{"id":63899,"date":"2025-08-07T01:03:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T01:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/63899\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T01:03:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T01:03:11","slug":"espn-analyst-just-delivered-brutal-review-of-hawks-offseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/63899\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN analyst just delivered brutal review of Hawks\u2019 offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pretty much everyone is in agreement<\/a> that the Atlanta Hawks are having among the best offseasons in the NBA. As it turns out, though, \u201cpretty much everyone\u201d does not include ESPN\u2019s Tim Legler.<\/p>\n

Speaking on a recent episode of the All NBA Podcast, Legler had the following to say<\/a> about the Hawks upon finding out their win-total for next season checked in at 46.5 (segment on Atlanta begins at the 33:29 mark):<\/p>\n

\u201cEh, I don\u2019t know, man. I just feel almost like this is the one team, I\u2019m looking around the league, and I feel like something\u2019s happened with the overhyping of this team.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tim Legler expands on his Hawks concerns<\/p>\n

Legler goes on to say that talking yourself into Atlanta as a legit threat requires buying into Trae Young, about whom he has mostly nice things to say. As his explanation goes on, his main issue seemingly boils down to a cast with limited upside:<\/p>\n

\u201cJalen Johnson is a really intriguing young talent. Dyson Daniels is more of a defensive guy. I don\u2019t know how much more ceiling there is for Dyson Daniels offensively. Zaccharie had a very good year as a No. 1 pick. [Kristaps] Porzingis, I don\u2019t know how you put any stock into what you\u2019re going to get out of Porzingis at this point. You add it all up to me, and I\u2019m going to take the under [46.5 wins]. There\u2019s been too much talk about all these things Atlanta did to become relevant in the East. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s gonna happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a pretty fair critique. Especially when it comes to Porzingis, who is hardly a billboard for availability<\/a>. He has not played in 70 games\u2014or the shortened-season equivalent\u2014since he was a rookie. That was almost a decade ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Given that Johnson has not proven to be the most durable player since becoming a rotation mainstay, Atlanta\u2019s frontcourt is one bad break away from Mouhamed Geuye\u2014who\u2019s genuinely intriguin<\/a>g\u2014becoming too important.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, Legler is missing one important detail<\/p>\n

Playing in the Eastern Conference will be a boon for these Hawks. It\u2019s a luxury for any team with a franchise star, and a semblance of depth.<\/p>\n

The Brooklyn Nets and Washington Wizards have already thrown in the towel for next season. The Boston Celtics are more concerned with banking tax savings<\/a> than wins. Everybody knows the Chicago Bulls are headed nowhere, except for the Chicago Bulls themselves. Real talent populates the Charlotte Hornets\u2019 rotation, but they are heavy on guards, and absent a starting-quality big man. The Indiana Pacers will be without Tyrese Haliburton for the entire year.<\/p>\n

After that, there are a bunch of could-be, might-be good teams. The Miami Heat, Milwaukee Bucks, Philadelphia 76ers, and Toronto Raptors are, for the most, medium-ceiling, low-floor operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Atlanta has cozied into a tier with the Detroit Pistons. You expect squads like the Cleveland Cavaliers, Orlando Magic, and New York Knicks to be better. Everyone else is either behind them, or on a level playing field.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t to say the Hawks\u2019 stock is Teflon. Young\u2019s future will cast a pall over the entire season if it\u2019s not resolved<\/a>. But Atlanta has surrounded him with a bunch of active and versatile defenders, and added juuuust enough secondary ball-handling (Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Luke Kennard) and shooting (Kennard, Porzingis) to make real waves in the East.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If the Hawks disappoint, it\u2019s not because their offseason was overhyped. It\u2019s because something else entirely\u2014injuries, surprise trades, etc.\u2014went terribly wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pretty much everyone is in agreement that the Atlanta Hawks are having among the best offseasons in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-63899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}