Atlanta Hawks: 6 Most Interesting Wings in 2018-19
By Chris Guest
An outline of the Atlanta Hawks wing rotation and how it was upgraded from the 2017-18 season to now.
After having a fairly ill-fitting and ramshackle roster last season in the final year of Mike Budenholzer’s reign as head coach, the Atlanta Hawks have improved their rotation and upgraded it in multiple ways ahead of the 2018-19 season.
One of the most notable upgrades the roster overtook was at the wing position, which was extremely scarce last season. To start the season, only Taurean Prince and DeAndre’ Bembry were natural fits at the three – definitely not ideal in a league where many of the best players play that position.
As the season went on, the team picked up far more options to play that position: Damion Lee, Jaylen Morris, Andrew White III and Antonius Cleveland all played spot minutes as a small forward, though Prince was the clear-cut number-one option – especially since he produced stunning performances like this down the end of the year:
For the 2018-19 season, the Atlanta Hawks upgraded their roster with younger, cheaper options with far more upside and untapped potential like Justin Anderson, Alex Poythress and Daniel Hamilton. Beyond that, the Hawks drafted a player (Kevin Huerter) that fits that mold and also signed an ageless wonder (Vince Carter) who can provide excellent minutes as a three.
Let’s rank the players that could feasibly play the three in order of least interesting to most interesting, starting with…
(Note: This is not a list of the best players on the Hawks roster but rather the most interesting players at each position.)