The Atlanta Hawks hired former Golden State Warriors assistant general manager Travis Schlenk to be the new president of basketball operations and general manager on May 25, 2017.
After finishing with a record of 43-39 which included a loss to the Wizards in the first round of the 2016-2017 season, Travis Schlenk decided to move into a rebuild. Unfortunately, the Hawks could never quite recapture the magic of the 2014-2015 season. While the Hawks did manage to make the playoffs for an astonishing ten years in a row from the 2007-08 season until the 2016-17 season, only once did Atlanta make it past the second round.
Furthermore, the Hawks could only surpass 50 wins twice during those ten seasons.
Not only were the Hawks not able to have sustained success in the postseason, but the core from the 2014-2015 team was slowly breaking. Following the 60-win campaign, DeMarre Carroll left the team to join the Toronto Raptors on a multi-year deal. He was the only player from the starting lineup to not make the all-star team.
Replacing Carroll in the lineup was Kent Bazemore came off the bench in the previous season. Atlanta found themselves in a pickle in the Eastern Conference in the 2015-16 season as they finished in a four-way tie for the fourth seed in the conference and failed to reach the 50-win mark.
More casualties were soon to come, however, as Atlanta would lose leading scorer Al Horford to the Boston Celtics. To compete, the Hawks went out and signed hometown hero Dwight Howard to a three-year/$70.5M deal. While Howard was no longer the dominant force he was in Orlando, he was still a double-double machine. However, Atlanta did not get better, but only worse as they only won 43 games in the 2017 season which was the lowest amount since the 2013-14 season. After the season Schlenk was brought in and the rebuild would officially commence.