazing rookie for next year.