The Atlanta Hawks (25-27) have been hot lately, winning eight of their last 10 contests but are still looking to improve. They find themselves two games below .500 and are narrowly clinging to a spot in the play-in tournament. They’re also still a below-average defense that is being carried by a really good offense, albeit one that is largely dependent on one player.
That has led to more interest in the trade market than some might assume based on their recent trends. The Hawks have been one of the teams heavily linked to landing Ben Simmons outside of the Brooklyn Nets.
But Atlanta’s brain trust, led by Travis Schlenk, hasn’t been singular in their focus by locking in on Simmons alone.
We found out from ESPN’s Brian Windhorst that they have had talks on moving Kevin Huerter.
The Atlanta Hawks appear to be targeting consistency over ceiling on the trade market
According to Windhorst on his Hoops Collective podcast, the New Orleans Pelicans have been actively feeling out the trade market. They’ve been actively engaged in recent days with several teams and the Hawks appear to be one of them. This hasn’t been in regards to any sort of major deal involving Zion Williamson or our preferred target, Brandon Ingram.
Instead, the two teams have been discussing a deal that would swap Huerter for Pelicans wing, Josh Hart.
"“From what I understand, they have talked to the Blazers about CJ McCollum, they have talked to the Kings about De’Aaron Fox, they have talked to the Rockets about Eric Gordon, they have talked to the Hawks about Kevin Huerter, probably more than I don’t know about. Pelicans are buying.’” Brian Windhorst/Hoops Collective Pod via Hoops Hype"
Huerter is averaging 11.6 points on 46.6 percent shooting and 37.7 percent from beyond the arc.
The points are down for the second consecutive season even though the overall shooting percentage is a career-high as is his 56.2 effective field goal percentage.
He also received praise from his head coach for stepping defensively when needed most.
However, he’s also scored eight or fewer points in four of the last six games. Despite the Hawks going 4-2 in that time, they must feel they could do better. They did lose his best performance of the stretch, a 26-point outing in the first matchup against the Toronto Raptors with Trae Young sitting out due to injury.
Hart, a former Los Angeles Lakers, is enjoying a career year for the Pelicans who are currently one game out of the final play-in spot in the Western Conference.
New Orleans has won two in a row in the middle of a four-game road trip. But they’ve lost four of their last six and six of their last 10. Still, they are very much alive for their first postseason berth since 2018.
He’s averaging 13.4 points and 7.8 rebounds with 4.1 assists and 1.1 steals per game.
The fifth-year wing is also shooting 50.5 percent from the floor. The rub is he’s shooting just 32.3 percent from deep and is turning the ball over 2.0 times per game. He shot 39.3 percent from three as a rookie so there’s potential with Young to set him up. He’s shooting 35.3 percent on catch-and-shoot threes but just 27.6 percent on pull-ups.
Huerter, though, is shooting 40.0 percent and 30.2 percent, respectively.
Both numbers are worse than Huerter’s but, again, the Hawks appear willing to sacrifice some shooting to get tougher on the defensive end. He also shot 39.3 percent from three as a rookie so there’s potential with Young to set him up.
For as good as Huerter can be on defense, Hart has consistently been one of the better perimeter defenders for a while.
Hart is also getting to the free-throw line to shoot 3.8 attempts per game. Huerter does not get to the line much averaging fewer than 1.0 attempts per contest, ninth among Hawks rotation players. But he maintains the efficiency advantage hitting 80.0 percent of his shots at the charity stripe to 74.7 for Hart.
There is also the financial aspect with Huerter heading into his four-year $65 million extension next season while Hart will have two years at less than $13 million left on his deal after this season assuming he picks up his option for 2022-23.
With just four days until the trade deadline, we might need to expect a deal to be made more than not.