The Skyhawks have been quietly making moves to help the Atlanta Hawks
The College Park Skyhawks, the Atlanta Hawks G League affiliate have been making moves in the background that are going to help the varsity squad. They have made a couple of trades which means that Chris Silva, who signed an Exhibit 10 deal will stay within the Hawks’ fold unless traded.
The Skyhawks traded their returning player rights of NBA fringe talent Justin Tillman. While I have advocated for the big man to get a contract with the Atlanta Hawks, there is a level of excitement around this trade given that he has signed an NBA deal.
The Skyhawks traded his rights to the Grand Rapids Gold, the G League affiliate of the Denver Nuggets. What is extremely exciting as a Tillman fan is that he signed a one-year deal with the Nuggets. While it would have been preferable to see Tillman hit the NBA floor with the Hawks, as long as he is able to realize his dream, that will be amazing.
So how did the College Park Skyhawks help the Atlanta Hawks?
The second part of this trade was that the Skyhawks received Giorgi Bezhanishvili, Nik Stauskas, and a first-round pick in the 2022 G League draft. Bezhanishvili is a rotation piece at best and the draft pick has always got the potential to turn into anything.
However, the true value of this trade was Stauskis, but not in the way that you might be thinking. Stauskis was the eighth pick in the 2014 NBA draft and unfortunately was never good enough to establish himself as a regular NBA rotation piece. He did play six seasons in the NBA but also spent two seasons playing in Europe and the G League.
However, the Skyhawks are not going to build the team around the Canadian, former first-round pick. Instead, they traded his G League returning player right to the Timberwolves. In the deal, the Skyhawks acquired the returning player rights to Silva.
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This means that if Silva is cut from the Hawks’ training camp roster, he is still going to be a part of the franchise. The flow-on effect of that is if the Hawks have left themselves too thin at the power forward position, then they could offer Silva, a proven NBA hustle man, a 10-day contract to help cover the loss of any big man