Orlando Magic Playoff Lessons: Atlanta Hawks bet right on going all-in

Last offseason, the Atlanta Hawks were at something of a crossroads.

The team knew it had a superstar in Trae Young. They knew they were likely to re-sign Young to a max extension. That kind of money was too much to pass up. Young signing what became a five-year, $207-million deal was always going to happen. Young could not get that money anywhere else.

But that knowledge and Young’s star power meant the clock was ticking. Atlanta could not wait much longer to get to something resembling contention. They needed to get to the Playoffs at the very least and get there soon.

It seemed like they were a long way away though at 20-47 and 14th in the Eastern Conference. The Hawks could not afford another season like that, even with a group of young players already in place who had not experienced anything close to winning.

The Hawks made a gamble last summer. They pushed their chips to the center of the table and aimed to speed up their rebuild. They were not waiting anymore.

The Atlanta Hawks knew they had a star in Trae Young. But they needed to pick the right time to push their chips to the center of the table. They guessed right as the Orlando Magic watched on.

The decision did not look like it was working. The veterans were not meshing and their new coach was struggling on many fronts.

At the end of the season, the Hawks are a completely different team. Their star led the team through to the Eastern Conference Finals, upsetting the top-seeded Philadelphia 76ers and taking the Milwaukee Bucks to a spirited six games.

The Hawks realized all their dreams and made the bet for veterans at the right time. Everything aligned from the star to the supporting players to the right coach very suddenly. It shows how quickly the right star player can change everything.

But even that star player needs a bit of work.

As the NBA Playoffs continued, Orlando Magic pined for the quick turnaround the Atlanta Hawks went through. Jumping from 20 to 41 wins is no small feat. Jumping from out of the playoffs to the Eastern Conference Finals is no small feat either.

Knowing when to push in

Every team can dream of doing that. But knowing when to push into the middle of the table is always a tricky proposition.

Do it too early and the team can fall apart under the pressure. Do it too late, and the team probably misses the opportunity to actually take that mythical step forward.

The Atlanta Hawks thread that needle perfectly — albeit more dangerously than the Phoenix Suns, who at least had proof of concept during the bubble that they were ready to win at a real level.

The lesson the Hawks taught rebuilding teams was understanding that with a star player, the team has to push all-in and do so to maximize that star players talent. And choosing wrong can have dire consequences, just look at the New Orleans Pelicans.

Orlando Magic fans have wanted to see the team follow the Hawks’ path. And it certainly feels like Orlando is more on that path than the build-from-the-middle path the team was on before.

That path is not easy though. No path is. There are pitfalls for everyone. And the way the Hawks got to this point and pushed themselves forward was not easy or certain.

Atlanta Hawks

It started with renting their ample cap space to acquire Clint Capela at the trade deadline during the 2020 season. Then, Atlanta went aggressive acquiring Danilo Gallinari in a trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder and swooping in to sign Bogdan Bogdanovic.

Atlanta had added to its young group that included John Collins and Kevin Huerter with more shooting to try to space the floor and push Trae Young into superstardom with his natural scoring ability.

Capela proved to be a perfect pick-and-roll partner. They clicked immediately. But the team was off until firing Lloyd Pierce. Atlanta was just 14-20 at the time and outside the playoff picture.

The roster was not meshing but the right coach tied the whole thing together. Nate McMillan proved to be a perfect elixir.

The rest is history.

The risk of pushing in

The gamble the Atlanta Hawks made is not an easy one to get right. As fans clamor for the Orlando Magic to follow this path and push in, it is really about pushing in at the right time.

Recent Magic history shows just how difficult it is to get right.

Orlando had a solid group of young players when the team hired a disciplinarian coach in Scott Skiles. Victor Oladipo had shown some flashes of stardom, Nikola Vucevic was a reliable double-double machine and Tobias Harris was a reliable scorer. Two of those three players would later become NBA All-Stars and Harris has knocked on the door with two separate teams since.

The Magic had the talent to be successful. But that disciplinarian coach flamed out, struggling to connect to the young players he was in charge of and frustrated with their lack of discipline or adherence to his way of doing things.

Orlando, desperate to leave its rebuild, opted to push in for free agency. The team traded Harris, fresh off signing a four-year deal, for expiring deals with a plan of playing free agency in the offseason.

The Magic, desperate to win immediately, traded away Victor Oladipo for an expiring deal in Serge Ibaka and used that cap space to sign Jeff Green, Bismack Biyombo and D.J. Augustin.

Everyone sensed the desperation and the results played out that way.

Orlando Magic

This push-in was a gamble that had no payoff. Orlando, instead of building around a promising group, essentially gave up on them and then tried to piece the team together with whatever was left to them. The team was in no position to play this free agency game and wasted the cap space they had created.

It was clear this was the wrong way to push in.

But waiting too long can also have its drawbacks.

When Jeff Weltman took over the Magic, he was still trying to clear up the mess left to him by his predecessor. He had limited tools to go out and improve the roster in free agency. And that cap crunch was not really solved until his blow-it-up trade in March (and that cap flexibility will not be realized until next summer at the earliest).

Still, Jeff Weltman made a great coaching hire in Steve Clifford. Clifford brought the discipline and structure to the team Skils struggled to see through. And the team felt like it was on an upward trajectory after returning to the playoffs for the first time in six years and a second trip in 2020.

But Weltman sat on his hands for two straight summers. Again, hampered by the lack of cap flexibility — his big free agent signing was Al-Farouq Aminu, which backfired due to injury and a foreseeable poor roster fit — he did not make any major changes to the roster.

There was perhaps some hope that young players like Aaron Gordon would grow into stars or potential trade bait. They were also waiting to see what Jonathan Isaac might become before injuries derailed his 2020 season.

There was a lot of waiting to see what shook out and, eventually, nothing did. Jeff Weltman could have pushed all in to acquire Russell Westbrook but either did not find a deal that made sense or did not like what that team ultimately might top out at, especially considering the costs.

In this case, the Magic may have waited too long and eventually had to restart their whole project to regain flexibility and the potential to be better as a group.

The central star

At the heart of all this, though, is the central star. In the end, it is the star that determines how quickly a team needs to muster up and prepare to win because stars ultimately dictate success in this league.

The Atlanta Hawks in 2020 knew they had a star in Young after he averaged 29.6 points per game and was named a starter to the All-Star team. He was no less a star last year even though he missed the All-Star festivities — 25.3 points per game and 9.4 assists per game.

As they looked at how to improve their team, they knew the clock was already ticking to win and they needed to cater to him.

The Magic are admittedly still looking for that star. They never truly had it under Rob Hennigan or even now under Jeff Weltman. They certainly hope Jalen Suggs can be that kind of player. But it is hard to build anything without that central pillar in place.

Once that pillar is in though, the team has to move quickly to support that player and put them in a position to win. That is what the Hawks did and despite some risk when they pushed in, they are now considered serious contenders in the Eastern Conference for years to come.