The Atlanta Hawks have the seventh best future power ranking
According to Mo Dakhil of Bleacher Report, the Atlanta Hawks sit in seventh for power rankings as to their next three years. Given the bright future that the young core of the team presents, this is a difficult ranking to swallow.
The Hawks made it to the Eastern Conference Finals on the back of the incredible play of Trae Young. It is debatable if they would have made the finals except for Young’s injury which not only changed the game that it happened in but also the rest of the series.
Dakhil raises the John Collins issue, seemingly saying that it does not matter if he returns for their future. They would move Danilo Gallinari into the starting lineup and Onyeka Okongwu would back up the starting big men. The problem is, due to it being a three-year ranking, there are some questions about the teams in front of them.
The Atlanta Hawks are in a better position than some of the teams above them
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The six teams that Dakhil believes are in for a better three seasons than the Hawks are the Boston Celtics, the Utah Jazz, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Phoenix Suns, the Brooklyn Nets, and the Milwaukee Bucks. Now, the Bucks have just been crowned champions and have their superstar locked up for the next four years.
The Suns are a good team who will be looking to claim the championship next season and the Jazz were the best team in the past regular season. However, there are question marks over the Lakers and Celtics being above the Hawks over the next three seasons.
The Celtics have two young stars in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. However, the dropoff is fairly large after that with Marcus Smart and Al Horford being the next best players. The Hawks are a lot deeper than that and will get better over the next few years.
The Lakers best players are LeBron James and Anthony Davis. The problem is that James is going to turn 38 next season and over the next three years he is not going to be able to dominate the game physically the way that he has throughout his career. We all saw the rest of the Lakers could not carry the loss of James when he was injured.