The Atlanta Hawks are two days away from their preseason debut against the Indiana Pacers and it will be the first look at a new roster for the Hawks. Atlanta traded away Dejounte Murray for players and picks and drafted Zaccharie Risacher with the No. 1 overall pick. Not only that, young players like Jalen Johnson and Onyeka Okongwu could be in for big seasons.

The Hawks certainly have one of the NBA’s most interesting rosters, but Bleacher Report analyst Zach Buckley took it one step further and listed the Hawks as one of the five weirdest rosters in the NBA:

“While the Hawks feel perpetually stuck in the middle, things feel extra claustrophobic around Atlanta.

They aren’t just trapped in the Eastern Conference’s midsection like always (though that may well be where they finish), they are stuck between two wholly unexciting eras.

They haven’t finished tearing down the team built around Trae Young, due in large part to the fact that he, De’Andre Hunter and Clint Capela all seemingly suffer from a lack of trade value. There’s also the unfortunate reality that bottoming out wouldn’t help this bunch, since Atlanta won’t control its own first-round pick until 2028 thanks to the ill-fated trade for Dejounte Murray in 2022.

They have at least started to assemble some young talent, but they haven’t found much in the way of blue-chippers.

Bouncy swingman Jalen Johnson has promise, but this year’s top pick, Zaccharie Risacher, led a draft most notable for lacking high-end talent. Last year’s first-round pick, Kobe Bufkin, hardly hit the NBA hardwood (196 minutes over 17 games). Dyson Daniels is a dynamic defender, but he’ll squeeze the offensive spacing until he proves himself as a viable perimeter shooter. And at what point do we start worrying about how Onyeka Okongwu, the No. 6 pick in 2020, still hasn’t secured a starting gig?

The Hawks have been play-in tournament participants each of the past three seasons. They might be headed there again. Before, though, at least there was some emotion attached. They were trying to win, they just hadn’t found the right puzzle pieces to do it. Now, they’re kind of aimlessly wandering the hoops landscape until someone takes Young (and, fingers crossed, Hunter and Capela, too) off their hands and gives their roster an actual focus.”

I think there is a chance that the Hawks can outplay this expectation. While they did lose Dejounte Murray, Murray never was a fit with Trae Young. This roster has more size and more defense on it, two things the Hawks did not have a year ago. The additions of Dyson Daniels, Zaccharie Risacher, and Larry Nance should only help Atlanta this season and with Murray gone, the offense will fully revolve around Trae Young and he is good enough to lead this team to a top-ten offensive rating all by himself.

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