Since the NBA suspended play March 11, with the coronavirus sending the sports world into disarray, the Hawks haven’t had much concrete information to go on.
Months later, though, they know much more: what team activity will be permitted in the offseason and where they’ll be picking in the NBA draft Oct. 16. They also know, after commissioner Adam Silver’s comments before the lottery Thursday, that the 2020-21 season may start later than Dec. 1, with Silver mentioning that target date feels early.
At the very least, the next few steps for the Hawks are finally a little clearer.
They’ll have the No. 6 pick in the first round, having fallen from the projected fourth to sixth (although percentage-wise, sixth was their most likely individual option, with a 25.7 percent chance). They also will have pick No. 50, in the second round. Moving forward, the Hawks will continue to hold virtual interviews with prospects via Zoom (they’ve been hosting these for months now, holding two as recently as Tuesday).
They’re still waiting to hear if there will be some sort of draft combine, most likely virtual, which would enable them to further evaluate prospects, and more information on the 2020-21 season’s start date and calendar, per Hawks general manager and president of basketball operations Travis Schlenk.
“We’re in kind of an unprecedented time here,” Schlenk said. “The league has told us they’ll be giving us some more information on the combine. All indications are that it will be virtual in nature, but they haven’t sent out that information yet, so I’m sure we’ll be getting it soon. … About the timeline, we have some hard dates, but those dates obviously can be changed, so there’s a lot of things up in the air.”
Because players are less likely to travel these days, the Hawks have been able to talk with more prospects in years past, which Schlenk sees as advantageous.
“Just because kids were at home, so agents were willing to set up interviews for us,” Schlenk said. “We have the sixth pick, but we knew we were going to have a pick in the top eight, and then we have the 50th pick. But we’ve talked to almost every kid, probably, that’s going to get drafted in between those two spots. And in a normal year, you wouldn’t get those kids to come to Atlanta to work out because they can only go so many places.
“Agents don’t want kids flying all over the place. So we would get just a group of guys that, no one wants to admit they’re going to be at 50, they all won’t be. If they’re in the second round, they’re in the first half of the second round. We get a lot kids that want to be picked sixth.
“But we’ve been able to talk to way more kids via Zoom just because the travel’s not involved, than in a normal year, we wouldn’t be able to, so I think that’s advantageous in and of itself.”
Then, there’s the matter of the players already on the roster and what team activity will be allowed by the league and the players union.
Because their poor record (20-47) placed them more than six games out of playoff contention at the time of the season’s suspension, the Hawks were one of eight teams not invited to the Orlando restart. Facing around nine months between games (and that’s without factoring in a later 2020 start date), the Hawks have been vocal about wanting to find some way to play and get reps during that lag, particularly since their young players could benefit from added practice.
On Tuesday, they finally got some direction.
Along with the seven other teams that did not qualify for the restart, the Hawks can hold voluntary individual workouts at their practice facility from Sept. 14-Oct. 6, with daily COVID-19 testing. Then, from Sept. 21-Oct. 6, they can hold group workouts including team practices, skill or conditioning sessions and intra-squad scrimmages, with continued daily COVID-19 testing. For that phase, players must enter a bubble, which the Hawks will have to create somewhere in Atlanta.
The Hawks wanted something more involved, maybe the creation of a second bubble with all eight teams included together allowing for games, similar to Summer League, but they’ll take it.
“Any time you can get your group of guys together and get practice time with them is advantageous,” Schlenk said. “We’re in a situation where our last game was March 11, and we didn’t have any idea when that would be. Now we at least have two weeks in September where we’ll be able to conduct full practices, which is exciting. Our guys are excited about it.
“We were one of teams, all the way back, that was pushing for the second bubble, or to be able to go scrimmage. Our guys wanted to play. So we’re excited about it. We wish it was more, to be completely candid with you. … We wish there was games versus other teams. I understand the players association and the league’s point of view, putting health and safety at the forefront, so we’re going to take everything we can get and run with it.”
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