What is the best role for Kevin Huerter with the Atlanta Hawks?

Shortly before tipoff, the Atlanta Hawks announced that Trae Young would be out for their matchup with the Sacramento Kings after taking a nasty fall in the previous game. It was a game they could have easily phoned it in. But they fended off the home team, holding on to win 108-102 despite 54 points combined from the opposing backcourt.

They got the win despite shooting 39 percent from the floor in the first half and 26.2 percent from three in the game.

This was thanks to players stepping up including Cam Reddish and Danilo Gallinari.

But the night belonged to Kevin Huerter who had 25 points, 11 rebounds, and five assists to help carry the Hawks to victory and become the only player to have such a game this season when coming off of the bench.

Kevin Huerter returned to his natural role for the Hawks and had his best game of the season

That’s right, despite playing in his second game back from health and safety protocols, Huerter found himself coming off of the bench behind both Reddish and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, who was also playing in just his second game back. Huerter later relayed that acting head coach Joe Prunty said the move to start Gallo instead was to balance out the scoring in the second unit.

After the game, NBA.com Hawks beat writer Kevin Chouinard tweeted that the Hawks should let Huerter and Wright man the backup guard spots when the team is fully healthy.

Interestingly, Huerter’s numbers have been better as a starter with 13.5 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 3.1 assists compared to 7.5/4.2/2.1 as a reserve with efficiency to match the raw split this season.

He has a plus-minus of 4.8 and the Hawks are 11-8 with him as a starter while his plus-minus is 0.7 and the Hawks are 3-8 when he comes in off of the bench.

Those trends are consistent with his career to this point.

Some of that this season has to do with their collective slow start and all of the shuffling they’ve had to do due to injuries and COVID absences, including Huerter who entered the season recovering from an offseason procedure and just came back from the health and safety protocols. But the lineups he is a part of that have been effective usually include another bench player.

Most often, that player has been Gallinari and/or, to Chouinard’s point, Wright.

However, there is also the matter of Huerter being targeted as a defender by the Portland Trail Blazers in the last game, a 136-131 loss. He allowed his assignments to go 11-of-18 from the field in that one.

It was 5-of-12 for the Kings against Huerter. The shot attempts against him are a reflection of their bench’s poor efficiency doing so.

His primary matchups, Tyrese Haliburton and Buddy Hield, combined to go 1-of-5 for just five points with all coming from Hield on a three-pointer and two (out of three) free throws but he still managed just two attempts. He finished with 11 points while Haliburton had 24 points for the game.

Hawks general manager Travis Schlenk was highly critical of the defense after the loss to Portland.

So, while having Huerter back in his sixth-man role balances the offense, it takes some of the pressure off of him defensively where he hasn’t been as good as last year when he would often stick the opponent’s best player for an injured Hawks team.

Huerter has scored more twice, going for 28 points against the Utah Jazz earlier in the year and, most recently, the Charlotte Hornets.

Both performances came as a starter but his rebounds against the Kings nearly doubled his previous season-high of six which he’s done three times. Two of those three times were as a reserve.

This is all far from definitive with so many other variables factoring in. But it seems the metrics favor Huerter as a starter but his greatest impact may be in coming off of the bench.