Big stories to watch from now until the beginning of next season.
The Hawks have recently had to dial back their expectations for the season. With the injury to Jalen Johnson and the shipping out of both De’Andre Hunter and Bogdan Bogdanovic, the team looks a lot different now than it did just a couple of months ago.
The team is firmly below .500 at this point just looking to make the Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament. But with an eye keenly toward the future, there have still been some tangible bright spots unearthed this season as well as some long-term worries.
The 2024 NBA Draft number one overall pick, Zaccharie Risacher, has recently come into his own, averaging 11.3 points, 3.5 rebounds, 1.2 assists, and 1.0 stocks (steals plus blocks) per game on 44/37/75 shooting since the calendar turned to December.
Trae Young (eventually) was named to his fourth All-Star Game in his young career and is casually dishing out over 11 assists per game, something only Steve Nash, Chris Paul, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, and Rajon Rondo have done this century. Jalen Johnson showed yet another leap before his season was brutally cut short, but he still finished a fraction below 19 points, 10 rebounds, and five assists per game in just his age-22 season.
But there is, of course, the business side of the sport. Atlanta has some contractual worries on the horizon. And that matters even more so that Hawks have operated below the luxury tax line every season under the current ownership.
So, treating that red line as the more than artificial demarcation, let’s examine three important financial items to account for heading into the 2025 offseason.
Dyson Daniels’ contractual future
Believe or not, the combined age of Dyson Daniels and Zaccharie Risacher is an astounding 40 years old, the same combined age as one (1) LeBron James at this very moment.
One half of that wing tandem, Daniels, will have completed his third season in the NBA by this summer. As a first-round pick, he’ll be eligible to sign an extension this very offseason.
Daniels has been an obvious revelation, offering an incredible display of (Great Barrier) thievery on the defensive end night in and night out. His league lead in both steals and deflections is both gargantuan and also practically out of reach from the rest of the NBA.
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He’s also taken on a large load of the offense with the Hawks starving for creator options behind Trae Young. But he’s still figuring things out on the offensive end — even if he’s already vaulted to the elite in the NBA on the other end.
Defense-first perimeter players can be tricky to evaluate from a financial point of view, so it may be worth looking at recent rookie extensions to gauge where Daniels could land should he and the Hawks reach an agreement by next October.
Here are a handful of defense-first players — at least ones with real offensive utility — who recently agreed to rookie extensions as first-round picks for useful comparisons:
- Jalen Suggs: five years (2025-26), $150.5 million total ($30.1 million annual value)
- Jaden McDaniels: five years (2024-25), $131 million total ($26.2 million annual value)
- Lonzo Ball: four years (2021-22), $80 million total ($20 million annual value)
- Herb Jones: four years (2023-24), $53.8 million total ($13.46 million annual value)
The Jones contract was equivalent to the mid-level exception at the time and is widely seen as a steal. Still, it’s clear the range projects to be north of $20 million per year, possibly even topping the $30 million annual mark, for Daniels’ next deal with the increasing salary cap environment.
Certainly, he deserves a four or five-year deal with his play and age projection, but we will have to see if both sides agree on an exact figure in 2025 or delay the matter until the 2026 offseason when he will be a restricted free agent.
Figure out the (rest of the) center position
The Hawks have turned to Onyeka Okongwu as their starting center for the season half of the season. He is in the first year of an extension that runs until 2028 worth $62 million in total. Next year’s salary will be just $15 million, roughly in line with the free market value of a low-end starting center.
Both Clint Capela and Larry Nance Jr. see their contracts end at the conclusion of the season. And with both players north of 30, their best years are clearly behind them.
Even if the Hawks are satisfied with Onyeka Okongwu as their starting center heading into 2025-26, they’ll need to invest in a quality backup center. That process would likely be either through the draft or by way of trade or free agency.
Okongwu, in my humble opinion, seems best suited as a counter at the ‘5’ for when teams deploy small ball units. And so, it would be wise to find a bigger-bodied center to have the option to go bigger when needed.
But the Hawks will have limited means to add a player in free agency. With the team already projected to be over the cap (but under the luxury tax — you know, the line that really matters), the most the Hawks will have available to them appears to be the mid-level exception to offer free agents in their current situation. That figure will land between $12.8 million and $15 million in the first contract year this offseason.
The free agent center market is fairly dry, with Brook Lopez and Myles Turner projected to be the top external options potentially available. But each of those players figures to earn more than $15 million per year, so the Hawks would have to seek some sort of sign-and-trade to even fantasize about either of those possibilities. And the rest of the options don’t inspire a ton of hope outside of Timberwolves fan favorite Naz Reid.
So, whether through signing or trade, the Hawks have to answer this looming question as they set their sights higher going forward.
Convince Trae Young you’re building an exciting project…or else
The final contract situation is one that is a lot larger than smoke currently exists for. After this season, Young has one year left on his contract with a player option/early termination option in the summer of 2026.
In other words, he will be eligible for a max extension this summer. Of course, he can signal his desire to hit free agency in a year’s time if he and the Hawks do not reach terms on an extension.
This season is increasingly going down as a clear non-contending season along with the three previous to it. And yet, throughout the past few years, Young has quite often reiterated his desire to win at the highest level.
Young earned himself a Rose Rule salary bump after his rookie contract by making the All-NBA Team in his fourth season (in the summer of 2022 after agreeing to a max extension in 2021). Likewise, the Hawks can offer a maximum extension with the provision that it turns into a ‘super maximum’ extension should he make an All-NBA team in the 2025-26 season (or, you know, win MVP in any season). The latter figure is projected to start at around $50 million for Young’s number of years of service, with the number pushing up towards $60 million if it hits supermax criteria.
Despite those eye-watering numbers, this fact can’t be understated: this whole house was built around Trae Young. He’s the foundation. If he walks, the whole thing comes down.
Atlanta finally cobbled together a long and resistive wing defense next to him. They have a suitable sidekick in Jalen Johnson — a guy with obvious All-Star upside — locked in for the next five years. Atlanta needs to continue to build in order to sell Trae Young on agreeing to extend his guaranteed future here, because the very player the Hawks have spent almost a decade trying to build around simply won’t be easily replaced.
Per Hassan Ladiwala (from Spotrac’s figures), the Hawks figure to be about $43 million below next year’s projected luxury tax should they fully guarantee the relatively small contracts of Gueye and Krejci. They can open up around $70 million in space below the luxury tax in 2026-27. However, those dates would correspond with Jalen Johnson’s and Dyson Daniels’/Trae Young’s — both as of yet hypothetical — extensions kicking in respectively, so there’s some real financial squeeze here.
Thus, the Hawks need to handle the three items business above (and more) to prove to Young and to all of us that they have a puncher’s chance going forward — especially so without control of their own first-round pick until 2028.