Jonathan Kuminga is Hawks' only hope at patching the hole sinking their season

The Atlanta Hawks have been the worst rim-finishing team in the league since trading Trae Young in early January, and there is no end to this misery in sight with their current lineup. Fortunately, they traded Kristaps Porzingis for Jonathan Kuminga, who could be just the perfect player to remedy this issue.

The Hawks have struggled at the rim all season, but the team has fallen into a downward spiral since the New Year. The sudden rim struggles are quite confusing; the team ranked 15th in rim finishing before the Young trade, and the volume has only changed marginally (a 1.3% decrease in rim attempts per game).

While you may chalk this up to the addition of CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert into the lineup, both new players have finished at an above-average rate at the rim. Furthermore, Young and Kristaps Porzingis’s departures have had a marginal impact, as the two stars combined for a mere 27 games. In case you forgot, Young was actually playing quite poorly this season, and Porzingis no longer has the mobility to slash to the paint.

You may then consider that the loss of Luke Kennard and Vit Krejci impacted the team’s spacing, and the rim struggles are simply a downstream consequence. While this is a logical inference, it falls flat when you check the data. The team ranked third worst in rim efficiency between when McCollum and Kispert debuted and the trade deadline. Clearly, the struggles began before the pair of sharpshooters was traded.

The Hawks’ rim gaffes are inexplicable, but help is on the way

Let me be clear: Jonathan Kuminga hasn’t been the most reliable player in recent memory. His statistical impact over the past two seasons is shaky, and his off-court issues are certainly a red flag (particularly considering Quin Snyder’s questionable handling of Zaccharie Risacher).

If there is one thing, however, fans can expect from Kuminga, it is his rim pressure. Kuminga is one of the best slashers in the league on a statistical basis, and the eye test backs this up. He is a ferocious athlete who possesses the line-drive speed, strength, and vertical pop to embarrass just about any defender. 

Excluding this season (which is reasonable given his public feud with Steve Kerr and the Warriors organization), Kuminga has ranked in the top 20% of small forwards in rim volume per 100 possessions in each season of his career. He consistently converts on these looks as well, placing in the top quarter of SFs in rim efficiency during three of his first four seasons.

The Kuminga experiment could be a massive success for Atlanta; it could also be remembered as a head-scratching failure. But we can trust that his inclusion will juice Atlanta's rim finishing, which the team needs more than anything.