Atlanta Hawks: Nikola Đurišić’s contract, Kobe Bufkin’s return, Asa Newell, and Summer League opener

Atlanta Hawks: Nikola Đurišić’s contract, Kobe Bufkin’s return, Asa Newell, and Summer League opener

On today’s show, the Hawks made a couple of roster moves and they opened summer league in Las Vegas with a pretty interesting victory over the Miami Heat on Friday afternoon. We’ll get into all of that and more coming up. You are Locked On Hawks, your daily Atlanta Hawks podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. Hello friends, welcome to episode 2020. That’s 2020 of the Locked On Hawks podcast. I am your host Brad Rolling coming to you on a Friday evening here in mid July. And today’s podcast is brought to the folks at Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account, and use code locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. I also want to encourage you at the top of the show, as I always do, to make Locked on Hawks your first listen each and every day. Check us out and subscribe to the show anywhere you find your podcast. That includes Apple and Spotify. That also includes YouTube. Please sure, please be sure to like this podcast on that platform as you’re watching it and of course tell your friends about the show. A lot to get to on a Friday afternoon here in Las Vegas evening back on the East Coast. The Hawks did open summer league today. I was in the building for that game in Las Vegas with a 105 to 98 victory over the Heat. It was a fun one and we will be touching on that in the second half of today’s podcast. First though, got to stay on brand. And there were a couple of transactions that have longl lasting implications to the big league club, etc. that we I’ll be leading with. They actually happened before the game today, but it was uh the biggest one, which was the signing of Nicole Uric to a multi-year contract. Happened just before I went to the arena, so I couldn’t do an emergency podcast, but this will function as that. And then later on, again, we’ll be diving into what I saw with my own eyes on Friday afternoon in the desert. With that said, Nicole Uruch signing a deal. The Hawks began Friday with only 12 players under standard NBA contracts, meaning they actually had three spots open on the roster, and they absolutely had to sign at least two more guys. You got to have at least 14 to begin the season when it begins in October. But by the middle of the day on Friday, those numbers changed when the Hawks agreed to a three-year deal with Nicole Uruch. Some of this is not going to be new to you, but if you’ve been following along closely, or if you haven’t been necessarily, Urchic was actually drafted in the second round of the 2024 draft. He was the 43rd pick about a, you know, 12 and a half months ago or so. Then he had an injury that was pretty major to his foot during summer league last year, about exactly a year from now, a year ago today. Basically, um, he had surgery on that foot, missed four months, and then never actually signed an NBA contract. He was in the G-League. He played directly for College Parks. He was kind of a draft and stash in an odd way. So, the Hawks had his rights as normal, as I’ve laid out a few times on the show. You could basically treat him as if they had just drafted Euroic this season in a second round and kind of threw last season out contractually. And effectively, that’s what the Hawks did. Essentially, this would have been a very normal standard practice if the Hawks had drafted Uruchic 3 weeks ago when the draft was, I guess, two and a half weeks ago when the draft was, and instead they’re just doing it a year later, basically. So, I’ve always had as a candidate this summer to sign a teamfriendly multi-year contract that’s similar to what happened with Mogay in the second round two years ago and even beat Cree, which wasn’t exactly the same thing, but the Hawks had a had him on a two-way and they had his rights and had him over a barrel basically in negotiations. All that said, this is pretty similar to what they happened to do here with Uruch. The Hawks have not formally announced contract information, but the first person I saw that actually had the report of the deal was Mike Scott of Hoops Hype. He has it as a three-year deal worth just under $6 million in total money over three years. I can confirm that is the case. It is guaranteed for this coming season at $1.27 million. That is the rookie minimum salary, the cheapest salary that anyone can be on. that’s not on a two-way contract in the NBA is a rookie minimum. And that’s where Gerish is actually going to be sitting at this year on the cap and tax sheet for the Hawks. And then it jumps up to more than 2 million in the second season, like two and a half million in the third season. But importantly, those second and third seasons are not guaranteed. The Hawks are only committing that 1.27 million right now to Urchic, and that’s all they commit. So basically, they get some upside. If he pops and they want to keep him, he’ll be dirt cheap for two more seasons on non-G guaranteed contracts. Allah v Creechi Allah Mo. It’s very team friendly. And for Uruch, he can now lock in more than a million dollars in guaranteed money, which could be life-changing. It’s not going to be, you know, set for life money, but it’s certainly a lot of money to a lot of people, including me. So, that is the upside for him. And the Hawks can kind of guarantee that if they want to, the rest of it as they go if he plays well. So, there is some risk as far as him not being great, but that risk is mitigated by the very, very low cost of this contract at NBA terms. So, overall, this makes some sense to me. It’s something I would have been open to doing as the Hawks. It wasn’t a necessity in my mind because I don’t like necessarily love. Like, I think he’s a perfectly fine prospect. I’m not like over the moon about him compared to others. I’m also higher on him than some people. I’m like kind of in the middle on him, I would say. But for one, it gives the Hawks more spending flexibility right now, which I’ll talk about more in a second. But they clearly like Urchic to some degree. It’s give them kind of a three-year bet on him if they want to have that with zero downside given how little money the actual guarantees are. And look, it may not work out. He may not be good enough to contribute in the NBA. That is very, very possible. I would say like decently possible that he’s just never good enough to really give you a lot. But the downside again is basically nothing. So, it’s a very logical bet to make. I got a question about this. Like, could there be a wink wink deal a year ago on this basically and I would say it’s possible. The Hawks did just change over GMs. So, that’d be a little bit more difficult. Basically, the thought process of that question was, you know, they didn’t pay him last year. They didn’t get they didn’t sign him. So, maybe it’s just kind of a make good this year with guaranteed money. Conceivable, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that that’s definitely the case. It’s just one of those things that’s logical and obviously we would never probably find that out um because it wouldn’t be allowed legally. But as far as a roster reset is concerned after Urchic is on the team now officially on the roster, I’ll do a deeper financial look probably next week when there isn’t also a summer league opener to cover on the same show. The Bucks now have two spots open on the roster for standard contracts. Plus, they have one open two-way spot because they also signed Jacob Toppen to a two-way on Friday, the day before, actually uh Wednesday, the day before. Uh Topin was given a two-way qualifying offer. If you missed that, um, I reported on that earlier. It was actually Tophin and Katon Wallace that got those at the same time. It meant that Tophin could sign a two-way at any point if he wanted to. He was also a restricted free agent in the meantime. And for these kind of deals, the single most likely outcome is just the player coming back on a two-way, which is what’s going to happen here. The top is 68 forward. We’ll talk about him more today as as to how he played in the game, but he signed the first two-way with the Hawks on March 4th, played in College Park mostly after that. actually had 17 points in the finale of the actual NBA season last year when the Hawks sat everybody in a meaningless game against Orlando. But he played in like I don’t know 15 games or so with with the Knicks last year. He is certainly qualified and I would say more than qualified for a two-way. Interesting player, hyper athletic guy, can shoot a little bit, can defend a little bit. Like certainly a very interesting two-way bet and uh we actually played well today as we’ll talk about later on. So that’s that. The Hawks now have again two rusher spots open and one two-way open because it’s Ellie Njai and Jacob Toppenhen are on the two-ways. Nai was really good today I thought defensively and his first Hawks outing and then Uruchic on a full contract. So I would say internally the Hawks have a bunch of candidates for contracts of some kind but they don’t have to do anything with any of these guys. Keep that in mind. They they do not have to do this. So, there was some reporting that I’ve touched on a few times, but you want to be every day. I get questions about this cuz I think people missed my clarifications previously, but I’m just going to keep trying to educate on this one. Um, Lamont Butler, the former Kentucky guard, was reported in some college circles to be on a two-way contract, but I have consistently, I would say consistently, over and over again, been stonewalled on that by the Hawks to the point where I just do not believe that’s actually the case. um they could still sign him to that contract, but they have not and do not plan to from what I understand at this point in time. So Butler is another guy on summer league roster, exhibit 10 candidate, etc. But um I’m not begging on that and I would not put him in a spot. So when I say there’s one spot open, it’s NI, it’s top in and then the open spot. So Butler is just kind of in the mix, but he was injured today, etc. Then you have a few guys that could kind of conceivably get spots from the summer league roster. I would say Kobe Johnson, Adam Flaggler, Josh Christopher, who the Hawks actually signed to their Sunday roster um I believe on Thursday. He did not play today, but he’s a former first round pick. Pretty big name. And then I would also add Katon Wallace, who was actually not on um you know, he’s actually not in a two-way right now, but he’s restricted. Similarly to Tophin, he was actually at the game today courtside. Does that mean anything? Maybe not. But certainly a guy that could sign a two-way any point and even a minimum for Keaton would be not like unreasonable. But if you can get him on a two-way, I would love that if I was Atlanta. So lots of internal candidates. We’ll see. But in the meantime, the two big takeaways on the roster contract front in the last two days are topping on a two-way, which is again not nothing flashy or surprising there. And then for me, not a surprise ear with Yurich being on a on a contract. People are not like loving this. I get why. I would say again it’s twofold. He uh is a low-risk bet. He also, look, it matters that the Hawks are saving about a million dollars on this contract. That could allow them to have a little bit more flexibility under the tax. I wish the Hawks would pay the tax, but they’re probably not going to do that this year. And yes, it’s also fair to say, one more point here on on Nola. The Hawks could probably sign a better player today on a contract for the full veteran minimum. That is almost certainly the case. He’s not ready to play in the NBA right now. That’s my opinion anyway, but he’s not. But if you look around the league, most teams, not every team, but most teams have a player somewhere on their full roster that is a more developmental player and that they’re not planning to play a lot. I won’t name a ton of those guys now, but they they exist, whether second round picks or free agents or whatever. um you know, international guys, however you want to put that. There’s usually somebody on every roster that’s not like a developmental player. And look, if if he’s a 14th guy, I will like it less. If they fill the roster out to 15 and he’s a 15th guy, I don’t mind that at all. As a reminder, last year the Hawks spent twothirds of the season with Cody Zeller as a total zero in that spot. Your may not be able to play. And look, I think he’s gonna be in the in the G- League a lot. Even on even on a full contract, he could be in the G- League as much as he wants to be, and that’s probably going to happen quite a bit. But I get it. He’s not the best player in the world right now, nor the high upside prospect, but certainly an interesting player, a young player, and a again a pretty free bet if you are the Hawks as far as the money is concerned. All right, after a break to hear from our sponsors on today’s podcast, we will get into everything from the opener in Las Vegas. T is brought to you by Game Time. Have you ever decided at the last minute you actually want to go to a game with your friends or with your family? 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Download the Game Time app, create an account, and use code locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account with Game Time and use that code. It’s L O C K D O NA. That’s locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase. terms apply. Download the Game Time app today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, and plenty to get to on this Friday about the summer league opener. I will say I am going to cover all of these games. I will probably combine some stuff together. I’ll probably repeat myself sometimes. Um, these are not to be dissected in the same way as an NBA regular season game would be in that it’s much less about the process of how the game unfolded. It’s much more about evaluations of players. It helps that they won. Obviously, the guys want to win. They’re competitive people to be in the situation, but it’s more about like prospect evaluation and sche and schematic stuff if you’re trying to look what the Hawks are going to be doing in the future, etc., etc. So, I say all that, lots to get to, but I won’t get to every single takeaway on this one game breakdown because there’ll be much more coming. The Hawks play again Sunday afternoon, so we’ll have another breakdown of that game and the next one, etc., etc. All right, to the starters in this one. It was actually Kobe Buffkin. It was Yurich at the two. It was Jacob Tophin and Asa New at center. But the mild surprise was that Nelly Junior Joseph started the game at the four. I would not have guessed that coming in. It was a pretty big lineup actually for the Hawks in the starting lineup. Um, basically everyone other than the center, whoever that would be between New and Junior Joseph is a oversized player. Bucking at the two, sorry, Bucking at the one. Urchic is like 67 at the two. Toppen is a much bigger small forward, etc., etc. Um, two injuries, guys who were on the roster who did not play. If you listen to the summer league preview that I did with Glenn Willis, we discussed Lamont Butler and Devon Smith. Both guys were out in this game. Not clear how serious injury is. So, TBD for Sunday. All we got was that it was an ankle for Butler and a lower leg injury for Devon Smith. Also, Josh Christopher, who just signed on Thursday, did not dress in this game. He might be able to play on Sunday. I’m not sure how much he practiced at all. Again, a first round pick. a pretty talented guy from, you know, four years ago. Um, certainly overqualified per summer league roster. He was a summer league MVP at one point. So, obviously that kind of tells you something about his abilities, but um, also kind of a work in progress, you know, not a efficient score, but it certainly has the ball in his hands a lot, etc. We’ll touch on him when he actually plays, but he’s on the roster. Did not play in this one. So, the Hawks were only um carrying, I think it was like 12 active, actually 13 active players in this one. Um, the guys who did not play were Jake Stevens, Javvon, sorry, Javon Johnson, and Jack White. Everybody else e either played or was unavailable in this game. Also, there was a large contingent of Hawks players courtside, the full roster guys. This is not really usually usually my beat, but I was sitting right there in front of them. So, Jaylen Johnson was there, Dyson Daniels was there, Akong Wu beat Cree Mo, former Hawk Bruner Fernando was there as well with those guys. And then Katon Wallace, as I mentioned before, was also in the front row. That’s seven guys with like direct ties to the big league club that were in the building today. That’s interesting to kind of note that. Um, as far as the game is concerned, just some notes. Overall, they opened up with back-to-back threes from Newell on his first NBA shot and then Buffkin hit a three as well. Buffkin had a big game as we get into later on. He had 29 points lead on scores in this one for the Hawks. Um, they actually had Junior Joseph defending Kel Wear who is a certainly overqualified summer league center for Miami. So Newell was more of the help defender at the rim in this game for the most part. Although he did play some center later on I would say. Ed Junior Joseph played the least of the starters which made sense. All the guys who played 20 minutes or more were basically the uh the guys who have direct ties to the Hawks right now. Um with the exception of uh yeah actually no one. So there you go. Um the first subs after the starters were Adam Flaggler and Ellie Enjai. Then Kobe Johnson came in. Jack McVey played some. Um Nai was really good in this game. hit a miss a nice mid-range jump shot in the first quarter. The Hawks actually led by as many as 12 in the first half and then Miami had it going in a big way to kind of flip the script. They led by as many as 13. So it was a big swing from up 12 to down 13 in this game. Um as a sidebar to the Hawks, Casper Yakashonis from the Heat had a very very bad time in the California Classic last week with Miami. First round pick who the Hawks probably evaluated closely. He was very good in the first half of this game. I think he had 19 points in the first half. Like he was very good for them. Um I thought Topphen hit a very nice no dip three in the right corner. If you don’t know what that means, basically caught the ball high and then kept it high and then shot it from that position. That’s an important trait to have to have a quick release in the corner, especially when you’re playing with someone like Trey Young who sets you up all those things. They was tied at halftime after that kind of the back and forth of that first half. Um I thought Kobe had a couple nice drives and a nice half lob of Junior Joseph early in the third quarter. NJI actually had a hard fall and live lift off the floor early in the third quarter, but we end up coming back in which nice to see. He had a massive block on Kashad Johnson, which was a lot of fun, I would say. Uh Urchic actually had this is this is a crazy stat. Ur has had eight fouls in the game. Now, if you don’t watch summer league, that is allowed. He had eight fouls with 941 left in the game. You can have as many as 10 in summer league, but usually you don’t see perimeter players in particular have eight fouls, and he did it in 19 minutes to begin the game. That was a problem we’ll come back to later on in this discussion. Um, but I thought the Hawks actually had a nice um wrinkle in the second half when they were kind of wavering defensively. They put up some fullcourt pressure and really turned up the dial, I would say, defensively. Um, full court, three/4er court stuff, um, on ball heat, I would say. And that definitely helped them quite a bit in the second half of this game. Defensively, the bench had some trouble overall. All of the bench guys, other than Adam Flaggler and NI, um, you know, Johnson, McVey, uh, and Dwight Murray Jr. had some pretty ugly plus minuses in this game, which not necessarily their fault. It’s just what it was. But then they play this lineup to close the game of Buffkin, Flaggler, Toppin, Nai, and Newell. And honestly, if you asked me who the best five guys who to play together would be on the roster, it’s probably those five guys. Maybe you could say one of the older Australians, um, Jack Jack White and, uh, perhaps Jack McVey, but for me, it would be the five that closed the game. And I’m pretty sure that’s what happened here. Notably, that does not include Ursic. So, that’s interesting. But as far as like winning the game today, which is not the goal of summer league at all, but I think when they when it was game-winning time, that was their five and it worked and they dominated the last like five minutes, seven minutes of the game. Like they were down 10 with six minutes to go and win this game by seven. So they scored 37 points in the fourth quarter. Some of that was like some free throw stuff at the end of the game, but they had a 140 run in the fourth to go from down 13 to up by one. Buffkin exploded. He had the first nine points by himself of that run. He drew a three-shot foul, made all three, then had a beautiful right-handed drive for the left-handed player for a layup and a three-point play on that one. And then he had a pull up three. He was really, really good in that stretch. And then Enzi, a couple big plays there as well. Flaggler had a great steal at like the two-minute mark to actually bring what might have been like a pretty easy bucket. Just reacted beautifully, like just a veteran play from him as a smaller guard. Buffkin also drove past where drew a double and kick to Nai for a big three. It’s probably the biggest shot of the game honestly. And a nice play by Kobe and Nai to bury it. And then Buffkin drew another foul, rebounded. Like he was just perfect, honestly, in the fourth quarter. Buffkin, I don’t want to overstate it, but he was certainly the best player on the court in this game, which by the way is what you kind of want and have to see from a third-year player. He hasn’t played a lot, but that’s what the deal is when he’s going to be out there. He’s got to be really good, and he certainly was in this game. There were three guys on the Hawks roster who were plus 15 or better in the game. It was Buffkin, it was Tophin, and it was Asa Noodle. And that made honestly a lot of sense to me if you watch this game back. So that’s like the overall like look at this game. We’ll talk about the players in a second. Oh, one more note. I actually asked Brian Bailey about this after the game. The summer league head coach and Quinn Snider’s assistant. Uh it was a point of emphasis it seemed like to win the possession battle in this game and the Hawks were able to do that by a lot. They were actually plus 14 in possessions. They took 11 more shots and six more free throws than the Heat. And a lot of that was um on the glass and taking care of the ball. So they only had eight turnovers in the game. That’s a great number for summer league. I think even, you know, Kobe said this after the game. I think Bailey did as well. Usually you see like a lot of high turnover games in summer league. The Hawks did a great job not kicking the ball around the gym in this one. And then also they had 20 offensive rebounds. 20. Every single guy other than Dwight Murray Jr. who’s a six-foot third string point guard. Everybody else had at least an offensive rebound in this game. Five for Tophin, three for Joseph, two for Newell, four for Ani, two for Johnson. Like they were flying around and uh that ended up being a huge part of why they were able to come back. And again, when the Hawks just put their starters or, you know, their best players basically on the floor at the end of the game, they kicked them into high gear. It was pretty impressive down the stretch. All right, so we’ll dive in now to the player by player stuff. Again, not the same as an NBA regular season game, but some just some notes that I have on some of the key guys. I won’t go through the go through the entire roster. I think Buffkin was certainly the headliner of the game today. He finished with 29 points. That, you know, matters. Obviously, that’s a nice thing to have. I am not someone, if you listen to this podcast regularly, you will know this, but I’m not going to be like the only, you know, points is the only thing that matters guy. That’s not really what I do. But he was just in control. And I think in particular late in the game, I uh tweeted this actually in the third quarter, I think it was maybe early fourth, but I was like basically other than missing threes, it was exactly what you want to see from Kobe Buffett. And that was true. Like Kobe shot two of nine from three, which isn’t anything that’s not horrific. It’s fine. It’s not good overall, but everything else he was really good. He was four of seven on twos. He was 15 of 15 at the line. just getting the line that many times is a good skill and a good sign for a, you know, third-year guy. Some good reads, some good passes, good operation offensively and pick and roll. He had a steal, he had two blocks. You know, he was just in control and I know that he cannot erase two years of being hurt for a lot of people and that’s not going to happen in one day. That’s for nor am I saying that it should, but I think it was a certainly a good sign from Buffkin who was quite good in this game and yeah, he’s going to make shots. I will. His longest stretch of of healthy time in as a professional was his rookie season in the G-League and he shot about 36% from three and that’s all he has to do. I don’t think he’s going to be a great shooter, but if he makes enough shots, he’s a good pick and roll operator. He’s a really good defender. Like I think at the NBA level, it’s the one thing that he’s actually been proven to do is defend really well. So, I’m not going to go on and on, but I thought Kobe was like pretty obviously good in this game and uh that was a good sign. And look, he might have be done. He might have played the whole week. that’s always was it was already going to be in play before this. But um he was the best player on the floor in my opinion in a game that featured I think Khloe Wear is a lot more famous than Kobe Buffkin and did a lot more last year than Buffin’s done in the NBA to be very sure. Buffkin was the best player on the court to the game in this game on both sides. So that matters. Um elsewhere to was really good too. 19 points and rebounds for him. He’s actually a game best plus 21. Really big plays late. Um five off rebounds. the no dip free I mentioned before. He’s a really athletic guy. Like he’s he’s had some issues with with consistency in his career from Danny Mack to New York. Not nothing bad, just like not always been like dialed in, but the tools are really there. He’s athletic. He’s got that prototypical like 68 combo forward body. The shooting has been okay enough. Um he rebounded the ball really well in this game. I thought he flashed really nicely. Good to see that after you invest a 2-way in him. And I think again overqualify for a two-way. really good signing to add him to that contract and a a plus plus for the Hawks in this spot. The other guy that I have to talk about obviously is Asa Newell in his NBA debut of sorts. Eight points, eight rebounds, two assists, two steals, zero turnovers from Asa. He was pretty solid. I don’t think he was great at all. He didn’t say that he was either. Like he was pretty like chill about it after the game, but didn’t say he was great or anything. I think it was very very clear being especially being courtside and being really up close to it. He’s not strong enough yet. And again, that isn’t me like giving an indictment on the day of, you know, I think the night of the draft and then especially at his intro press conference two days later, Anie and As acknowledged that he has to get stronger. He talks about eating more. Like he’s going to have to get bigger and stronger. So that’s not like be breaking news. It was already going to be the case, but it was definitely the case today. He was bouncing off guys at times. And to be fair to him, you’re playing against Khloe Wear who’s probably the most like ready center in the entire summer league in some ways. Like he’s already a proven NBA player and is bigger than Newell, but I thought Asa like the flashes were good. Defensively, he was really good. I thought he rebounded well. He was in the right spots. He made some mistakes, but certainly going to do that as a rookie. Uh Bailey Brand Bailey talked about him being solid defensively. I certainly agree with that. Lots of good stuff on film, which I was impressed by. Offensively, it was a lot more limited. Nothing dire by any means. Um, he’s very left-hand dominant. That was apparent to me again in this game after watching that on film at Georgia. But nothing at all to say anything negative about Asa. I thought he was fine. He didn’t like super pop in this game, but also that’s totally fine. He was uh okay and looked the part athletically. Like he certainly is a big- time athlete. That was we knew that already and that was the case in person. Um, other than that, like there weren’t a ton more takeaways. Like Urchic is the guy that I’ll probably be the least positive on of the guys who are like the, you know, the guys who really matter. Um, eight points for Yurich. He had a couple nice mid-range jump shots. Like he’s definitely aggressive at times and in a good way. That was always the book on him um as a scorer. His passing was not as good as it’s been at times and um, you know, he took some inefficient shots, but certainly was fine. Had some nice moments in the first half. Defensively, it was like pretty alarmingly bad. I would say now he did just sign a million dollar plus contract today. Maybe his head was some somewhere else. I will give him some grace on that. That’s fair to point out. Um but the combination of the eight fouls, which you don’t want to overstate how much that matters. I don’t I don’t think it’s like damning, but he was not able to defend without fouling and that’s not what you want to see. Also, he made a lot of mistakes and also let a lot of guys go by him pretty easily. For a guy with eight fouls, he actually gave up a lot of easy stuff, too. And that’s that’s what you can’t have. You can’t have both. You can’t foul. So, I don’t want to I’m not pouring anything on him. Again, my first segment stands. I think it was a perfectly fine use of a roster spot to de to develop him. You don’t find 67 ball handlers who can create for themselves and others growing on trees. Like, it’s fine to have that bet. He was also pretty bad in this game after the first half, I thought, especially defensively. Now, he looked to be kind of tired. He did mention on Tuesday when the Hawks spoke to the media that he’s like less than 100%. He didn’t speak to the media after the game, so we couldn’t really ask him about that. He was wearing a like um like a thumb or a wrist sort of brace of some kind. I’m not sure if that was what it was or not. He looked to be kind of gassed. He hasn’t played a I mean, none of these guys have played games for a while, but um I’m not worried. It just was notable. Like his his defense was pretty bad in this one. Um that’s kind of all I have other than that. I mean, we can round it out, but um I thought Flagler looked pretty good. He didn’t make he didn’t make threes, but he always makes threes. That’s like his number one trait. He had 12 points off the bench. Oh, I have to talk about Nai. So, I forgot about this until now. Ellie Nenji is really good in this game. 12 points, six rebounds, two assists, a steal, and a block for the two-way forward who was recently signed by the Hawks coming over from Real Madrid. He’s just a pro defensively, like just knows where to be. Um, impactful, too. He’s athletic. He made a lot of plays. I was very impressed with him defensively. Offensively, like he was in a tiny role overseas, and he’ll be in a tiny role over here, I think, for now. He’s not a super high volume offensive player, but he did take he did take four threes. Made one of them. Like he was willing to shoot. He hit the big one late. Um yeah, I liked what I saw. He’s definitely like my kind of player. Checks a lot of boxes. Defends really well. Um obviously knows how to play. So that’s I love all that. And I I mean for me like he should just probably start. Um I don’t care about starts that much, but play him as much as possible. Um next to no probably as the Hawks close with that lineup in this game. Um Kobe Johnson, you know, was fine. Uh Jack McVey had some defensive struggles. I would say Dwight Murray was okay in his 10 minutes. And uh we’ll leave it there for now. Oh, and also I thought in the first half uh N was actually quite good. He was pretty active. Two blocks in a steel. Definitely a big athlete like 610 power forward type. You know, skill level remains to be seen, but certainly made some plays. Um just kind of mucking things up with his burst. All right, that’s all I have on a admittedly longer than I was supposed to be podcast because of the full segment on other nons things. So, the plan is moving forward. If anything breaks, the Hawks do have two roster spots open. The Hawks do have two-way slots open. If they sign someone from outside the organization, I will do a podcast as soon as possible. If it’s someone that’s we’ve already talked about, if it’s a two-way and it’s Katon Wallace, I’ll talk about it, but I won’t be emergency podcast if that makes sense. But at the very latest, I will do a podcast after the game on Sunday afternoon. The Hawks will have another summer league game on Sunday. They have actually the first game of the day on Sunday, even earlier than it was today. a 12:30 local, which means 3:30 Eastern time start on Sunday against the Suns, and they play again on Monday afternoon at 1:30. So, lots of early games for me, afternoon games if you’re back on the East Coast. But stay tuned. Please subscribe to Lothan Hawks anywhere you find your podcasts. Tell your friends about the show as well, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Follow the show on XL, Twitter, Lothan Hawks. I am there at BT Roland. I’m also on Blue Sky at BT Roland. You can follow my nonpodcast work about the Hawks at patreon.com/btland. All right, everybody. Thanks for listening. As always, enjoy your Friday into Saturday and we’ll see you in about 48 hours.

Brad Rowland (@BTRowland) hosts Episode 2020 of the Locked on Hawks podcast. Topics include Nikola Đurišić’s new contract with the Atlanta Hawks, Jacob Toppin’s return on a Two-Way deal, Kobe Bufkin’s return, Asa Newell’s debut, and the Las Vegas Summer League opener on Friday against the Miami Heat.

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