The Atlanta Hawks should only trade Cam Reddish for a contributor

Sitting at 13-14 and 11th in the Eastern Conference, the Atlanta Hawks are searching for answers. They have had to shuffle their starting lineup and rotations quite a bit in lieu of several injuries. And they’ve seen their homecourt advantage disintegrate to the point they have now lost five straight at State Farm Arena.

Naturally, this has led to a slew of possible fixes which have ranged from lineup changes to exploring the ways rookie forward Jalen Johnson could help the squad.

It has also, inevitably, has led to trade rumors revolving around third-year wing Cam Reddish who is averaging 11.2 points for the second year in a row, but is doing so on 40 percent shooting from the floor and 36.7 percent from deep; both career highs.

Any trade involving Atlanta Hawks forward Cam Reddish has to bring back a contributor

Trade rumors have followed Reddish going back to last year at the least as he has dealt with injury, inconsistency, and the COVID shutdown to begin his career. Over the summer, there were reports that the Hawks were looking for a higher first-round pick in order to move Reddish and “reset” their financial clock.

The Hawks committed to spending $443 million in new money on the foursome of Trae Young, John Collins, Clint Capela, and Kevin Huerter this summer.

Those rumors resurfaced this week in an article from Shams Charania of The Athletic (subscription required) that mostly just re-states teams’ interest in the Hawks forward and their presumed asking price of a first-round pick in the NBA Draft.

That would be a big mistake.

https://twitter.com/ATLHawks/status/1470558545217085441

It should go without saying, given what we’ve seen from this team this season, that any trade involving a contributing piece such as Reddish, despite the inconsistency, has to bring back another (presumably more consistent) contributor in return. Otherwise, the Hawks are just spinning their wheels.

Reddish had 12 points in the loss to the Houston Rockets but shot just 37.5 percent from the floor just one game after putting up four points on 0-for-6 shooting, getting all of his production at the charity stripe.

Those were his first two games back from a four-game absence thanks to an injured wrist and non-COVID illness.

Prior to that, he was playing really well.

Reddish averaged 14.2 points on 49.1 percent shooting overall and 39.1 percent from deep over a five-game span before going down against the New York Knicks. The Hawks went 2-2 without him on the shelf and 2-3 if you include the game he got injured in. They’re 0-2 since he’s been back, but he only played his normal minutes against Houston.

https://twitter.com/HawksOnBally/status/1470563933736083459

With the Hawks as beat up as they are – both Bogdan Bogdanovic and DeAndre Hunter are still without a return date – it doesn’t make sense to move off of your second-best perimeter defender and sparkplug off of the bench for another unknown commodity.

They already have that in Johnson who reportedly is not ready to contribute just yet and by most accounts isn’t fit for major minutes at the three.

The head coach may disagree about the latter part.

Travis Schlenk surely added fuel to the fire when he spoke on Johnson, who nearly had a triple-double in his last game with the College Park Skyhawks, saying per Mike Conti of 92.9 The Game that Johnson and fellow rookie Sharife Cooper “have been doing better down in College Park. Will we see them play? I don’t know. But at this point I wouldn’t mind seeing them play, I guess.”

If the plan was to move Reddish to make room for Johnson it might make more sense.

However, nothing we have heard to this point suggests that is the case. And it would behoove the Hawks to try adding Johnson’s skill set, particularly on defense as a bigger forward, to Reddish’s as the Hawks have hurt for stops.