Trae Young – Dejounte Murray – De’Andre Hunter – John Collins – Clint Capela
This one is a bit of a blended situation. While we would love to see the starting unit get even more floor time together next season, they did rack up the second-most possessions of any unit this past year.
The group posted a plus-6 net efficiency differential, good for the 59th percentile.
Two things this group did relatively well were crash the offensive boards and limit the opposing offenses ranking in the 67th percentile and the 63rd percentile, respectively.
Any lineup that features Young will have some limitations in just how versatile they can be defensively. But, aside from Young putting in greater effort on that end, this lineup combination puts defense and size around the dynamic point guard which, as the numbers suggest, portends to additional opportunities for the Hawks and fewer for the opposition.
Snyder certainly doesn’t have to be told to play his starters.
But with the possibility that Collins or even Clint Capela could be elsewhere next season – however unlikely – this could be a good time to note just what did and didn’t work and, perhaps more specifically, who it worked with.
So far, both lineups have been geared toward supporting Young, though that has been the task since he arrived.
It has not always been pretty but Young’s ability to be a playmaker who can go nuclear as a scorer has saved the Hawks’ bacon in a lot of situations. A separate but related issue has been what to do when he sits and, despite their blockbuster trade from last season, there is still some tweaking that needs to be done.