Atlanta Hawks Trade Away Omari Spellman After Only One Season

A quick reaction to the Atlanta Hawks trading away second-year big man Omari Spellman.

Two games. That’s all it took form Atlanta Hawks General Manager Travis Schlenk to realize that the selection of Omari Spellman in the 2018 NBA Draft was – seemingly – the wrong choice.

As such, today it was announced that Spellman had been traded to the Golden State Warriors for a package including 24-year-old big man Damian Jones and a second-round draft pick. Shams Charania of The Athletic announced the news:

This news comes on the heels of the Hawks signing Jabari Parker to a two-year deal worth $13 million, which we will cover in a later story.

For Spellman, this is a rather abrupt exit for the 21-year-old former Villanova Wildcat, who was drafted with the #30 overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft. The pick, at the time, was seen as something of a reach, though clearly Schlenk values shooting at all positions – something that Spellman purported to provide.

With Jones, a seven-foot big man out of Vanderbilt, the Atlanta Hawks nab an athletic, long center (7-foot-4 wingspan) who has not been particularly impactful during his three-year Warriors tenure, though there is hope he could carve out a role as a rim-runner and defensive substitute for this young Hawks squad.

Trading Spellman only one year after he was drafted is fairly shocking for Schlenk, though it does show that he is willing and able to admit his mistakes and try to remedy them sooner rather than later.

The timing of this move is even more curious considering that Spellman has played two Summer League games so far. Perhaps his uninspiring performances in each game led to this trade, as Spellman was seemingly unable to shed the weight that caused injuries to his lower body last year.

Stay tuned for more coverage of this deal and other offseason machinations of the Atlanta Hawks.