The Atlanta Hawks have one roster spot remaining and a number of players willing to fill that spot. They signed Chris Silva to a training camp deal, as well as traded Justin Tillman as the first part of a deal to get Silva’s G League returning player rights. They also signed Tyson Etienne to a training camp deal based on his Summer League performance.
This means that they will have a decent G League team based on NBA-level talent but up until the most recent signing, there has been little evidence of any players returning from last season. The good news is that the College Park Skyhawks are starting to develop their squad prior to the local tryouts later this month.
They re-signed Malik Ellison to a training camp deal. While he is a chance to make the final roster spot, this move says that the Hawks are starting to build their G League squad. Ellison is the first returning member of last season’s squad to have any affiliation to the Skyhawks for this season.
What chance does Malik Ellison have of making the Atlanta Hawks squad?
The realistic answer to this question is that Ellison has practically no chance of making the Hawks roster. While he has a tremendous basketball pedigree being the son of Pervis Ellison, he does not have the same levels of talent as the first overall pick in the 1989 draft.
The younger Ellison is going to scrimmage against the signed players before being cut deep into the preseason games. This will leave him open to signing back with the Skyhawks where he played 14 games last season, starting eight of them.
Ellison was solid during his time with the Skyhawks, averaging 10.6 points, 5.1 rebounds, 1.1 assists, 0.9 blocks, and 0.8 steals in 29.6 minutes per game. However, what was most exciting for the team was that he hit 42.3 percent of his 1.9 attempts from beyond the arc.
Ellison may survive the roster cutdowns, stranger things have happened. Don’t forget last season when Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot survived and made the team. The Hawks are in a better place in terms of their roster this season so this is an unlikely scenario.