Lloyd Pierce To Become New Hawks Head Coach, Will Be Introduced Next Week
The Hawks have officially moved on from the Mike Budenholzer era as Sixers Assistant Lloyd Pierce will take over the reigns of the franchise.
Sixers Assistant Coach Lloyd Pierce will become the Hawks’ new head coach and will be introduced next week, per Adrian Wojnarowski and Marc Spears of ESPN. This comes after Budenholzer and the Hawks mutually agreed to part ways last month.
Prior to the announcement of Pierce’s hiring, the Hawks and Pierce already met three times. Pierce garnered the Hawks’ interest ever since Budenholzer left. Pierce has been an assistant head coach in Cleveland from 2007-2010, the Warriors from 2010-2011, the Grizzlies from 2011-2013, and most recently the Sixers from 2013 up until now.
Hawks fans are lucky to have a coach taking over who has helped develop numerous all-stars such as LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Mike Conley, Joel Embiid, and 2017-18 rookie of the year candidate Ben Simmons.
Pierce also has an opportunity to work with young talent in Atlanta as Point Guard Dennis Schroder still has a lot of potential to flourish as he’s still 24-years-old, Taurean Prince continues to become a scoring threat, and rookie John Collins’ development was very fast as she showed flashes of becoming an all-star in the near future.
Pierce can also add more ammunition as the Hawks have three first-round draft picks in the 2018 NBA Draft. They will likely see a top-five pick. They have a 35% chance to get the fifth pick and 13% chance to win the lottery by landing at first overall.
The good news for the Hawks and Pierce is that trusting their own process doesn’t look like it will take that long.
After going through a down season that snapped 10 straight playoff appearances, Atlanta got younger and is in a prime position to return to the playoffs next season by building in this year’s draft. Not to mention that it is difficult to miss the playoffs in an Eastern Conference that has been down for over a decade.