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It’s been a crazy week in Atlanta, at least when it comes to the city’s basketball team. In the process of sending (only) veteran Dewayne Dedmon (and no real draft assets), the Hawks added Bogdan Bogdanovic, Danilo Gallinari, Rajon Rondo, Kris Dunn, Tony Snell and Solomon Hill. As a reminder, some transactions are not yet finalized, so some minor details could go down a little differently from what is currently understood depending on the reporting that has been done.
There are already heated discussions on Twitter and elsewhere about the quality of the Atlanta Hawks in the upcoming NBA season – one that begins in less than four weeks. A heated conversation is underway about the Hawks’ position in an Eastern conference in which most of the projected playoffs are largely off the rosters they had last season.
From my perspective, the fans of the Atlanta basketball team might be a little too excited, but that’s also good, it’s the nature of fandom. It doesn’t seem to me that the Hawks pose a serious threat to to win the conference this season. Even with a rich and talented roster, it takes time to prepare for the kind of play that could take a team past the first round of the playoffs. Outside of those who have added MVP-level talent, teams rarely accomplish anything like this in their first season together.
Make no mistake, however. It should be a fun basketball season for the Hawks and their fans. But it seems to me that this was built to maximize and optimize the impact of their young star’s game, Trae Young.
After all, until a franchise has shown its young founding player that it intends to put a legitimate team around it and that it has a plan to move towards pursuing serious goals, what really matters?
Gallinari and Young could now form the best pick-and-pop duo in the league. Young and John Collins, assuming he hasn’t moved until the start of the season, are probably the best pick-and-roll combo. Snell offers a shot off the star balloon, a must for team building around Young.
Rondo offers another playmaker and a master in pick-and-roll. Dunn brings elite defense to the point of attack. But none of the new players are likely to help Young at the level that Bogdanovic will, despite the good adjustment Gallinari offers on offense.
With the 28-year-old entering his fourth league season, championship observers may not know what to think of Bogdanovic. After starting for Sacramento for most of his rookie season, he’s been part of the starting lineup in just 45 games in his last two seasons with the Kings … a replacement on a non-playoff squad.
In addition to Bogdanovic not having played with the most visible profile during his time with the Kings, there are so many nuances in his game that his positive traits have often gone unnoticed.
Bogdanovic may never score much more than he did last season (15.1 points per game), but he can score on all three levels. He converted 37.2% of his three-point attempts last year to good volume and shot a very impressive 67.7% on shots to the rim.
His mastery of the midrange may be what sets him apart even more from his peers, where he was seventh in the league (controlling volume) behind some of the league’s top scorers and shooters: Seth Curry, Chris Paul, Khris Middleton, Kevin Love, Kemba Walker and Malcom Brogdon. He was fourth among all the guards in the shots in the paint but also outside the restricted area.
On the perimeter, Bogdanovic is a much more reliable shooter working in both catch and shot opportunities. At the same time, he is very capable of creating a shot for himself when he can pass a defender and move towards the lane. Self-creation will ease some of Young’s burden and potentially help play with members of the Second Unit.
He is otherwise not dynamic in just one area of attacking play, but he is solid in all areas. Bogdanovic can handle the pick-and-roll skillfully, he does quite well on his own – which will be essential when opposing teams look to put their biggest guard on Young – and he’s a productive shooter working from transfers where he could. do a lot of work with Gallinari.
Critically, Bogdanovic is a very productive offensive player who never strayed too far from the plan. There is a useful predictability in the way he acts on offense that will likely be extremely valuable to his new backcourt mate. Dynamic point guards, like Young, who can flex opposing defenses almost at will, strongly prefer that teammates be exactly where they’re supposed to be when passing lanes are created.
Offensively, Bogdanovic is extremely versatile and quite productive. And he does his job in a way that allows him to do anything that could be asked of him from one game to the next while playing the next Young.
Need him to spot him? No problem. Need a shooter to work on off-bullet screens? He can do that. Need to punish a defense that crossed paths with a bigger defender against Young? It’s your boyfriend. Need some creation on the weak side of the floor after Young draws additional defenders with him on the strong side? Bogdanovic is quite capable of doing it.
And he can do it all without improvising unnecessarily, which helps Young and the Hawks even more.
Defensively, Bogdanovic is in no way an obstacle. For a taller guard, he works well enough on screens, but he’s just not the athlete that the best wing defenders usually are.
The main value he brings to this end of the field is that he has a good height and is surprisingly strong and physical. These latter traits are essential to what the Hawks are doing to try and build a defense around Young.
Much of what determines how effective players are on the defensive end depends on what their team is building. At Bogdanovic, Atlanta added another great player who can record minutes at shooting guard and small forward positions. This will be essential whether they are just trying to show bodies near the paint behind the point of attack or when they want to play a switch-based scheme in certain matches.
In Sacramento, Bogdanovic split his time, statistically speaking, almost evenly on both wings. For example, his versatility will have added value when head coach Lloyd Pierce might want to play Young and Rondo together during stretches. This will also be a factor when they can choose to deploy Cam Reddish or Dunn on the opposing team leader.
At both ends of the pitch, by all accounts, Bogdanovic will offer a nice mix of versatility that goes hand in hand with the absence of an overly rigid vision of who he is and what he should be ready to do. And, again, that really can’t be overstated in how it seems to work from a proper standpoint with Young.
Trying to gauge which Atlanta addition will have the most impact this season, some might point to Gallinari, especially given the dynamic couple he will have with Young in the attacking half. However, when it comes to fully accounting for all the ways Bogdanovic should be able to add value through his versatility and ability to help with an offensive workload, the answer could very well be. being the acquisition of Young’s new backyard mate.
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