The Trae Young Hawks: one good stretch in an era of mediocrity

What if this roster formulation just isn't very good?

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

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When the Hawks hired Travis Schlenk away from the Golden State Warriors front office and gave him the keys to a bad post-Budenholzer team, he talked about building around Trae Young as if he were Stephen Curry: relying on Young’s impressive range and quick trigger to fit with smart passers, good defenders and fellow shooters.

And even though Young doesn’t reside in the same galaxy as Curry, it sort of worked … for a minute, until it didn’t. But let’s rewind to the beginning.

The Hawks were a bottom-five team in 2019-20 that didn’t even make the bubble. Schlenk made some moves, most notably bringing in Bogdan Bogdanovic as a free agent and Danilo Gallinari on a sign-and-trade. It didn’t really work, so midseason he replaced Lloyd Pierce with veteran coach Nate McMillan. The coaching change, an easier schedule and some lightning in a bottle led the Hawks to an impressive, improbable run featuring the most famous Ben Simmons moment of all and a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals, where the Bucks reigned en route to a championship.

The Hawks have been close to mediocre since. They made the playoffs via play-in last season (losing 4-1 in the first round to Miami) and sit in a similar spot this season.

Schlenk was replaced by Landry Fields and Kyle Korver earlier this season. On Monday, Woj reported that the Hawks have fired Nate McMillan. There were rumblings earlier this season that McMillan was weighing retirement, but that the franchise had convinced him to stay on. If that’s true and McMillan stuck around just to get fired, that’s some abysmal behavior by the front office. But reporting around the Hawks — and around Trae in particular — is always a little weird.

What’s becoming clear is that whatever the Hawks pulled off in 2020-21 was a mirage.