Quin Snyder’s rotation decisions this season have been nothing short of baffling.
The headline of his ridiculous lineup decisions is the Keaton Wallace-Luke Kennard-Vit Krejci lineup he is obsessed with rolling out. In last night’s loss to the Wizards, the Hawks’ second-most-used lineup featured a backcourt containing all three players. As you might expect, the Hawks lost these minutes.
There’s a lot to unpack here. First off, these three players should never share the floor. They are Atlanta’s three worst perimeter players in the rotation. Why would you play them all together? The net rating with all three players on the floor is -20, which is bad enough to lose you games. The solution is simple too; replacing one of these three with Dyson Daniels, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, or Zaccharie Risacher would instantly alleviate the two-way weakness of this lineup.
The honest answer to this question, unfortunately, is that Quin Snyder has a bad case of picking favorites. Keaton Wallace is a prime example. He has a natural spot on this team, but probably doesn’t deserve NBA minutes barring a true injury disaster. Snyder’s love for him, however, has given Wallace an outsized role on the squad. He has underperformed in this role, negatively affecting the team and almost certainly causing confidence issues.
Snyder must address his rotations to maximize the Hawks’ ceiling
A coach’s job is to maximize the output of a team with a given input. In Utah, Snyder turned an overrated combo guard and a seven-footer who can’t catch the ball into the top seed in the West. That’s good coaching.
In Atlanta, however, Snyder has seemingly lost the art of crafting a rotation. The Hawks’ two most prominent breakout players, Vit Krejci and Mouhamed Gueye, both began the season out of the rotation. Keaton Wallace has shown the world he isn’t an NBA player, at least not yet, but Snyder insists on giving him a consistent diet of real point guard touches.
Other rotation mistakes have plagued Atlanta as well. While Trae Young is out, there should never be a minute where Jalen Johnson, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and Dyson Daniels are on the bench. They are the only players I trust to create with the ball on this team, and any offense created in their absence is probably fluky.
I’m not calling for Snyder’s job. I think what he did in Utah was special, and I see the vision of what he’s building in Atlanta. But he needs another voice in the room when it comes to rotation decisions. He’s made far too many mistakes that simply make no sense for him to continue to have free rein over the rotations.