For a while, it looked as though the Atlanta Hawks were going to be a shoo-in for a playoff spot. They were playing so well to start the year, even scoring upset wins over the Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics on multiple occasions. But the Hawks sputtered a bit in the middle of the season, and to make matters worse, they lost Jalen Johnson to a season-ending injury. Now, they are stuck in the play-in tournament picture with a record below .500, which means that not much has changed for them over the course of the year.
Some will argue that they are better off this year after acquiring Dyson Daniels in the Dejounte Murray trade and drafting Zaccharie Risacher, an ideal fit alongside the ball-dominant Trae Young. Perhaps that is true. But the Hawks are once again stuck treading mediocrity, and even if they make the playoffs, they don’t appear likely to proceed past the first round anyway. Nevertheless, some outcomes will be worse than others for the Hawks.
With that said, this is the dream scenario that the Hawks should want to come to fruition and the nightmare scenario that they will want to avoid at all costs.
Dream scenario: Hawks make the playoffs
Currently, the Hawks are sitting at eighth in the Eastern Conference standings. This means that if the season were to end today, they will have two chances to make the playoffs. Now, that’s about as good of an outcome as they can hope for given their present circumstances for one reason and one reason alone: making the playoffs means that they eliminate the chance that the 2025 first-round pick they will convey to the San Antonio Spurs courtesy of the initial Dejounte Murray trade would somehow end up being the number one overall pick — thereby giving the Spurs the opportunity to build a Victor Wembanyama-Cooper Flagg frontcourt.
Sure, any outcome that ends with the Hawks making the playoffs would mean that they’ll be facing either the Cavs or Celtics in the first round of the playoffs. That would most likely result in an early elimination for Atlanta, although it’s not like they won’t put up much of a fight. After all, they did win the season series against both teams. But the playoffs are a different animal, and it won’t be as easy to defeat a locked-in Cavs or Celtics team in April like they did earlier this season.
Nevertheless, it’s imperative for the Hawks to make the playoffs. They are already out multiple first-round picks as a result of the Murray trade, and although they did make up for it by acquiring Dyson Daniels in return from the New Orleans Pelicans, this should at least lessen the sting of giving up that pick even further.
Perhaps this is dreaming too low. But as far as plausible scenarios go, this is as good as it can get for the Hawks. Taking away one or two games from either the Cavs or Celtics should already give the team major hope for next season as they look to continue the upward trajectory they’re on once their rising star in Jalen Johnson returns from injury and Zaccharie Risacher and Daniels take the next step.
Nightmare scenario: Hawks fall to the 9/10 spot, crash out of the play-in
With only six games to go in the season, the Hawks are holding an ever-precarious one-game advantage over the Miami Heat for the eighth spot in the East standings. The Heat are currently on a hot streak, having won six games in a row including a blowout victory over the Celtics this past Wednesday.
The Hawks, at the very least, have three games (against the Utah Jazz, Brooklyn Nets, and Philadelphia 76ers) in which they should be the favorite to win. But their other three games will be difficult.
They will be facing the New York Knicks on Saturday afternoon, and then they have two matchups against the Orlando Magic, the team sitting above them in the standings at seventh, still to go. Those games will have a playoff-like atmosphere, and taking two out of three from those games will be crucial in making sure that they have two chances to make the playoffs.
Again, if they miss the playoffs, they run the risk of conveying a high draft pick to the Spurs. This is an outcome that the Hawks will want to avoid at all costs. The good news is that their fate lies in their fingertips, and their play in the coming days will dictate whether or not they will be on the right side of history or not.
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