Atlanta Hawks 2024 offseason gives Quin Snyder the team he wants

The Atlanta Hawks have long had major defensive issues. The only season they managed to have a good defensive season, they nearly made it to the NBA Finals. We’ll never know if they would have been able to make a splash if it weren’t for Trae Young’s ankle injury that kept him out of several key games in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Since then, the Hawks had to cut salary to retain their core roster, then traded part of their future to secure Dejounte Murray. The Murray experiment didn’t work, meaning the Hawks had to make the most of this offseason.

One of the moves they made was selecting Zaccharie Risacher with the first pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. This 19-year-old French phenom has shown the ability to defend every position on the court except of the biggest pivots in the league. However, it is the Hawks’ decision to trade Murray that will have an even bigger impact on the future of the franchise.

Snyder has always had a defensive mindset as a coach. He was able to develop Rudy Gobert from a late first-round pick to a defensive powerhouse while hiding his offensive limitations. Now, Snyder must utilize Trae Young’s offensive talents while hiding his defensive weaknesses.

This is where the Dyson Daniels trade will have a positive impact on the Hawks. He is a high-level player point of attack defender who doesn’t need his offensive game to be fluid to perform. He’s likely to get playing time early on, which will help mask Young’s deficiencies in that regard.

Daniels enters his third season in the league; the former No. 6 pick has struggled on the offensive end of the floor. He’s only shooting 31.2 percent from beyond the arc in his career, but that shouldn’t be a problem. If he’s willing to work hard on offense, Young will definitely find it, making Daniels a danger on offense.

There’s also the other big piece of the trade, Larry Nance Jr. The 31-year-old big man adds a level of depth to the Hawks’ offensive line that they haven’t had in a while. He doesn’t get significant blocks per game, but Nance is a solid rim protector. He can play alongside Clint Capela and Onyeka Okongwu in a system similar to his Utah Jazz days with Gobert and Derrick Favors.

While the front court doesn’t have the same defensive gravitas as the Jazz under Snyder, it has far more offensive firepower. Snyder was able to take this team to the playoffs, but the lack of offense was too much to defeat the best teams in the NBA. Could the Hawks, with their added offensive firepower, go all the way over the next two seasons?

It will be a fun time watching this team learn and grow together.