Atlanta Hawks: Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Luke Kennard, 2025 NBA Free Agency, Depth Chart, Contracts

Atlanta Hawks: Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Luke Kennard, 2025 NBA Free Agency, Depth Chart, Contracts

On today’s show, the Atlanta Hawks make a big splash on the first night of free agency, adding Luke Canard and Nquille Alexander Walker. We’ll get into all of what it means, what’s to come, and more right now. You are Locked on Hawks, your daily Atlanta Hawks podcast, part of the Locked Onet, your team every day. Hello friends, welcome to episode 2013 of the Lots on Hawks podcast. I am your host Brad Roland coming to you deep into the night here on June 30th into July 1st. And today’s podcast is brought to by the folks at FanDuel Sportsbook. And right now, if you’re a new customer, get 150 in terms of dollars in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins at FanDuel. I also want to encourage you at the top of the show to make Locked on Hawks your first listen each and every day. Check us out and subscribe to this podcast anywhere you find your podcast. If you’re watching on YouTube, please like this video as you’re watching it, as well as subscribing on Apple, Spotify, Overcast, and of course telling your friends about the show as well. And it’s been a very busy day for the Hawks. The final day of June, the first day of agency. If you were under a rock on this Monday night, the NBA opened for agency at 6 p.m. Eastern time. And within only a couple of hours, the Hawks had revamped their roster in a major way. We’ll get into all of it. It’s not quite an emergency podcast. I was prepared to record tonight no matter what, but there’s a lots of, I would say, emergency podcast worthy content for the Hawks on this evening. They add, as we’ll talk about in much more depth in a second, they add Alexander Walker and Luke Canard. They lose Caris Levert and Clapella also out the door for the Hawks. Um, a lot more work to be done for Atlanta. But just to say at the top of the show, I really, really love what the Hawks have done the entire off seasonason. If you missed it over the weekend, I did a two-part episode with my friend Tyler Jones of ATL 29 covering kind of what’s happened to date. That means Porzingis, that means the draft and all of that stuff. Listen to that. Still relevant right now. Before that, I did full coverage deep dive fashion of the draft. What I called an A+ trade on draft night, trading down with the Pelicans to get a very juicy pick in the draft next season. Plus before that adding Porzingis the high upside move that was and let’s just say the first little bit of the Odyssey era as the general manager has gotten rave reviews not just for me but really across the league. People are buzzing about what they have been able to do as the Hawks the last couple of days and look my big picture evaluation of what has happened so far the last week last week or two has been just awesome. This has been I declared this earlier like as of right now and it could change. As of right now it’s probably the best offseason the Hawks have had in my opinion since 2013. You could argue for 2020 I suppose as they added a bunch of pieces there that led to a conference finals team. I get that. But as far as like setting up for the future, revamping the roster, being in a good position both in the short term and the long term in the front office has hit a home run in my opinion the last few days. We’ll get into all of that on this podcast as well as the future stuff at the end of the show. We do want to lead though with the biggest transaction of the day and that is Nikquil Alexander Walker. Four years and $62 million reportedly. Before I dig into all the all these specifics and get nerdy on this one as I have to, I will at least say that I really like this move. Broadly speaking, he’s a good player on a very reasonable contract and that’s the big takeaway. With that said, it was a little bit strange that the number was this with 462 and it was also a trade. Anyway, the structure remains to be seen, but if you follow me on Twitter or Blue Sky, you would have seen Sham Shirani report this number at four years, I think $62 million. And I immediately jumped in to say that while the Hawks have this big trade exception we’ve been talking about for months and months now on this podcast up to $25 million, they didn’t actually have to use it to give him this contract. But quickly it got out that the Hawks are going to be setting a 2027 second round pick from Cleveland and some cash to Minnesota in a sign and trade for Alexander Walker. It’s kind of strange. The Hawks could have changed the structure a little bit now that they are not using the mid-level exception to sign him for this move. We don’t know the exact numbers yet. We never do this early in the uh process. It’s not been officially signed. All those caveats still apply. And then as we get as we get kind of get into later, it allows them to take Luke Canard into the mid-level exception. That’s a little bit different as well. But regardless, they had the spending power to get Alexander Walker. He was always going to have a lot of offers in this range. That has been the buzz the last couple of weeks. He is a very unique um kind of fits anywhere kind of player. A 3 and D guard, really defends, can shoot, all that stuff. They had the power to get him. They went out and got him. I’ll have the mechanics later on cleaned up later on this week, but we know that for sure. In the meantime, the Hawks add a really good player to the team, which is of course the biggest thing. A 26-y old guard will be 27 in September, basically right in the middle of his prime right now. You’re getting him for his prime years for most players. He’ll be 27 to 30 during this deal. It has a player option reportedly on the end of it. Have not seen that structure yet. Um, but that and that could matter too. A three plus one of sorts, but at least for three years, he’ll be signed for the Hawks. And the biggest calling card for Alexander Walker is definitely his defense. He is a very, very good defender. Listed at 6’5, but also has plenty of length to defend kind of one through three on the perimeter. If you have not watched him a ton recently, measure with a 69 and a half wingspan at the combine a few years ago. Could even be longer now. It’s conceivable he was young enough then, but at least that long as far as wingspan is concerned. That’s good like wing level wingspan basically. He’s an awesome screen navigator. He’s very disruptive to opposing guards defensively. He’s been routinely at the top of the league in a lot of the overall kind of catchall defensive metrics like EPM over the last few years. And the Wolves have been great defensively as a team at times. They’ve also been really good and even better when he has been on the floor at the point of attack. The Wolves had a 108 defensive rating this year with Alexander Walker on the court. He’s not the only reason for that, but certainly he is a very, very good defender. his only real like shortcoming on defense that I can find is on the glass, but if he’s playing a guard spot, that’s not a huge deal and he’s actually got better than anyway. Um, the really the only debate about his defense honestly that I’ve been seeing and having behind the scenes in the last few hours is that okay, is he merely like very good defensively or elite defensively? That’s not a bad place to be when like everyone agrees he’s a very good defender and maybe even better than that. So, he’s clearly good. The Hawks have played some lineups now that are absolutely terrifying defensively. If you take Trey off the court at times defensively, if you’re playing back court of Dyson Daniels and Aquil Alexander Walker, I don’t know who’s scoring on you. So that that’s nice to see. And then offensively, he’s also fits in very well. Um he’s not as quite he’s not quite as good offensively as defensively. That’s certainly worth saying. It’s not a negative thing to say, just the reality. Defensively, he’s like a standout player. Offensively, he’s not. But he’s pretty good on offense. The biggest thing is that he can shoot 38 and a half% from three over the last three seasons combined. That’s almost 900 attempts. Yeah, it’s pretty real to me. Whether he’s going to shoot that forever, I don’t know. But I do believe he’s a good shooter. Not a great one. He’s not he’s not Canar we’ll talk about later on. Canar is an elite shooter. Is Walker’s a good shooter and that’s all he needs to be. Um it’s not his best position, but I would say he’s also played some point guard in his career. um that’s pretty real as an option like as a secondary creator kind of player like you know Stewart at point guard with Trey off the floor. Um he was much more of an onball player in New Orleans when he was drafted a few years ago. I would say this, it’s kind of ironic now as we’ll talk about later on. The Hawks actually in the DeAndre Hunter trade got a lot of assets and flexibility that allow them to kind of make all these moves. But technically Alexander Walker was drafted with a pick that the Hawks actually had in 2019. Now, officially, if you look at basketball reference, there’s there are pictures of of Alexander Walker in Hawks hats from 2019 at the draft because of all those all those draft quirks. He was a Hawk for a matter of moments and days back then. But he was an onball player much more early in his career, but he’s been much more of a supporting player since then, which is the role he’ll have in Atlanta, I’m sure. He also had a 70th percentile assist rate this last season. He’s a good passer, not an elite one, but a good one, and generally a pretty low turnover player. averages 1.5 turnovers per 36 minutes in the last two years with the Wolves. That’s a good number for a guard in particular and very solid shooting efficiency. 58% true shooting over the last two years. He’s a very good player. My friend John Hollinger of the Athletic, this is just one person, but John is a respected voice in the industry, has a system for projected free agents. He had Alexander Walker as a 20.5 million player per season. We don’t know the structure yet, but the average on the deal is $15.5 million and the most that it could possibly be in any one season is like 17 million. So, by this projection, he’s a good screaming value. Um, I thought he might get 18 20 million a year just a few days ago because of the market. So, to get him at basically what is the cost of the mid-le exception is a good value. Um, I don’t think he’s a max player obviously, but he’s a very good player. And with where the cap is going, getting him locked in 15 and a half million average annual value for four years, at least three years plus the player option is a very, very good value in my mind. Now, look, he’s not a star. He’s not going to be a star. That’s not that’s not his game. I think he’s still I think it’s still a very good piece of business, though, to sign him to this deal. If he’s the seventh man on your team, and right now he might be for the Hawks, he’s a very very good seventh man. He could play with Trey. He could play without Trey. Um, next to Dyson or next to Lucanar or next to anybody you want to list out there. He gives them another top tier perimeter defender with Dyson on or off the floor. I mentioned before the Dyson plus Alexander Walker lineups are awesome. And he also can help you with Dyson off the floor at times. He’s another rangy perimeter player. The Hawks have been doing this for a while now, kind of building their roster around having a bunch of guys who are rangy and athletic and defensively oriented. He is that. I like him a lot as a player. Checks a lot of boxes. I know I’m planning to have someone that covers the Wolves on the show at some point in the near future to kind of give a more insidery breakdown of Alexander Walker’s game the last few seasons. But um again, I really like this move. We’ll get into more of what’s going on here with Luke Canard in a second. But one thing is this actually applies to both Alexander Walker and Canard is that there was real reporting out there on multiple platforms basically that Trey Young was pushing for these guys and Trey Young being invested in the pursuit of Alexander Walker in the pursuit of Canard. I don’t want to make too much of that. It’s not worth that. But for a player that’s always been, it’s not always been, has relatively recently been in some like will they or won’t they trade him. I’ve been saying for a while it’s going to be the Troy Young experience this this year and and it should be. They built the roster around him. If he’s recruiting for agents, I think it’s pretty safe to say he’s entrenched more here. Obviously on board with these moves. We’ll get into that. There’s another story line the rest of the summer honestly about about Trey’s own extension. But in the meantime, Alexander Walker is Trey Stamped. I like this move quite a bit. The field of the league, which is not I don’t want to appeal to authority and say that everybody’s always right, but the field of the league is pretty good on this one as well. And uh overall, again, a very very positive step for the Hawks with their number one addition of uh this cycle. I think obviously Porzingis is a bigger name and the better player, but uh adding him as the number one free agent target is uh certainly a move that I am on board with at this juncture. All right, again, more to come on Canard, on LeVvert, on Capella, on the roster as it stands right now, late night on Monday into Tuesday after a word from our partners. Tisha is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Summer Sports are in full swing. Whether all about baseball under the lights, golf on the greens, or high soccer action, at FanDuel, it’s the best way to get into every game, making every game more exciting for you. You are already following the action, so why not make it a little bit more thrilling? At FanDuel, you can use FanDuel to actually track your favorite matchups. And the athletes are fresh all the time with new daily promotions and fun ways to bet. 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All right, so chronologically, the first thing the Hawks did on Monday night was acquire Alexander Walker. That got reported. It was out there. And then pretty shortly after, it was reported that Luke Canard will be joining the Hawks on a one-year deal worth a reported $11 million. Now, this is already out there um during the day, I would say. I passed along and reported on social media and on Patreon that I was hearing that Canard was a target of the Hawks. I think, and this is the part that was reporting, this next part is more of an interpretation. I think the Hawks especially prioritize Canard if they were to get Alexander Walker, which wasn’t going to be a lock, but I think Canard makes a lot of sense in tandem with Alexander Walker. And I wonder if they would have signed Canard either way, but I feel like they were certainly prioritizing him after they secured the commitment from Alexander Walker. So, as a player, uh, Canard has some durability issues for sure, but as long as he plays like 60 games, it’s a reasonable contract. He has the benefit of being a one-year deal as well. The risk on one-year contracts is of course inherently quite low. Uh and teams will play, I would say, a premium for that flexibility, that optionality, that risk mitigation of having a one-year deal. If it doesn’t work, you can kind of trade them or whatever you need to do. Uh I think a little bit of a premium probably on this one-year deal, but it’s one year for a reason. Canard just turned 29 last week. He was a lottery pick in 2017. Uh he’s been in the NBA for eight seasons with the Pistons, the Clippers, and the Grizzlies. He signed a a pretty big deal for a second contract and was back in Memphis and resigned last year for a one-year deal with the Grizzlies. And like I did with uh Alexander Walker, I’ll say the calling card for Canard is his shooting. And it’s by far his shooting. He’s not always discussed in the like absolutely elite shooter discussion, but he should be. That’s my biggest takeaway. I knew that already, but in looking at some of the data and everything today and yesterday, getting ready for something like this potentially, he is one of the best shooters in the world. Full stop. I’m not being hyperbolic. That’s just the case. Now, for some evidence of that, he is currently the active career leader in NBA three-point percentage. One more time, he is the career leader among active players in three-point percentage for his career, 43.8%. That’s third all time. He is a career 44% three-point shooter on volume. That’s more than 2,000 more than 2,000 attempts in his career. Over the last five seasons, Canard has shot 45.4% from three, not from the field from three. That’s the highest in the NBA over that last half decade as well. And again, he takes a lot of them. He’s not like a low volume guy. He has attempted more than eight per 100 possessions in seven straight seasons. Over that time, he’s averaged 9.8 attempts per possession. That’s a lot of attempts. Now, I people have been comparing him to Garrison Matthews in my mentions, and I get why. They’re similar height. They’re white shooting guards. I get it. I do understand it. They are very different players. The main thing is Canard, while being even a better shooter than Matthews, can actually handle the ball. He’s a real like offensive playmaker. He’s not just a standstill specialist shooter. That’s not what he does. He’s a great shooter, but he does more than that. He was a lottery pick for a reason. The last two years in Memphis, he averaged 5.1 assists per 36 minutes and 6.7 per 100 possessions as a supporting player in Memphis. It’s not like primary point guard numbers, but he’s very good as a passer for anything but a point guard. Like, he’s a good facilitator, can handle the ball, run actions, pass, all that. I’m not picking on Garrison Matthews, who I actually like as a player, but Garrison Matthews has 223 career assists in six seasons, right? Lucard had 215 assists last season only. He almost as many assists in one season as Garrison has had in his career. So, I get the comparison, but Lucard is more than a specialist. He is a fantastic shooter. Like, he is the best shooter the Hawks have had since Kyle Corver. Like maybe you could argue that bogey won bogey wiz like really really in gear for half the season in 2021. Sure, Bogei’s a great shooter as well. Maybe Gallow at his absolute best. Like there are some guys Garrison’s a great shooter too, but Luke Canard again is the current active leader in career three-point percentage better than Steph. Now he’s not a better shooter than Steph to be very clear, but Luc Canard is a legitimately like all-time great shooter through the first eight years of his career. So, that is the calling card obviously, but he can’t handle the ball. And I’ve been saying this for a while, the Hawks need more shooting. And so far this cycle, they’ve added three players. They’ve added Porzingis, who is one of the best shooting centers in the league, maybe second best behind Carl Anthony Towns. Like, he’s that good of a shooter. You add Alexander Walker, who isn’t on that tier, but is clearly a pretty good shooter. 39% the last two seasons, real shooter. And then Canard is an elite shooter. So you’ve got two guys who I would call like basically elite shooters and Canard and Porzingis, another good one in Alexander Walker and yeah, you lose Levert, but and you obviously lose Nang, but they’ve upgraded their shooting for sure in this cycle. So I think Canard also is also, by the way, a very low turnover player for someone who play the ball in their hands a little bit. Um good good uh you know kind of mistakefree player offensively. So why are you ask why you ask I’m sure was he available for this one-year deal? He’s not a good defender. He’s he’s just not. So, that’s that’s the sticking point here. Obviously, um in my patreon.com/bt Roland writeup of the free agent class before this actually happened, I I basically said he’s a tough fit with Trey because of the defense and I stand by that. Now, I think if you’re going into the season, it’s like you can never play those guys together ever, but I think ideally you would probably want to prioritize Canard being on the court when Trey is not as much as possible because Canard is a bad defender. Now, if Canard is your worst defender on the court, you’re probably fine because he he is bigger than Trey. He’s not tiny. He’s 6’5. He’s got real size. Um, if he’s playing with Dyson or playing with with with Nquille in the back court, you’re fine. a Trey Canard backcourt might be a challenge. So, there’s a reason he’s available. There’s a there’s a reason why he’s the eighth man on the Hawks right now. I would say he’s the eighth guy on the team, but that’s fine. Like, a specialist, yes, in some respects, but actually more than that offensively. Elite shooter on defense. I’m not going to lie to you, it’s not good, but you can play around with that. And right now, the Hawks only have two guys in their entire top nine or 10 that are actually shaky defenders. It’s Trey and it’s Canard. If you separate if you separate them a lot, you’re probably fine. And also Canard again as if he’s the smallest guy on the court, you’re totally fine. So, we’ll get into that more later on. I’ll talk about him, I’m sure, and Alexander Walker a lot more in the future. But I think one year 11 million for Luke Canard is a good price. It’s not a huge bargain, but for again one-year commitment, keeping the powder dry for next year, um having this optionality, this flexibility that the Hawks seem to prioritize and I think rightly so, it was a good addition for the Hawks and one that I certainly sign off on again, especially in tandem because if you have lineups and honestly, you’ll probably see Alexander Walker and Canard play together a decent amount and they make a lot of sense together. Also, Canard and Dyson make a lot of sense together. Those guys are good partners in the back court. So, I’ll leave it there for now on Canard, but certainly a move that I am uh I’m in on, especially in tandem with Alexander Walker and everything else they’ve done in this off seasonason. All right, in a second, I will get into the Caris Leverall, the the Cleopel, and then kind of what’s going to be coming up for the Hawks. And there is much more on the horizon for Atlanta after a word from our partners. All right, so the Hawks bring in two pieces with Alexander Walker and Canard. They also lose two pieces from this last season’s team. One of which was was definitely expected. The other one not as expected. The big loss is Carris Levert. Two years and $29 million with the Pistons. I mentioned on the show with Tyler over the weekend that the Malik Beasley federal investigation saga threw a wrench potentially in a lot of things. And that one of those things was that Detroit suddenly had a bunch of spending power that was probably they were probably not going to have. They were they were going to sign Beasley, it seemed like. And instead of doing that, they focused on Levert. And that made that made life harder, I would say, for the Hawks. And of course, he played at Michigan, did Caris, but even more than that, I would say the Pistons needed a starting level shooting guard, and Levert is going to have a bigger role in Detroit than he would have had in Atlanta. Was that why he signed there? We’ll we’ll only know that if he says that, but I think for a lot of players, it matters what the role is going to be, and that could be a factor in some of this stuff. Um, also the Hawks would have had some luxury tax issues if they had signed Levert to this exact deal and also signed Alexander Walker. I’m also not sure that Caris would have just come back to Atlanta at exactly this price because of the connections to Michigan, the connections to the role he might be in Detroit. The Hawks might have actually had to outbid the Pistons. That’s possible as well. So, all of that said, I like Caris. He’s a good player and two for 29 in a vacuum for him is a totally fine contract. Someone asked me, so just as a spoiler, Levert signed first before Alexander Walker and Canard and someone asked me on Twitter. Actually, a lot of people did. Basically, what’s your reaction to the Hawks not paying this? And I said, “It’s a TBD.” Because in my mind, I was like, “If they don’t sign Alexander Walker, I’m gonna criticize them for not keeping Levert at this price or at least not kind of letting him letting him get out the door.” Because look, the entire time in the last two months or so, the projection, not like in stone, but everyone I talked to, everyone I heard from, and I said the same thing, so I’m not blameless here. I thought it was more likely than not that Levert would come back. Of course, there’s always factors in play. It’s like I wasn’t say he was at a huge discount to stay in Atlanta. He liked it here. The Hawks liked him. That’s still the case now. But the way it broke down is clearly the Hawks prioritized Alexander Walker over LeVert, which I’m okay with honestly. And then because of the Beasley saga and and it happened late, Detroit had more money to spend, more flexibility to offer, etc., etc. That led to basically what happened here. So again, the totality of it all now that we’ve already seen what the Hawks did with that money, paying Alexander Walker and Canard, I’m totally fine with this. I think letting Carris get out get out the door for like a bargain contract would have been bad. But this is this is market value for Caris Lever. It’s totally it’s not like a huge value, nor is it a huge overpay. It’s kind of what you expect for Caris. Um is Caris Levert better than Luc Canard? Yes. But it’s two years, it’s more money. Canard is Canard and Canard is much I would say a different kind of player than Caris. Um if you could have said ideally for the Hawks to win basketball games right now, if you want to argue that Levert would have been better than Canard, I can’t argue against you. He’s a better player, I think, especially on defense. On offense, I might rather have Canard, honestly. But defensively, Levert is so much better than Canard. That that I think that overall would have been sliding to Garris. But look, and I’m I’m not defending this behavior, but as I’ve said a million times on this podcast, including again recently, the projection again leaguewide and locally, is that the Hawks don’t want to pay the tax. And right now, they’re set up to pay not the tax. So, um, if they had gone and given this deal or more to Levert and then also paid Alexander Walker, they probably would have had to go in the tax. And I’m not sure that was a possibility given that that the front office was given by ownership. So I’ll leave it there for now. But I I think yeah, it does sting a little bit to let Carris out the door after I think he was a good factor for the Hawks, but they’ve pivoted well. I think overall I’m fine with the direction. Look at the if you look at at the totality of it all, it does make a lot more sense. I wish Caris well. I’ve always enjoyed his work. Obviously back to Michigan. He’s a good guy by all accounts, but I’m okay with it given that they pivoted and got Alexander Walker and Canard instead. The other one is Capella leaving. If you’ve listened to the podcast this summer, you would know this already, but I’ve been reporting flat out that it was very likely for a while that Capella was going to leave. So, no surprise at all. That was the expectation that everyone that I talked to had. Um, he signed for three years and 21 a.5 million guaranteed. That’s about what I thought he was going to get honestly on the market from somebody. The surprise is he’s going back to Houston where he started his NBA career with James Harden and company. No one seems to know why Houston pursued Capella because they have Shangon and they have Stephen Adams making a lot of money as a backup center. So that’s a bit of an odd fit. Honestly, Capella is still a useful player. I’ve said that a lot recently, but it’s true. Um, so like on a night when everyone’s healthy in Houston, is he gonna play? I kind of think not, but he’s a good locker room guy, reasonable deal, and also there’s some uncertainty about the structure because the Rockets don’t really have cap space. So, they’ve actually been, it’s been reported since the last, I think, hour or so by Jake Jake Fischer, good friend of the podcast, that it’s going to be a technically a sign and trade with the Hawks. Atlanta will get a second round pick swap, so a very low-level asset in 2031 and some of the cash back that they sent to uh Minnesota for Alexander Walker. I’m not sure how it’s going to work. Some of the exact details are fuzzy right now on this one, but Capella to Houston is happening. And look, I won’t do the whole post postmortem now on Capella. Obviously, I’ve been known as the Capella guy for a long time. I have acknowledged repeatedly the last year or two that he’s not the same player anymore. He’s just not. Now, he’s in that high-end backup part of his career. That’s where he should be. That’s totally fine. He’s still use He’s still useful. He’s not a terrible player, but he’s not the same guy he used to be. I would just say on the way out, try to separate what he was at the beginning of his Hawks tenure from the end. At the beginning, he was a singular force and people should not forget that he was one of the huge reasons why they made the conference finals. If he’s not on that team, they don’t make the conference finals flat out. So, the Capella era had its ups and downs. The ups were early and the downs were late. I would say the extension they gave him was not the best, but the first contract, the trade worked out extremely well for them. He provided them with a serious center. They were in the wilderness for a long time at center before Capella. I’m talking about guys that, yeah, I like some of them, but like Damen Jones and Alex Lynn and Dwayne Deadman, they were in the dead zone at center for a long time. They brought in Clint. He was a serious player. Helped Trey a lot, as Trey will always admit to and say. So, a nice run for Clint. It didn’t end the absolute best last year, but to uh this was always going to be the way it was this season. The Hawks are in a good spot now at center with Porzingis and and Aong Woo. So, no hard feelings at all. I’ve always enjoyed Clint. I hope I hope him the best for him in Houston. But uh that’s the end of the Clint Capella era in Atlanta. All right, before I get out of here, and I I promise I know I will not do like every single story line because there’s just too much to get to on one podcast. I kind of again poked fun about this, but it would have been great to separate the Canard and Alexander Walker stuff, but it happened back toback. So, here we are on a Monday night. Uh there’s a good deal of fluidity here without knowing the exact structures of the Alexander Walker and Canard contracts, but I have them right now like seven and a half million or so under the luxury tax with three roster spots open and they have to fill at least two of those spots. You have to have at least 14 players on opening night. Currently, they have 12. So it could be less than that if they give Alexander Walker more in year one. It could be more than that if Canard’s base salary is lower. We don’t know right now. That’s a rough estimate of about seven and a half million under the tax right now. At the moment, they have a very, very clear top seven guys. It’s Young, it’s Tyson Daniels, it’s Alexander Walker at the guard spots. You got Risha and Johnson at the forward spots. You got a Kongu Porzingis at the big bad spots. That’s seven guys. That’s a clear top seven. That’s very good, honestly. Those top seven guys. Then you have Canard as as the eighth guy. And then you have VC crerache and Mo Gay in some order at nine and 10. Those guys have been in the rotation before. They can play and we know that. So that’s 10 guys that we know can play right now. Then you have the two young guys, Kobe Buffkin and Asa Newell. Two first round picks. Buffkin’s obviously been hurt, but a talented young guy with room to grow. Obviously New they just drafted. So those guys are we’ll see about this first season for New. But those guys are the guys that they like and are talented young players. But you still have work to do. I would say I’m already seeing a lot of talk about a point guard. I get that. People, I think, are a little bit underrating the amount of ball handling the Hawks currently have. They don’t have to go sign a point guard right now. Can they? Absolutely they can if they want to do that. But they do have guys, you know, Trey Dyson, Alexander Walker, Cree, Buffkin, Canard, and Jaylen Johnson can all run actions. Now only Trey is a quoteunquote point guard but Alexander Alex Alexander Walker’s played there before Dyson played there before play there before Kelly’s play there before. So like they have a bunch of options there and if Anie wants to be kind of roll with that I would understand. Also you have two-way options to play point guard like whatever. That’s a that’s a potential thing uh they could certainly add there. I think they have to get another big somewhere for depth purposes. Um I think Lance Jr. is the most logical target for that. um TBD on whether he’ll actually sign. Obviously, it’s late in the night here, but stuff moves fast. As a just a reminder, I’m recording this about midnight on Monday into Tuesday. It could all change quickly. I’ll have a podcast tomorrow at some point as well. Uh but Larry is the guy that I think makes the most sense. Plays both spots. Great locker room guy, can shoot it, etc. And then you have like I would want to add another forward potentially if you could. Um there’s still a two-way log jam. You still have Uraic as well in the mix, the draft the draft from last year that’s still unsigned for the Hawks. There is business to take care of for Atlanta still. The big stuff might be over. It was a big night tonight. Um, no one I mean it wouldn’t surprise me if they made another move uh a trade of some sort, but as far as Frey is concerned, the big stuff’s done. So, we’ll see. Now, you also have, and we’ll have much more on this later on, you have Trey’s extension potential. You have Dyson’s extension potential. Those are the two big ones. You can also extend Moay. Um, I wouldn’t exactly beg on that happening, but um, they have stuff to do, I would say. But in the meantime, that’s our night one recap. It’s been, again, I’ll book end this by saying I said it earlier, say it late. It’s been an awesome week for the Hawks. That’s my opinion. Um, people will know that I’m not emotional about it anymore. I’ve been covering the team for a long time. I’m not I don’t do the fan ups and downs. I’ve been covering the team as a media member for a decade and a half now. But they haven’t had an offseason like this in a long time. It’s been for me like unequivocal positive. Doesn’t mean it’s all going to work, but I think a lot of the process I’d be very comfortable with this front office in charge. They’ve made a lot of smart moves. The reviews are in across the league. Everyone’s like, “Man, the Hawks.” I’m like, “Yeah, the Hawks. It’s going very well.” So, I’ll leave it there for now. Please stay tuned. I’ll have much more coming up later on this week. Again, my plan is to have someone come on about Porzingis from the Boston angle. We covered him in the last couple years. Same with Minnesota and Alexander Walker. Maybe even Memphis and Canard. We’ll see. But stay tuned. I have all that coming up plus summer league coverage going to Las Vegas next week. It’s going to be very, very busy. But stay tuned. Please subscribe to the Lost on Hawks podcast anywhere you find your podcasts, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Follow the show on x/ Twitter, lots on Hawks. Follow me there, BT Roland. I’m also on Blue Sky, BT Roland. And also my nonpodcast coverage of the Hawks, my writing and such is at patreon.com/btoland. All right, everybody. One night done in the for agency Spectre and we’ll have much more to come later on this week. We’ll see you all next time.

Brad Rowland (@BTRowland) hosts Episode 2013 of the Locked on Hawks podcast, diving into a very busy first day of free agency for the Atlanta Hawks. Topics include the additions of Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Luke Kennard, farewells to Caris LeVert and Clint Capela, what might be next for the Hawks, and much more.

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