The Atlanta Hawks are in uncharted territory, attempting to balance two distinct championship timelines on one roster.
This balancing act usually fails, with the Golden State Warriors as a prime example. In the 2019-2020 season, the Warriors had lost Klay Thompson to an ACL tear the previous playoffs and Kevin Durant to a trade. Steph Curry would injure himself just four games into the season, essentially giving the team a gap year in their title hopes.
This gap year led to the Warriors landing the second pick in the 2020 draft, which they used to select James Wiseman. Rather than trading the pick for a high-level piece in pursuit of their short-term goals, the Warriors opted for a “two timeline” approach, where Steph Curry would ultimately pass the torch of the team’s primary star to Wiseman. They supported Wiseman with the 2021 sixth pick, Jonathan Kuminga, and the 14th pick that same year, Moses Moody.
This approach, however, failed despite the Warriors winning the 2022 Finals. Kuminga and Moody have been given limited minutes to develop, and Wiseman never panned out as an NBA player. The Warriors had to trade much of their young talent and draft assets, leading them to feature one of the oldest starting lineups in basketball this season. When they finally committed to one timeline, they immediately found success.
Can the Hawks pull off a two timeline approach?
Atlanta enters a similarly complex situation this season. Two members of their “big three” that would play a key role in playoff success, Trae Young and Kristaps Porzingis, are in their prime and are both entering contract years. Behind Young and Porzingis is an exciting collection of young players, with Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels, and Zaccharie Risacher leading the way.
These five players would be the key drivers of Atlanta's success, but their peaks will not overlap. Porzingis is 30 years old; considering his injury history, the big man will begin to decline soon, if not this season. Young is 27, with only three to five years left of his prime. In contrast, Johnson is 23, Daniels is 22, and Risacher is 20. Their peaks will come right as Young begins his decline, and well after Porzingis’s heyday.
The problem with this approach is that it is too hard to build a successful NBA team while splitting your attention between two goals. Teams that win championships have a single, strong core with a clear identity. Atlanta is a dark-horse title contender at best with this iteration of their roster, and a core of Johnson, Daniels, and Risacher doesn’t look like a significantly better team.
The Hawks could defy conventional wisdom and achieve playoff success for a sustained period, but it would require excellent asset management. The team was blessed with a 2026 New Orleans pick that will likely be in the lottery. They also have most of their first round picks going forward.
The Warriors made just one mistake, the Wiseman pick, which was enough to tank their two timeline plan. The Hawks have the assets and talent to pull off the impossible, but Onsi Saleh has zero margin of error if this is the approach they take. The Terance Mann trade cost Atlanta a first round pick to dump his salary. The team cannot afford to make mistakes going forward, not even seemingly minor ones like the Mann trade.