To close out hour one of the Jon Chuckery Show, Jon brought up an interesting point about the Atlanta Hawks. After the Hawks 116-113 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks in Game One of the Eastern Conference Finals in Milwaukee to take home court advantage and control of the series, Jon posed the question: If the Hawks are this close to playing for an NBA title and even winning an NBA title, do you need to add much for next year? Jon Chuckery doesn’t think the Atlanta Hawks need to do much as far as personnel changes go to be back in contention next year.
We all know the story that is the Atlanta Hawks by now, got off to a 4-1 start, injuries hit, found themselves at 14-20, fired then head coach Lloyd Pierce, Nate McMillan is named the interim coach, McMillan starts his Hawks head coaching journey with eight straight wins, more injuries, Hawks finish 41-31 and clinch the 5th seed, nobody thinks they’ll beat the Knicks, it was a good story but it’s time to end, Knicks in six starts trending on Twitter, Hawks win in five games, Atlanta’s time was definitely up against Philly though, Atlanta wins game one and the series in seven, and now the Hawks have won third game one on the road in as many tries and are now three games away from the NBA Finals. With all that being said, the Atlanta Hawks have exceeded expectations, even in the eyes of people close to the team, but now that the Hawks are ahead of schedule and are legit contenders now, how does this team get better? Do the Hawks go for a big name free agent? Will Atlanta continue to try and improve their bench and role players? Well, Jon Chuckery thinks for the Hawks it's just about “getting healthy.” Chuck believes “the biggest thing is just getting healthy” for the Atlanta Hawks. With the core of Trae Young, Kevin Huerter, Clint Capela, De’Andre Hunter, Cam Reddish, and Bogdan Bogdanovic, I left John Collins out because while he will probably be re-signed by the Hawks he is a restricted free agent this offseason, Jon doesn’t believe the Hawks need to spend a lot of money on free agents this year saying “Do the Hawks need to spend any real big money, probably not.” Chuckery doesn’t anticipate the Hawks being big spenders in the offseason either saying “I don’t expect the Hawks to spend a lot of money this offseason...I think that’s what this offseason was.” The Atlanta Hawks were big spenders last offseason signing Bogdan Bogdanovic to a four-year seventy-two million dollar deal after the Kings declined to match Atlanta’s offer sheet. The Hawks were far from done though as they completed a sign and trade to acquire Danilo Gallinari from the Oklahoma City Thunder for a conditional 2025 second round pick. The Hawks also traded for Tony Snell and signed free agents Solomon Hill, Kris Dunn, and Rajon Rondo who was eventually traded for Lou Williams. Despite owner Tony Ressler opening up the check book and taking a 20-47 team and making them a 41-31 team it wasn’t an easy road as the Hawks dealt with a multitude of injuries all season long. Most of the Hawks new acquisitions missed a chunk of time. Bogdan Bogdanovic only played 44 games in the regular season, Danilo Gallinari only played in 51, Tony Snell only played in 47, before the trade Rajon Rondo played in 27, and Kris Dunn has played in a whopping 4 games this season. Other important pieces for the Hawks have missed some time too. Two of the Hawks young wings De’Andre Hunter and Cam Reddish missed a lot of time this season. Hunter really came into his own this season, but only played in 23 games this season. However, Hunter did come back towards the end of the year, and did play in the Knicks series, but after re-injuring his knee he is out for the rest of the postseason. Cam Reddish was never able to really put anything together this season only playing in 26 games, and even though Reddish is healthy and cleared to play now, he hasn’t played in an NBA game since February and now is not the time to try and bring Reddish back. Finally, Trae Young, John Collins, and Clint Capela all missed 9 games this season.
All of that was said to say even to this day the Atlanta Hawks have never been truly fully healthy all season long, and still find themselves three games away from the Eastern Conference Finals, yes that is a very scary thought for teams around the NBA, and that is a big part of the reason Jon Chuckery believes this team doesn’t need to make any big moves this offseason saying “I don’t think you have to go spend big money, just get healthy and stick with the core you’ve got.” Jon also said “I don’t think it’s a matter of being cheap. I think it’s a matter of being prudent to what this team has done.”
Tony Ressler has shown he isn’t afraid to spend money to make this Hawks team competitive, and Jon Chuckery acknowledged that saying “If Tony Ressler needs to spend money to compete for an NBA Title he’s ready to spend money on an NBA title, but worse case scenario your three wins away from competing for an NBA title.” Despite the 14-20 start, despite the coaching change, despite the injuries, despite it all the Atlanta Hawks are three wins away from being in the NBA Finals, and that’s the reason why the Atlanta Hawks don’t need to do anything in the offseason besides get healthy. Again, worst case scenario is the Hawks lose to the Milwaukee Bucks in five games in the Eastern Conference Finals, and if that happens the Hawks could make a move to find another star to play alongside Trae Young because after what Trae has done in his first postseason we can all agree with Jon Chuckery when he says “People are going to want to play with Trae Young.” However, I don’t think the Hawks are losing to the Milwaukee Bucks in five games, and from what I've seen from this tough, gritty, and talented Atlanta Hawks team, when they are fully healthy they have more than enough to win an NBA title.