Cam Reddish named Atlanta Hawks ‘biggest surprise so far’

The Atlanta Hawks haven’t had the start to the 2021-22 season that they would have hoped for. After dealing with numerous injuries, several of which were not previously disclosed to the public, they have gotten off to a 4-8 start that has been just as rocky as it sounds.

As a team, they are experiencing lulls on offense that lead to poor defense.

That has been Nate McMillan’s message to his team. Despite their second loss to the Jazz on Monday, Trae Young noted the team’s fight.

Albeit in a losing effort, the game also provided further evidence of a position we have been championing for some time. It’s something that we argued a few days ago but have since gotten further evidence in the days that have followed.

More is proving to be better for Atlanta Hawks wing Cam Reddish

Bleacher Report has released its list of biggest surprises so far for every team in the NBA and, for the Hawks, writer Grant Hughes lays out his argument for Cam Reddish. The third-year swingman is averaging 12.3 points game, shooting 41.5 percent from the floor, and 38.9 percent from beyond the arc.

The article focuses on the growth and maturity he has shown in the early going of this season. But they make it clear, this isn’t necessarily a surprise.

"“Talent was never the issue for Cam Reddish, whose raw skills were obvious from the moment he played his first NBA game. Actually, they were apparent before that, if the voting that pegged him as the 2019-20 rookie most likely to have the best career is any indicationThe results lagged behind the hype, as the 6’8″ wing shot 38.4 percent from the field in his first season and 36.5 percent as a sophomore. He showed flashes in spot minutes and got frisky in the 2021 playoffs, posting double-digit point totals in three of the four games he played. But over the larger sample of his first two seasons, Reddish was often shot-hungry and out of control, perhaps trying to make the most of his limited playing time.”"

It goes on to talk about his decision-making as being a big factor in his leap this season and applauds him for displaying “real craft” in his game.

We made a case for Reddish to get more playing time with the starters, if not start outright, to try and solve what is ailing this team. At the time, they were coming off of their loss to the Golden State Warriors and Reddish had played a season-low 13 minutes and 28 seconds.

We laid out how they had a winning record when Reddish played more.

He was seeing 24.8 minutes per game as they went 4-3 to start the year. Since then he is averaging 20.6 minutes per contest and the Hawks have gone 0-5. However, they are just 3-5 when he scores just 10-plus points.

In their loss to the Jazz, he was back up in his minutes and had a bounceback performance with 16 points on .500 shooting and went 4-of-6 from downtown.

As a bench player, he will naturally have more minutes in games they lead and choose to rest their starters down the stretch. So maybe that isn’t the best measure of his impact on the team or, maybe, even gauging Reddish himself.

The article acknowledges the Hawks have been bad as a team in Reddish’s minutes. Of the 10 lineup combinations that have spent 10-plus minutes together, five of them have negative plus-minuses. All of those have Reddish on the floor. For him, it’s eight total lineups with 10 minutes or more of floor time with five of those having negative plus-minuses.

To be fair to the former Blue Devil, though, many of their lineup combinations outside of the starters simply haven’t worked as they still try to find their chemistry. But they do need to find out ways to be successful when he is on the floor. It should benefit both parties.