15 Non-Lottery Draft Pick Options for Atlanta Hawks
By Chris Guest
The 2017-18 Atlanta Hawks season is finally over with the team finishing with a rather unimpressive 24-58 record. Even though the season was pretty much a lost cause from the start, the Hawks franchise will be sitting pretty come NBA draft time as 4 top-35 picks will be the organization’s coffers.
Of course, the main draw will be the team’s own first round pick, which will most likely be in the top 3-5. There are numerous franchise-altering, high-upside players within the top 5, so the Hawks should immediately be able to improve their lot next season.
However, despite the importance of the team’s own first round pick, the Hawks also have numerous picks in the 18-35 range of the draft. Though these picks are rarely as important as Top 5 picks, just look how well the organization did last season selecting at number 19: John Collins has been one of the most productive rookies in Hawks franchise history and his efforts will hopefully be rewarded with a First-Team All-Rookie selection.
In this piece, we will explore 13 of the most interesting non-lottery options the Hawks could explore in this offseason’s upcoming draft. Though it would be nice to think that Mikal Bridges, Wendell Carter or Collin Sexton will fall into the Hawks lap, the team would probably have to move up in the draft if they wanted to have a chance on those fringe lottery candidates, so they will be left off this list.
Also, we have already discussed numerous non-lottery options for Atlanta in our previous mock drafts (post-All-Star Break, number 2.0 and number 3.0), and we still believe that the Hawks should prioritize switchable, athletic wings who can shoot and handle the ball, so intriguing players such as Rawle Alkins, Shake Milton, Aaron Holiday, Keita Bates-Diop, Melvin Frazier, Landry Shamet, Jerome Robinson and Troy Brown will not be on this list either.
Lastly, we are assuming that Atlanta will get the 4th pick in the draft at this stage, as they just lost a tiebreaker with the Mavs for third-best odds in the draft.