Atlanta Hawks: What having great depth means for the team

The Atlanta Hawks are one of the deepest teams in the entire NBA at the moment. They have three players who can take the court at every position who will not cost them too much in terms of talent. Yes, they have their superstars but players like third-string point guard Sharife Cooper could take the court and give the team something every night.

When Nate McMillan was asked about the possibility of playing the second unit as a unit rather than playing reserve unit players with some of the first units, he was open to the idea. McMillan is not going to rule anything out at the start of the season.

The number of times the second unit bought the team back last season was impressive, including a couple of times in the playoffs. What this is going to take is some sacrifice from all players on the roster if they have a chance to achieve that.

The Atlanta Hawks are in a really good situation with their roster.

With the potential for having two distinct playing groups, the Hawks can work on different gameplans which may help the team win games that they may have lose in the past. This is part of the sacrifice that McMillan is talking about, if one unit is going particularly well, then the other will spend more time on the bench,

However, there arepotential chemistry issues to this approach. For example, Lou Wiliams plays a different way to Bogdan Bogdanovic. As they get used to playing with their unit, everybody knows what their role is. If there is an injury, then players need to get used to a different style which could cause a greater number of turnovers.

On the other hand, the positives far outweigh the negatives. It requires something that the Hawks did not have last season and that was a healthy roster. If they can get this then the world is the Hawks oyster.