Atlanta Hawks: Frontcourt Defense Named Big Concern by Bleacher Report

Sports website and aggregator Bleacher Report has named that Atlanta Hawks frontcourt defense (or lack thereof) as its biggest concern heading into the 2018-19 season.

The Atlanta Hawks are expected to be one of the worst teams in the season next year.

Despite adding a rather impressive amount of high-caliber players in the offseason, Las Vegas oddsmakers and pundits across the country all believe that the Atlanta Hawks will be terrible on the basketball court.

Of course, there will be bright spots, and the team should also be far more enjoyable to watch than they were in the bleakest moments of last year’s 24-58 campaign.

One of those bright spots was John Collins, who surged into the starting lineup by the end of the season and was one of the team’s best players for much of the year – a title he should be more than able to continue to hold in 2018-19.

His defense was underrated and surprisingly good, but sports website and news aggregator Bleacher Report has named the frontcourt defense of the Atlanta Hawks as the team’s major concern going into next season.

While the article does contend that the team is rebuilding so weaknesses are kind of expected, but it even goes on to say that the team’s young core might even exceed and win games they have no business of winning:

"“The Hawks are right on schedule. They’re trying to be bad, and by golly, they should be bad. They might even be that awkward type of bad, in which they don’t contend for the postseason but win way more games than they want. John Collins, Trae Young, Kent Bazemore, Dewayne Dedmon, Jeremy Lin and Taurean Prince have the makings of a not-terrible outfit.”"

While that is certainly the case, the team’s frontcourt defense was bad last season due to a lack of size and experience, which will likely continue into the new season as well.

Though Alex Len will provide a bigger body than they had all of last season, it is unknown exactly how much he will play in 2018-19 as the Atlanta Hawks continue to develop Collins and rookie Omari Spellman.

Either way, the regular season can’t get here soon enough – we have Atlanta Hawks basketball to watch!