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The Hawks have taken flight in 2025-26 behind the play of offseason addition Nickeil Alexander-Walker.<\/p>\n
Atlanta Hawks coach Quin Snyder envisioned a role for Nickeil Alexander-Walker that Alexander-Walker hadn\u2019t considered.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe saw a ceiling higher for myself than I did,\u201d Alexander-Walker told NBA.com in a phone interview. \u201cAnd that was really cool for me because I felt like in my career I\u2019ve never had that before.\u201d<\/p>\n
What did Snyder see? A player who could average 20 points, contribute more as a playmaker and still provide strong defense.<\/p>\n
What has Alexander-Walker done? After joining the Hawks in free agency last summer<\/a>, Alexander-Walker is having the best season of his career. He has helped the Hawks to a 42-33 record, makes a compelling case for 2025-26 Kia Most Improved Player and is one of the most impactful free agents from the summer of 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n Alexander-Walker, who is a cousin<\/a> of Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, has doubled his scoring from 9.4 points per game with the Minnesota Timberwolves last season to 20.4 ppg this season in just eight more minutes per game.<\/p>\n With increased offensive responsibility, Alexander-Walker has maintained his shooting stats (45% from the field, 39.1% on 3-pointers), doubled his 3s made per game (from 1.7 to 3.1), boosted his free-throw shooting percentage (90.1%) and doubled his steals (1.3 spg).<\/p>\n \u201cHe sees me as a person who can do more than what I was doing,\u201d Alexander-Walker said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s something that was very important to me: Could they see the potential through what I was only able to show them through my role?\u201d<\/p>\n Drafted No. 17 by the New Orleans Pelicans in the 2019 NBA Draft<\/a>, Alexander-Walker was traded to the Portland Trail Blazers and Utah Jazz at the 2022 trade deadline<\/a> and spent a brief time with Snyder in Utah, which is part of the story.<\/p>\n Growing his game in Minnesota<\/p>\n The Timberwolves acquired Alexander-Walker from Utah at the 2023 trade deadline<\/a>, but he was the undercard on a three-team deal that sent Mike Conley to Minnesota, D\u2019Angelo Russell to the Los Angeles Lakers and three second-round picks to the Timberwolves.<\/p>\n Listed as a guard at 6-foot-5, Alexander-Walker settled into his role as a 3-and-D wing and blossomed. He was vital to Minnesota\u2019s run to the Western Conference Finals in 2024 and 2025. But on Timberwolves squads that included Anthony Edwards and either Julius Randle or Karl-Anthony Towns, Minnesota didn\u2019t need him to score 20 points often.<\/p>\n There were games for the Timberwolves when his offense was necessary, and he showed he could do it, scoring 23 points on 9-for-15 shooting against the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 4 of the West Finals<\/a>.<\/p>\n As Alexander-Walker describes it, his role was \u201ccorner 3, get to the paint, eyes out, defend.\u201d That\u2019s not a complaint. It\u2019s reality, and Alexander-Walker thrived, making him a priority for several teams in free agency last summer.<\/p>\n Though Snyder and Alexander-Walker spent just two-plus months together with the Jazz in 2021-22, Snyder followed Alexander-Walker\u2019s career. Snyder said he believed that with the right player development program, Alexander-Walker could be that scorer regularly.<\/p>\n \u201cHe said these are things we\u2019ll need you to do,\u201d Alexander-Walker said. \u201cAnd those things weren\u2019t things that I was asked to do my previous years. Just the ability to take contested shots. He was like, \u2018Hey, there might come a time throughout the game we might need you to take a contested shot.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Decision-maker\u2019 arrives in Atlanta<\/p>\n Nickeil Alexander-Walker drops 41 points on the Magic to keep the Hawks rolling.<\/p>\n It was a lightbulb moment.<\/p>\n \u201cA contested shot can be deemed a bad shot, but not really because you know a lot of great players, a lot of good players in this league, very rarely are they getting uncontested looks,\u201d Alexander-Walker said.<\/p>\n A slow start \u2013 2-for-15 on 3s in the first two games of 2025-26 \u2013 obscured the Hawks\u2019 vision for Alexander-Walker. The message from Snyder didn\u2019t change: Stay aggressive. Keep shooting.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause our hearts are in the right place, they often align with how we think and act,\u201d Alexander-Walker said. \u201cAnd that makes it easier for him and I to work together to find my spots and settle into being a decision-maker.\u201d<\/p>\n In his sixth game, he scored 21 points, starting a stretch of at least 20 points in 15 of his next 22 games, including 38 against the San Antonio Spurs on Nov. 20<\/a>.<\/p>\n He had a career-high 41 points in a 124-112 victory against the Orlando Magic on March 16. In that game, he was 12-for-21 overall, 9-for-14 on 3-pointers, 8-for-9 on free throws while also logging seven rebounds, five assists and two steals.<\/p>\n That began a month in which the Hawks went 12-2, moving from ninth to sixth place in the East. In 15 games in March, Alexander-Walker averaged a team-best 22.7 ppg and 3.9 apg on shooting splits of 52.8%\/46.8%\/94.2%. His true shooting percentage (70.3%) is best among all guards who played at least 10 games and more than 20 minutes per game in March<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing that we\u2019ve tried to impress upon him from the outset is that we need his aggressiveness (and) for him to understand that that\u2019s not tied to whether or not the shot goes in,\u201d Snyder said. \u201cIf you aren\u2019t finding efficiency in some of those situations, let\u2019s look at them. Let\u2019s work on them.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s got such a tremendous work ethic, it\u2019s logical that he\u2019s going to improve as the season goes on. The game\u2019s slowing down for him a little bit. He\u2019s so aggressive that as he\u2019s found his tempo in more and more of those situations, he\u2019s gotten more efficient.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018The most fun I\u2019ve had playing basketball\u2019<\/p>\n Alexander-Walker is complete with gratitude. He doesn\u2019t take his situation or profession for granted, and that emerges in his answers. He takes time to consider the question and deliver a response that conveys what he means.<\/p>\n He said this season is \u201cthe most fun I\u2019ve had playing basketball. I get to go on my own journey with all that I\u2019ve learned, and I\u2019ve tried not to think about averaging X-amount of points or doing X-amount of things with more usage. My mindset is \u2018just get better.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve worked so hard for something like this. Nourish it. Treat it correctly. Honor it. Value it. That\u2019s my focus.\u201d<\/p>\n At the end of the conversation, Alexander-Walker was asked if he had anything else he wanted to share. He named people who have been by his side: his wife, Sara; son, Nate; mom, Nicole; Snyder; personal basketball trainer, Nem; Cali; Jalen; Shandon; Vince; Ashton; James; Kendall; and B. Bailey.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone named was part of my village from the summer to this year,\u201d he said, \u201cand they\u2019ve been tremendous.\u201d<\/p>\n And so has Alexander-Walker.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Jeff Zillgitt has covered the NBA since 2008. You can email him at\u00a0jzillgitt@nba.com<\/a>, find\u00a0his archive here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0follow him on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hawks have taken flight in 2025-26 behind the play of offseason addition Nickeil Alexander-Walker. Atlanta Hawks coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,282781,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-576387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nickeil-alexander-walker-hawks-thriving","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}