The Atlanta Hawks were originally slated as one of the favored teams to land Brooklyn Nets superstar Kevin Durant. They had all the tools to land the superstar prior to trading for Dejounte Murray. Now if they wanted to trade for Durant they would have to involve another team.
However, despite his incredible basketball talent, the Hawks should not be interested in Durant. Yes, you can imagine Durant combining with Trae Young and Dejounte Murray, creating an offensive juggernaut that would be very hard to stop.
Well, the thing is that the Hawks would have to almost gut the rest of their team to accommodate Durant’s contract. For a player who has taken a team from contenders to champions that would not be a bad move. However, Durant has never been able to do this. He is a two-time champion but that was joining an already dominant Golden State Warriors team.
The Atlanta Hawks need to be able to get to the top without Kevin Durant.
The Hawks are a team who already has a leader in Young. They are going to integrate the former All-Star Murray and continue to develop the rest of their team, searching for a level of chemistry that will take them all the way to a championship.
Durant has now played with three teams. As mentioned earlier, while Durant won two titles with the Warriors, he was not a part of building the championship culture. He came along and benefitted from the hard work that had already been done.
The first stint of his career was with the Seattle Supersonics/OKC Thunder franchise. While they did make it to the Finals, Durant was not able to carry the team to a championship after Russell Westbrook went down with a knee injury.
Then he sensationally left the franchise after the Warriors came back and beat the Thunder in seven games in the Western Conference Finals after being down 1-3. Then, Durant tore his Achilles in the 2019 playoffs in his final game for the Warriors. He chose to play with Kyrie Irving and the Brooklyn Nets.
The Nets gave him a max deal with the knowledge that he would miss the first season with the franchise. He has then played the next two seasons but has not managed to lead the Nets to the Finals in either season. Now he is saying that he wants a trade unless the Nets sack their coach and general manager. This is blaming others for the lack of results Durant has never been able to produce.
So, the issue is that while Durant is a tremendous offensive player, he is yet to show that he is a player who can take a team to the next level. The Atlanta Hawks do not need to go all-in on a player who is not proven to take them to where they want to be, especially with the depth that it would cost them.