Michael Cunningham: What the Hawks should do next after dumping salary

It’s a new day for Hawks general manager Landry Fields and his staff. It would have been nearly impossible to improve the roster without dumping a high-priced player for a pittance. Now it will be very hard, which is within the normal range for basketball executives.

After agreeing to trade John Collins, Fields now can make pitches to an expanded list of free agents when negotiations begin this weekend. The deal also gives the Hawks more flexibility in trades. They have up to a year to play that card. There should be opportunities to do so with teams seeking to shed salaries because of harsher tax penalties in the new labor agreement.

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Upgrading at small forward should be a priority for Fields. A trade is the most likely way to do it. I think it’s time for the Hawks to move on from De’Andre Hunter. Fields apparently agrees because Hunter’s name keeps popping up in trade rumors. Hunter is about to get a salary bump to $21 million, and he just hasn’t shown he’s starter-quality for more than a couple of weeks at a time.

It won’t be easy for Fields to acquire a good, two-way wing. Those players are at a premium in the NBA. The Hawks won’t be able to afford the best of the bunch in free agency. They may have to stick with Hunter for now and find a trade for him later. There has to be some team out there willing to take the chance that they can unlock Hunter’s potential.

Fields will need to fill the roster hole left by Collins’ departure. He started 71 games at power forward last season. The Hawks may decide that Jalen Johnson is ready to start (questionable) or go with a smaller lineup featuring Saddiq Bey at power forward (suboptimal). Either way, they need another big man.

They also need a backup for point guard Trae Young. Aaron Holiday capably filled that role last season, but he’s about to become a free agent. The Hawks probably can sign Holiday or a similar player at a relatively cheap price. That would be a wise use of resources. The Hawks have Bogdan Bogdanovic as a playmaker off the bench, and Dejounte Murray plays point guard with the reserves while Young rests.

More than anything, the Hawks need someone, anyone who can play some defense on the perimeter. They’ve been a bad defensive team since drafting Young. They were a bad defensive team after replacing coach Nate McMillan with Quin Snyder in February. The Hawks will continue to be a bad defensive team until they add players who can keep opponents out of the paint and everyone cares more about getting stops.

At least now the Hawks can be a player in free agency to fill their needs. After the trade, the Hawks have access to the mid-level salary-cap exception for non-taxpaying teams. The NBA will announce the exact figure in the coming days, but it’s expected to be about $12 million. The Hawks can sign a free agent with starting salary up to that amount.

Before getting under the luxury-tax threshold, the Hawks were limited to using an exception of about $5 million. Realistically, they weren’t going to spend even that much because it would have cost them more in tax. Now, instead of shopping from the bargain bin of free agency, the Hawks can sign a veteran who makes as much as the league average salary.

Donte DiVincenzo is the most intriguing possibility among free-agent wings the Hawks might be able to afford. DiVincenzo is a great shooter and good defender. He’s expected to decline his $4.7 million player option with Golden State. If DiVincenzo ends up having to settle for a mid-level deal, then the Hawks will have a chance to persuade him to join up.

If not DiVincenzo, then there are some other solid free-agent wing players who probably can be signed for $12 million or less. Matisse Thybulle and Hamidou Diallo are on the list. They are limited on offense but can guard. The same goes for forwards Jalen McDaniels and Dwight Powell. If the Hawks are serious about defense, then they’ll welcome players who are good at it while not necessarily providing much offense.

The Hawks can more easily find answers in the trade market now. As part of the Collins trade, the Hawks got a $25 million trade exception. That means they can take that much in incoming salary without needing to match it with outgoing salaries. The trade exception expires a year after the Collins trade, which will be executed officially July 6.

The Hawks will be looking especially at players whose contracts expire after next season, with either player or team looking to move on. There should be a long list of such players as teams that are going nowhere seek to reduce bloated payrolls to avoid the second luxury-tax threshold. Some names to watch: Pascal Siakam (Raptors), Buddy Hield (Pacers) Robert Covington (Clippers) and Spencer Dinwiddie (Nets).

The Hawks have options. They essentially had to give away Collins to create them. That’s the price they paid for signing Collins to a contract extension two years ago and then seeing his role and production steadily decline.

Fields wasn’t calling the shots when Collins got that deal. His first headline deal as GM is to get the Hawks out of paying Collins at least $52 million over the next two years. That wasn’t easy to do. It took the Hawks a while to find a taker for Collins that had enough cap space to make the deal work without sending back a high-priced player.

In exchange for Collins, the Hawks acquired Rudy Gay. He’s enjoyed a long and distinguished career and was still a productive player two years ago, but Gay hit the wall last season. Player-for-player, this was a losing deal for the Hawks. The benefit is that it created more ways for them to get better.

Now it’s up to Fields to seize that opportunity and make tangible improvements to the roster.