ATHENS — Three days into this year’s training camp, and the Hawks continue to keep their season’s lineups and combinations fluid.
The exhibition games will allow them to tinker with their rotation more than throughout the regular season. But ultimately the Hawks want to remain flexible as the season unfolds and changes dictate the need to switch things.
“So, I think the question really is, ‘how does our team function?’” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said Thursday. “And the other part of it is, people will focus on the first game as, like, a definitive statement about something. And, we have an 82-game (regular) season.
“Well, say that we’ll have focus on that in the first (exhibition) game. And, we could start anybody we want, and there’ll be different starters, I think, throughout the year, based on a lot of things, there’ll be different lineups, and it’s something we have to continue to observe and see how guys play together, see who complements each other, see what rotations look like.”
The Hawks begin exhibition play at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday versus the Indiana Pacers at State Farm Arena.
Through camp, the Hawks have looked at lineups that include some of their young players. They’ve also looked at a combination among the veterans from last season that they did not get to run together.
They had the chance to roll out a group that featured rookie Zaccharie Risacher, sophomore guard Kobe Bufkin, as well as recently acquired guard Dyson Daniels. They also looked at a combination of wings Vit Krejci, De’Andre Hunter and Jalen Johnson.
But not enough time has elapsed, and the team has yet to play games to get a full sense of how well those combinations work.
“So, although in an eight-minute scrimmage situation, everybody knows what sample size means,” Snyder said. “Like, 10 years ago, we didn’t even talk about that. So we have what’s called a small sample size right now, but what we do have is film, and we have film that allows us to teach, and whatever combination is on the floor, the goal is for those guys to improve individually and for those combinations to improve collectively.”
Because the Hawks have a mostly fully healthy camp, they head into the exhibition games with a lot of depth and versatility that will allow them to explore different combinations. Center Onyeka Okongwu and wing Seth Lundy continue to ramp up after undergoing medical procedures during the offseason. That makes the job of projecting the team’s starting lineup and rotation for the regular-season opener a little more complicated.
It could be easy to slot Risacher into the starting lineup because the team selected him with the first overall pick in June’s NBA draft. But the Hawks have a capable wing in Hunter, who put up one of his more efficient seasons last season.
Though the Hawks won the draft lottery, and they have a young team with the players they’ve added, the roster still does not fit the typical model of what a team who won the lottery may look like.
They still have five players featured on the roster that went to the Eastern Conference finals in the 2020-21 season. Those same players also have helped the team to the playoffs in two of the past three seasons.
On top of that, the team still has a level of newness after adding five players to the roster. With training camp still in its infancy, the team is still figuring each other out and how their individual talents fit each other.
“So, you’re not coming into a typical situation with a team that. If we didn’t win the lottery, you may have different decisions that surround that,” Snyder said. “If it were next year, you would have different situations. So, we have these kind of stereotypical, concepts about what that’s supposed to look like, and really, they just don’t apply.
“In spite of all that Zacch could start. You may start with (Hunter). You just don’t know. (Zacch) could start at different positions, but we’re still finding out who Zacch is, and frankly, we’re still finding out who Dyson is. We’re still finding out who Trae (Young) is, and that’s anytime you bring a new group of guys together, those are all the dynamics that come into play. So, it’s difficult, you know, to make those types of statements, really at this point. What I’ve seen in camp is a lot of different guys can play together, which could make it harder to determine who starts.”
Though the Hawks are far from committed to what their rotation will look like when the season begins, Risacher, the staff and his teammates have keyed their focus on his long-term development.
“There’s very few at age 19, born in 2005, which is crazy, very few at 19 can come in the league and just, ‘I’m here. I’ve arrived,’” Hawks forward Larry Nance Jr. said. “Like, it doesn’t happen like that. So, whether it’s start or off the bench, I don’t think that should be the key focus point. I think it’s more so just long-term development.
“And, the dude is going to have a long, successful career. So, just patience with himself, and we’re going to have patience with him. Obviously, it’s going to be an adjustment. The NBA is the top league in the world, and there’s some grown men out there. So we’re going to help him. We’re going to help him through the ups, and as long as he’s willing to keep going out there every night, he’ll be just fine.”
As the Hawks ready for the exhibition season, Snyder wants to see the team execute the principles they’ve focused on throughout camp.
“It’s one data point,” he said when asked about what he’s looking to learn from the team. “I think, more than anything, I want to see us execute on the defensive end with the same focus that we want to execute on the offensive end and really understand the connectivity between what we do on offense and how it impacts our defense. You know, something as simple as a guard drives to the basket and lays the ball in, suddenly we have an unbalanced floor.
“The other thing, the overlay on that, in my mind, is just start communication. And that’s something that I think is a challenge, generally, to get guys to get out of themselves. Part of it is knowing what to say. So, I would say that relationship on (offense and defense) and how communication really affects your level everywhere.”
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