The Atlanta Hawks have recalled their assignee Jalen Johnson as well as their two-way players Sharife Cooper and Skylar Mays from the College Park Skyhawks. Johnson is fresh off leading the Skyhawks to their third victory of the season and Cooper has been up and down between the two teams a couple of times.
Mays is not guaranteed to play if needed as he is recoving from a foot injury but it looks like the Hawks are rallying their troops. This is going to be especially valuable as Trae Young has gone into the NBA’s health and safety protocols.
The NBA and the NBPA recently agreed that teams could sign players on hardship deals. But they also changed the rules in regards to the amount of games that two-way players can play with the team, effectively extending every team’s roster to 17 players for the remainder of the seaosn.
The Atlanta Hawks are focussed on the regular season
What the Hawks are saying with this move is that they are going all-in on their regular season. They are going to give opportunities to their rookies rather than signing players who are potentially more experienced but do not have any knowledge of the Hawks systems or the talent of Johnson and Cooper.
This has the chance of developing these young guys into regular rotational pieces at this early stage of the regular season which will have tremendous implications for the playoffs should the Hawks turn their season around like they did last year.
Worst-case scenario for Johnson, Cooper, and Mays is that they will get no court time but will learn from the sidelines. It seems unlikely that this will be the case as the Hawks have a very difficult sequence of road games coming up and they will need all hands on deck to get through it with their season intact.