Fatal flaw Hawks must fix at 2025 NBA trade deadline

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All things considered, the Atlanta Hawks are having a good 2024-25 season; not too many had high expectations for them after trading away Dejounte Murray over the offseason, but the Hawks are on track to finish above .500 for this season — not necessarily an improvement from where they were prior to their trade for Murray, but a good trajectory for them to be on nonetheless considering that they have a young, burgeoning team that is only getting better.

There isn’t exactly much urgency for the Hawks to improve the roster prior to the 2025 trade deadline. They aren’t exactly on track to compete for a championship this season, despite still being the only team in the NBA this year to beat both the Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics.

Any fatal flaw of the Hawks’ is something that they will want to work through without having to rush the roster-building process that they are currently in. They have a few building blocks that should still be around the next time they can be a top playoff team in the East, but one thing’s for sure — there must be a diversification in the way Atlanta plays if they were to take the next step as a team.

This is the fatal flaw the Hawks will have to deal with moving forward.

Are the Hawks too reliant on Trae Young to create offense?

The Hawks have already experimented in the past with bringing in another shot creator and playmaker to reduce the workload on Trae Young’s shoulders. Sadly, the Dejounte Murray experiment went sideways really quickly, as Young and Murray’s playstyles weren’t too compatible with one another.

In 2021, the Hawks stumbled upon a winning formula — surround Young with as many 3-and-D players as possible while letting him do the bulk of the creating on offense. And it worked; they made it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals and had a fighting chance to make it all the way to the NBA Finals if more injury luck had fallen in their favor.

The Hawks are replicating that formula, but it hasn’t been working quite as well. There is a lack of secondary shot-creation on the roster, and the injury problem to Bogdan Bogdanovic hasn’t helped matters at all. Jalen Johnson has been doing his best in his role as a do-it-all, dive man and secondary playmaker, but his playmaking chops still have a lot of room for improvement. Dyson Daniels is a defensive specialist who can handle the ball occasionally, but he doesn’t have the consistent ability to make shots off the bounce to threaten defenses.

Meanwhile, De’Andre Hunter is more of a play finisher, someone who thrives off of the setup from playmakers such as Young, while Zaccharie Risacher is as raw as ever in the shot-creation and playmaking department. Simply put, the heavy burden to generate offense falls on their star playmaker, and it’s resulting in some of Young’s worst scoring output in years.

Young’s true shooting is currently at its worst since his rookie season, and his 22.5 points per game is also his worst output since his inaugural NBA campaign in 2018. That is a concern; defenses can load up on Young and stifle him, forcing him into more tough shooting nights than ever — capping the Hawks’ offensive ceiling.

This would not be too big of an issue if the Hawks’ defense was solid. But even with Daniels being one of the most pesky defenders in the association, their team defense has been leaving a lot to be desired.

Atlanta’s defense is shaky at best

It will always be difficult for any team to mitigate the negative defensive effects of having Trae Young on the roster. But the Hawks have to pick a battle. They should either go all-in on offense or defense, and thus far, they’re pretty mediocre (at best) in both facets of the game. They are currently complementing their 17th ranked offense with the league’s 21st ranked defense. That spells disaster for them in terms of stringing together some winning basketball.

Acquiring a two-way wing who can help soak up some shot-creation duties could go a long way towards helping the Hawks achieve some better roster balance.

Time to swing for the fences?

The Hawks are a team that can talk its way into acquiring someone like Brandon Ingram. Ingram is a three-level scorer and a wing playmaker, and he can slot in seamlessly for the team at the three, provided, of course, that everything goes according to plan in his recovery from injury.

Atlanta can build a package around De’Andre Hunter and Bogdan Bogdanovic along with some draft capital, although the Hawks will have to soon pony up a huge contract for Ingram if they were to bring him in.

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