Hawks announce full training camp roster with new additions

The Atlanta Hawks will hold media day on October 2 and open training camp on October 3.

Ahead of that, they have announced their full, 20-man training camp roster and, while most of the names on the list are expected, there were a couple of additions.

They will return four of their five starters from last season: Trae Young, Dejounte Murray, Clint Capela, and De’Andre Hunter. Atlanta also has Saddiq Bey and Jalen Johnson from last season with both looking to fill the void left at power forward by the Hawks’ trading John Collins to the Utah Jazz.

Bench players including Bogdan Bogdanovic also return to round out the veterans with Patty Mills and Wesley Matthews. Meanwhile, Atlanta added rookies Kobe Bufkin, Seth Lundy, and Mouhamed Gueye in the draft and Miles Norris as an undrafted free agent.

The new guys are rookies Jarkel Joiner and Keaton Wallace.

One was a part of the steady flow of players to visit the Hawks leading up to the draft, though neither were projected to be drafted in their respective classes.

In fact, Joiner was a member of the first group of players to work out for the Hawks during the pre-draft process. The 6-foot-1 guard out of NC State finished second on the Wolfpack averaging 17.0 points per game while connecting on 35.4% of his deep looks. He did help the Wolfpack make the NCAA Tournament.

He figures to just be a training camp body. But several players have turned strong showings during training camp into opportunities with NBA clubs in recent years, especially since COVID-19 ravaged rosters in 2020.

The other late addition is Keaton Wallace.

Wallace is going into his third season out of UTEP, though he has yet to latch onto an NBA roster.

He does, however, have two years with the LA Clippers’ G League affiliate. Wallace averaged 12.8 points. 4.0 assists, 3.4 rebounds, and 1.5 steals while shooting 45.4% from the floor and 33.3% from beyond the arc while seeing over 19 minutes per game across his 19 appearances last season, all of which were starts.

At 6-foot-4, Wallace profiles physically similarly to Murray and Bufkin, offering some “scout team” type of potential for him and Joiner who is closer to Young’s stature.

Both players will give the Hawks a few more bodies during training camp.

The Hawks can have up to 21 players until the start of the regular season when they have to trim the roster down to 15.

Predicting the Hawks’ 2023-24 regular season roster

As noted above, many of the slots on the Hawks’ roster are spoken for or can be presumed with a fair bit of certainty.

Bey, Bogdanovic, Bufkin (who could spend ample time in the G League with the College Park Skyhawks), Capela, Hunter, Johnson, Matthews, Mills, Murray, Young, AJ Griffin, and Onyeka Okongwu are all locks to make it barring an unforeseen trade. Bruno Fernando and Garrison Mathews are a part of that group as well.

Gueye was signed using a special exception for second-round players, making him No. 15.

Trent Forrest returns and joins rookies Lundy and Miles Norris as the Hawks’ three two-way contracts.

Again, this group is set as is. But there could be some surprises, perhaps if Mills or Matthews don’t pan out and one of Forrest – who provided some good minutes for the Hawks last season – Lundy, or Norris does.