Finding a proper one-for-one trade for some of the more available players on the Atlanta Hawks’ roster has proven difficult. Several such players remain despite the front office’s efforts to move on from them.
It could take a multi-team deal to get something that works for everyone involved, including the Hawks who are often sellers looking to offload players for cap space and draft picks.
But new big man Larry Nance Jr. said that is not their mindset.
Instead, let’s look at a three-team trade proposal from All Hawks’ Rohan Raman that would bring championship Golden State Warriors Andrew Wiggins and Kevon Looney as well as some potentially high-value draft capital.
Hawks get:
- Andrew Wiggins
- Gui Santos
- Kevon Looney
- Nikola Jovic
- 2027 first-round pick (top-3 protected via GSW)
- 2031 first-round pick (top-5 protected via MIA)
Heat get:
- Bogdan Bogdanovic
- De'Andre Hunter
- Jonathan Kuminga
- Moses Moody
- 2025 first-round pick (via GSW)
Warriors get:
- Jimmy Butler
- Pelle Larsson
Proposed 3-team trade sends Warriors trio to Hawks
“The attractiveness of this deal for Atlanta is primarily in the picks. Both the 2027 1st-rounder and the 2031 1st-rounder could be used to either fuel a rebuild or add more pieces around Trae Young,” Raman wrote on September 14. “Furthermore, it lessens some of the impact from the Dejounte Murray trade where the Hawks lost their 2027 first-rounder. However, Andrew Wiggins and Nikola Jovic are both intriguing pieces.”
Raman points to the potential logjam at center this deal would create.
The Hawks already roster three in starter Clint Capela and backups Onyeka Okongwu and Cody Zeller and would add two more in this deal.
Okongwu can play power forward but has not yet shown the perimeter shooting to play there full time. And the Hawks still have Jalen Johnson starting and veteran Larry Nance Jr. – part of the return from the Murray trade – at the 4 spot.
Andrew Wiggins is coming off back-to-back down seasons.
He appeared in just 37 games in 2022-23 amid personal issues and averaged a career-low 13.2 points per game while seeing his three-point shooting dip to a four-year low in 2023-24.
Wiggins is also on an expensive contract in Year 2 of a four-year, $109 million deal. He has a player option in the final season that would put the Hawks in a similar position as they are in now with Hunter. Hunter is in Year 2 of a four-year, $90 million pact.
Kevon Looney is on an expiring three-year, $22.5 million deal.
He would make more sense as a replacement for Capela, who is among the group of Hawks players most often mentioned in trade speculation.
Looney is not the rebounder that Capela is and the Hawks would be undersized if they did move on from the latter. Capela is also a better defender and on his own expiring contract; a two-year, $46 million pact.
Gui Santos is more of a potential than player at this point of his development.
However, Nikola Jovic – the would-be fifth center on the Hawks if this deal went down – has already shown what he can do at the NBA level and helped Serbia win Bronze alongside Bogdanovic in the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.
This deal would shave a little over $323,000 from the Hawks’ books and further replenish their draft coffers while giving them pieces to help them remain competitive.
Whether the potential loss of Bogdanovic and Hunter is offset in this proposal is debatable.
Grade – C+: The potential is there for both picks in this proposal to land in the lottery while the players can help compete now. But they were not enough when they were one year younger in Golden State, making it difficult to envision working in Atlanta