Jalen Johnson just experienced everything that goes into a breakout season. It's never perfect. The highs are extremely high, but the lows are incredibly low. When being tasked with the role of the team's top option midway through the year, these inconsistencies were to be expected.
What the organization can't have, though, is complacency. He got his first real taste of stardom this past season, and it's fully up to him to take it up another level. It's possible. Many rising stars improve year after year, but others do the opposite. Johnson needs to avoid the latter, and if he does, the Atlanta Hawks will be completely on the right track.
There isn't a more valuable lesson for a young star than early elimination
It kind of humbles a player. Seeing a plethora of postseason success in the first year as a top option would do more harm than good for a player's trajectory, as crazy as it sounds. They'll get satisfied too early. Johnson has no room to lose his hunger, fueling the rest of the team with him.
Honesty is important, as well. It's okay to understand that the first playoff appearance Johnson had as the face of the franchise was an underwhelming one. The only way for him to make people forget it is to make people forget it. The way to do that, well, is to follow it up with an even greater season and conclusion.
Easier said than done, sure, but Johnson's given Hawks fans no reason to believe he'll just fall back right after taking off. He's seen tremendous improvements each season, and now that he's received a glimpse of what it could look like all put together, he'll keep striving.
He has an organization and fanbase that believes in him. In his first season as the face of the franchise, he took them out of Play-In purgatory. It was the first time in four seasons that the Hawks locked in a top-six seed in the Eastern Conference.
There's a specific aspect of his game he needs to polish before next year
His assignment for next season is simple: become the halfcourt scorer he's proven he can be. Hawks fans have seen glimpses of brilliance, but more often than not, he's been able to create advantages off of transition play.
That kind of dominance is needed, but the postseason becomes a halfcourt game. There's no room for stars to be limited in what they can do in isolation situations, or any other simple halfcourt sets.
If he can refine his mid-range attack and learn how to utilize his strength on weaker defenders in a high-stakes environment, there won't be many ways for defenses to contain the Hawks. They'll take the leap into contention fans have been longing for.
Add us as a preferred source on Google