Next Thursday is the NBA trade deadline and there are going to be plenty of rumors between now and them. The Atlanta Hawks are going to be one of the most interesting teams to watch leading up to next week. Players such as Clint Capela, Cody Zeller, Bogdan Bogdanovic, and Larry Nance Jr have been mentioned as trade possibilities, but will the Hawks move any of them? The team announced today that star forward Jalen Johnson is going to miss the rest of the season and that is something that could potentially alter their plans at the deadline.

Capela has been a player who has been mentioned in trade speculation going back to last summer, mostly due to his expiring $22M contract. According to Matt Moore of the Action Network, the Hawks had contacted the Chicago Bulls about a potential Clint Capela/Nikola Vucevic swap:

“Two sources shared that the Hawks had contacted the Bulls about a swap of Capela’s expiring contract for Nikola Vucevic, but that the Bulls wanted other assets attached, presumably because of other deals he’s discussed.”

This is an interesting hypothetical trade, if true. Both players are on similar contracts, with Vucevic having one more deal on his three-year extension that he signed in 2023. Atlanta needs more offense (they have been arguably the worst offense in the NBA over the past two weeks) and Vucevic is having a very good season and would be a huge upgrade on that end of the floor. He is averaging 20.1 PPG on 55% shooting from the field and 40% from three this season. The problem would be on the other end. Vucevic is a poor defender and is a huge downgrade from Capela in that regard. Another thing is that while he is having a good season, he was not a very good player last year and is 34 years old. If the Hawks got last season’s version of Vucevic, it would be a downgrade for their team.

It is understandable that the Bulls would want an asset attached to Capela. He is on an expiring deal and it would not make sense for the Bulls to re-sign him afterward. Vucevic is the better player in a vacuum and Atlanta would be getting the better end of this deal.

It will be interesting to see what the Hawks do at the deadline. Atlanta is also not going to make a trade just to make a trade. If a trade does not help the Hawks going forward into future seasons, they are not going to do it, even if Nance and Capela are on expiring deals. No realistic move the Hawks could make, even before the reports of Johnson’s injury, was going to make the Hawks a championship contender. The only deals the Hawks need to be in the business of making are deals to help them in the future.

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