The Atlanta Hawks have not started the season on the right note, dropping to a 1-3 record after making a series of win-now moves this offseason. While the record is suboptimal, the level of play displayed on the court is far more concerning. These weren’t easily winnable games lost to flukish performances by better teams, but sloppy performances that left points on the table.
Law Murray of The Athletic, like most around the league, noticed the dissonance between Atlanta’s expectations and the actual on-court play. After being high on the Hawks just a week ago, Murray dropped the team from 5th to 21st in his power rankings. Perhaps both of these rankings were overreactions, with Murray first falling victim to the offseason hype train, then to a poor performance over a small sample biased with injuries to three starters.
Murray raised questions around Kristaps Porzingis’s shot diet, arguing that the big man needs to be more active inside the paint. While this is true, the Hawks clearly have much bigger problems that cannot be addressed with a simple reminder to the team that Porzingis needs the ball in the post. Murray also released the rankings before Monday’s loss to the Chicago Bulls, where Porzingis scored 16 of his 27 points inside the paint.
The holes in the Hawks' roster have become apparent
The Hawks have the top-level talent necessary to be a good regular season team at the least, and a dark horse playoff contender if they reach their ceiling. Through two games, however, the team hasn’t shown that it deserves either of those labels.
Atlanta’s early struggles have a bittersweet quality, as they could be easily fixed but would require a significant team effort that cannot be guaranteed. The two biggest priorities the team has to address are its transition defense and rebounding, two areas in which the Hawks rank in the bottom five across the league.
The transition defense should be easy to address, although the team may need time to build chemistry before seeing significant progress. There isn’t a ton of strategy to transition defense; it really just comes down to whether the defense is hustling back. The Hawks haven’t done so this year, which cost them dearly in their season-opening loss to the Toronto Raptors.
The rebounding is a more difficult area to address, as Porzingis has been a weak rebounder throughout his career. This is a problem Atlanta will have to overcome at other positions, placing a greater emphasis on wings and guards crashing the boards to assist their star center. Still, there is no excuse for being outrebounded by 20 against the Raptors and 15 against the Bulls, neither of which has a particularly impressive big man rotation.
While the shaky start to the season rightfully has fans holding their breath, it is unlikely the Hawks will remain in the bottom 10 of the power rankings for the rest of the season. Rather, the team needs to prove that it can be what everyone thought it could be. With an increased attention to the details of transition and rebounding, however, Atlanta should be in good shape to handle this adversity as they find their groove.