For the first time in a few seasons, the Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta Hawks fans aren’t losing sleep on who the Hawks will draft with their lottery pick. As far as the draft goes the Hawks don’t have a lot of holes to fill, and they aren’t necessarily looking for a future face of the franchise in this draft. However, the Atlanta Hawks could still make some noise in this draft, but it’s not because of who they could potentially draft this year, it's because of who they could potentially trade.
Leading up to the draft multiple reports have now come out that the Hawks not only were listening to trade offers for young phenom Cam Reddish before last season’s trade deadline, but they’re still listening to offers now. The Athletic NBA Twitter account put out a tweet with similar verbiage as sources have told The Athletic’s Atlanta Hawks beat writer Chris Kirschner that the team is still listening to offers on the former lottery pick going into Thursday night’s NBA Draft. Now, before you get your pitchforks and go riot at State Farm Arena, Atlanta Hawks General Manager Travis Schlenk and all NBA general managers for that matter are usually always listening to trade offers, so this could simply be nothing. However, this also could be something considering the fact that the last time we saw Cam Reddish he was single handedly trying to get the Hawks to a Game 7 in the Eastern Conference Finals against the eventual NBA Champion Milwaukee Bucks, so as far as what have you done for me lately goes Cam Reddish is a very nice asset to have, but inconsistency and injuries is also part of the reason why Cam Reddish is on the trading block. All basketball fans can agree that the talent and potential is there for Cam Reddish, and Atlanta Hawks Head Coach Nate McMillan recognizes the talent too as he compared him to Paul Geroge at the end of the season. However, Reddish’s health and even more than that consistency could be the reason why Schlenk decides not to keep him around. There have been reports and rumors that Cam Reddish and possibly Chris Dunn, who just exercised his five million dollar player option a couple of days ago to stay with the Hawks, could be packaged in a draft night trade that would allow the Hawks to move in the draft. Now, you’re probably wondering why Travis Schlenk would even think about doing that when he already has an ample amount of young talent in Trae Young, Cam Reddish, Kevin Huerter, De’Andre Hunter, and John Collins if he re-signs this offseason, well it’s simply because Travis Schlenk might not be confident he could keep all of his young guys with having to possibly bring back Collins on a near max deal, and sign Trae Young to a max deal in another season. The rumor is that the Hawks General Manager would make this move to reset a rookie deal, so he could properly allocate cap space to take care of players like John Collins and Trae Young. Atlanta Hawks owner Tony Ressler has gone on record saying that he’s okay with spending money and going into the luxury tax for this team to be competitive, and with that being said another theory is that maybe the Atlanta Hawks are making room to bring in a big name guy like Bradley Beal. If the Hawks are planning to make a legit run at Beal via trade then you could see why they maybe would no longer see the need to keep Cam Reddish around, but on the other side of that token Reddish could also play the three with Beal in the backcourt as the two guard, and you could just trade Kevin Huerter and/or De’Andre Hunter. Thomas Mott thinks Cam Reddish is “too talented to give up.” With all that being said, none of this could happen and it could all be nothing as the Hawks could very just draft a backup point guard and maybe another big man with the 20th and 48th overall picks tomorrow night.
It could be a very quiet night for the Hawks tomorrow, and they could just stand pat with their current picks, or they could possibly shake up the entire NBA balance of power by the time the NBA Draft concludes tomorrow night, and anything in between. However, whether the Atlanta Hawks make a draft night trade tomorrow night or not, I can guarantee you one thing, we will all welcome some new Atlanta Hawks to the team tomorrow night, but the only question is will they be newly drafted rookies, or will it be a three time all-star shooting guard?