The Atlanta Hawks proved this past season that they’re a team here to stay with the young pieces they have on the team, but they’re not close to being true championship contenders just yet. Yes, they were the only team to defeat the New York Knicks twice in the postseason, but some could argue they were the team that woke them up to have the dominant run they made.
With the Giannis Antetokounmpo sweepstakes heating up, the Boston Celtics have emerged as a possible team to land the two-time MVP, and Jaylen Brown is the main piece in the trade. The Milwaukee Bucks would probably ship Brown off to another team to get more assets, and the Hawks are being named as a potential suitor for the two-way wing.
Acquiring Brown would give the Hawks the player they need to take them to the next level, and it could put them in the tier of teams with the Knicks, Celtics and Detroit Pistons. However, that shouldn’t be the move they’re looking to make right now or anytime soon.
The Hawks are not one player away from contention
After their series loss to the Knicks, general manager Onsi Saleh said something that stuck out more than anything during his exit interview.
“We’re not a single player away from being what we want to be. When I came here, the biggest thing was, how do we become sustainable? We don’t want to be this team that’s like we make one run at it and then it’s back to square one,” Saleh said. “We gotta we be smart about how we build this team, and the guys that we have now, they’re just scratching the surface, too.”
If the Hawks were to trade for Brown, everything that Saleh said would be thrown out of the window. Acquiring Brown is a sign that the Hawks think they are one player away, when in hindsight, they’re just not. This postseason was their first time as a team going through the fire together, and they’re only going to get better as they progress in their careers.
Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Onyeka Okongwu have so much room left to grow, and it seems like Saleh would rather bet on their development than stunt their growth for a move that might not get them anywhere but a second-round exit. They’d be skipping the steps on how he truly wants to build the team and sacrificing their future of being a contender for the long haul.
Jaylen Brown’s contract is… a lot
It would be easier to sell the Hawks on trading for Brown if his contract wasn’t so large, but here we are. He’s set to make $57 million next season, $61 million in 2027 and $64 million in 2028, and while he deserves every dollar, that’s a contract that many teams don’t want to have on their books.
The Hawks have one of the cleanest cap sheets in the league right now, as they’ve been able to sign most of their core players to solid deals. It’s obvious that they want to have financial flexibility for the future, and adding Brown’s contract to the fold would be a mistake.
If they made this deal, the Hawks wouldn’t have much money to make any more deals to improve the team. On top of that, they’d probably find themselves in the apron, something a lot of teams are trying to avoid nowadays especially if you’re not a true championship contender. The Hawks should want to make value signings as they did with Alexander-Walker rather than bring one player who will take up almost half of their cap space.
How much better would the trade make the Hawks?
There’s no doubt that Brown would be the instant No. 1 option on the Hawks if he were traded there. He showed that he could be the main guy on a team this past season, averaging 28.7 points and 6.9 rebounds per game with Jayson Tatum missing most of the season. The Celtics were able to survive and finish as the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference almost solely because of his play.
If Brown comes to the Hawks, that means they gave up a lot of assets to acquire him, which could hurt them more than help them. They’d probably have to give up a combination of Zaccharie Risacher, Jonathan Kuminga and possibly their picks in this year’s draft. If the Celtics or Bucks are really greedy, they may even ask for someone like Okongwu.
Everyone knows that depth plays a big part in building a contender, and the Hawks would basically be giving up all of theirs for one player. As much as adding a 28 PPG scorer and above-average defender to the team would make them better, it’s not certain if it would make them that much better if they had to give up the farm to get him.
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