Could the Atlanta Hawks Trade for Steven Adams?

A quick peek at whether or not the Atlanta Hawks could trade for Steven Adams of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

With the Atlanta Hawks not being particularly active to start the free agency period, it stands to reason that trade rumors would begin to swirl around the team at the start of the loopiest time of the season for NBA fans – the offseason.

One such scenario was laid out in a piece by Greg Swartz of Bleacher Report that sees the Hawks trade for 25-year-old seven-footer Steven Adams of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Here are the parameters of the deal:

While Adams might make for a good fit with his rebounding, screen-setting and defense for the Hawks, this deal makes it seem as if the Thunder have leverage in this situation – which they very clearly do not.

It has already been reported that OKC are shopping Adams along with Andre Roberson and former Hawk Dennis Schröder, so the Hawks giving up a solid prospect in Omari Spellman as well as a second round pick (no matter where it lands) seems like something of a stretch.

Sure, Adams would likely be the team’s best overall defender, and he produced one of the best seasons of his career last year with 13.9 points per game, 9.5 rebounds per game, 1.6 assists per game and 1.5 steals per game – the latter three of which were all career-highs per Basketball Reference.

Beyond that, Adams is also quite young at 25 (will be 26 for all of next season) so he nominally fits the Atlanta Hawks’ young core.

Despite Adam’s penchant for doing the dirty work, to this writer, taking on his stupendously large contract (roughly $53 million over the next two seasons) is unpalatable, especially compared to having vast swaths of cap space as soon as next season without Adams’s contract on the books.

Also, giving up Omari Spellman, who still likely has untapped upside to explore (perhaps in Summer League), doesn’t make sense for the rebuilding Atlanta Hawks, who should see what they have in Spellman before giving up on him.