The Atlanta Hawks are having issues with their backup point guard position. It is one of the many issues that the Hawks are facing at the moment. The others are so large that they are going to take the entire brain’s trust of the Hawks front office and coaching staff to unpack.
However, the Hawks may only need to look at their G League affiliate, the College Park Skyhawks to potentially find their backup point guard. While Sharife Cooper is seen to be more NBA ready, he has not shown what he can do in the times that he has had junk-time minutes.
While the Skyhawks have not had a really good season so far this is not the fault of Cat Barber. He has played exceptionally well when the Skyhawks have won, almost collecting a triple-double in one of the Skyhawks’ first wins of the season, backing up the incredible work that Jalen Johnson had put in.
The Atlanta Hawks saw potential in Cat Barber during their Covid crisis
The Hawks signed Barber to a 10-day contract during the Covid crisis. He only got to play around 13 minutes over three contests. He collected 1.0 rebounds and 1.0 assists per game. He did not score his first NBA points but that was not through a lack of opportunity.
After finishing his deal with the Hawks, Barber went back to the G League and immediately went to work. He had 17 points and 11 rebounds in the first up loss to the Long Island Nets on the resumption of the league in January.
He then exploded against the Lakeland Magic for 32 points and eight assists in the Skyhawks victory. He did have an issue with turnovers in both these games but his production far outweighed the negatives of these games. He then had 30 points and six rebounds in the next up loss to the Magic
However, the best part of the numbers for Barber is that despite playing in three straight losses he only had a negative impact on the box score in one of them. If the Hawks can find a guard who can not let the team go backward when Young is not on the court then this will help turn their fortunes around.