NBA draft = NBA trade season
Our weekend wrap-up of the latest around-the-league intel leads off with lots of Hawks talk and much more to monitor over the next few weeks
No NBA team's offseason business, even before we really got to the offseason for all 30 teams, has generated more media conversation than the immediate future of the Atlanta Hawks.
This was confirmed the other day by Atlanta's president of basketball operations Travis Schlenk, who acknowledged in an interview with The Athletic's Jeff Schultz that the Hawks have definitely noticed all the coverage.
"Every rumor out there," Schlenk said, "has the Hawks in it."
That is only a slight exaggeration, undoubtedly fueled by the disappointment that both Schlenk and Hawks owner Tony Ressler publicly voiced after a season in which Atlanta, fresh off a Cinderella trip to the Eastern Conference finals, needed the playoff play-in route just to secure the East's No. 8 seed this season.
Rival teams have for weeks described the Hawks as a team looking to make broad changes around All-Star guard Trae Young. De'Andre Hunter and Onyeka Okongwu are widely regarded as the only two other Hawks that the team wouldn't trade.
They have to break it up.
They want to do something big.
Those are the sorts of sentiments making the rounds from teams observing Atlanta.
Schlenk, though, insisted in last week's interview that the Hawks will not be undergoing what he termed "a major overhaul."
"I think some people have assumed some things based on some of my comments or Tony’s comments after the season," Schlenk said.
What will happen this week in conjunction with Thursday's NBA draft? Or when the free-agent marketplace opens a week later on June 30?
I can share a few strains of key Hawks background from my notebook to help get you ready:
🏀 The likelihood of a John Collins trade …
This is an excerpt from my latest NBA column. To read it all and receive full access to all of my work, please click the link or the orange button to subscribe.
One year older! (Almost!)
In just a few days, this Substack will be celebrating its first birthday. June 25 marks a full year of self-publishing for your humble correspondent ... and I AM PUMPED.
The usual Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza will be devoted to a longer piece about what I learned in Year 1, coverage highlights from the past 12 months and a look ahead to what we have planned for Year 2.
Just know that I feel a deep sense of responsibility to deliver the quality and density of coverage that this amazingly loyal audience deserves and I am so, so grateful for the tremendous support you've provided for me to cover the league as an independent journalist. We are building a real community here, hopefully striking the right balance between meaningful and fun, and I can't wait to keep growing it.
Those who subscribed right from the inception of The Stein Line — 🙏🙏🙏 — will soon be receiving their renewal notices via email. I hope you will continue on this journey with me by reupping for Year 2 … for all the news, rumbles, opinion, storytelling, historical perspective, truth-telling and, most of all, NBA coverage that puts the reader first always.
You know what I'm going to say next in my Norman Dale voice ...
I love you guys.
Film Session
Before the NBA calendar officially flips to the 2022-23 season, I was asked to do one more TV essay wrapping up the Mavericks’ ride to the Western Conference finals for Bally Sports Southwest.
You can watch it via the enclosed tweet … and you should definitely watch it, as a Mavs fan or not, just for the reminder of what the pre-HD NBA looked like. Clips of Hakeem Olajuwon’s first championship with the Houston Rockets, won not that long ago in 1994, look so many notches worse than the picture quality we get today.
Dot Dot Dot (🏀🏀🏀)
🏀 Phoenix's Deandre Ayton for a package headlined by Myles Turner? Indiana extending a significant offer sheet to Charlotte restricted free agent Miles Bridges? The Pacers are next in line after the Hawks when it comes to teams generating very interesting transactional scenarios. Most of all, of course, Indiana …
This is an excerpt from my latest NBA column. To read it all and receive full access to all of my work, please click the link or the orange button to subscribe.