Atlanta Hawks Ranked… 17th in terms of Best Roster for Future?

Dissecting a terrible list by Bleacher Report in which the Atlanta Hawks are ranked 17th in the NBA in terms of best roster for the future.

The Atlanta Hawks currently hold an engaging young core of Trae Young, John Collins, Kevin Huerter with ancillary players like DeAndre’ Bembry and Omari Spellman also fitting the team’s youth-oriented timeline.

Despite having a terrific young core and no long-term salary on the books past the 2019-20 season, a recent story by Grant Hughes of Bleacher Report ranked the Atlanta Hawks as having only the 17th-best roster for the future.

Of course, Hughes makes the caveat that the story is “placing more value on known commodities than hypotheticals. Cap space and draft picks are great, as are prospective cornerstone talents. But they’re not more valuable in the immediate future than reigning MVPs, in-prime stars and organizational harmony.”

Still though, the Hawks are rated behind teams like the Thunder, Pacers and Celtics – who all got waxed in the NBA Playoffs and will either lose big names this offseason in free agency or are tethered to a superstar that is injury-prone or inefficient.

Even if the Hawks don’t have any “proven” talent, it seems feasible that Hawks fans wouldn’t trade the situations of all three of those teams with the team’s future looking extremely bright.

Beyond that, both the Warriors and Rockets make the Top 5 of this story, which is frankly ludicrous. While having James Harden on a long-term deal is definitely huge, Chris Paul is looking close to washed in his age-34 season this year. Furthermore, we all know that Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson are leaving free agency this offseason and Andre Iguodala and Draymond Green are declining – and fast.

Certainly, the Atlanta Hawks will likely not reach the heights of the Warriors or Rockets next season, but the team’s roster construction is still pretty darn impressive – even if just looking at it through the scope of current players.