The Hawks had a second-round pick in the 2024 NBA draft after all.
On Thursday, the Hawks traded forward AJ Griffin to Houston for the No. 44 pick in the second round. And then flipped the pick with Miami, which held the No. 43 pick and selected Serbian guard Nikola Djurisic.
Once the dust settled, Djurisic appeared on TV sporting a Heat cap - but is apparently headed to Atlanta after the draft-day trade. The Hawks will weigh their options on whether they will end up signing Djurisic to a contract of some kind for next season or stash him overseas to continue developing.
The Serbian player averaged 14.4 points, 3.4 rebounds and one assist last season with Mega Basket and may need some time to develop.
As for Griffin, he was a first-round selection of the Hawks in 2022 with the 16th overall pick out of Duke. After appearing in 72 games as a rookie, he played just 20 games last season.
Griffin averaged 8.9 points, 2.1 rebounds and 1.0 assist in 19.5 minutes per game as a rookie.
Griffin battled issues in his second season. After missing games because of personal reasons and being listed as inactive, Griffin returned briefly in December.
“Yeah, I would say I’m glad to be back,” Griffin told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution when he returned. “The team has been great to be able to support me through that time stepping away for a little, just for personal reasons. I definitely want to keep it brief and not put it all out there, But I have a great staff, great teammates here, checking in on me just to make sure everything’s good. And just really walking in today, just, it’s always good to see your loved ones too, your family and stuff like that, to be able to reconnect and so I just had a great time today and moving on from there.”
However, he missed most of the rest of the season. He played two minutes Jan. 30 and then did not appear in the next 33 games. He appeared in the Hawks’ final two games of the regular season, playing 18 and 20 minutes, respectively. He averaged 2.4 points. 0.9 rebounds and 0.3 assists in 8.5 minutes over his second season.
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