How the Anthony Davis Trade Impacts the Atlanta Hawks

Lonzo Ball is the Wildcard

One thing that could throw a wrench into the plans for the Atlanta Hawks, is the New Orleans Pelicans deciding to trade Lonzo Ball to the Phoenix Suns or the Chicago Bulls. Should they make such a move, they would likely draft Darius Garland as their point guard of the future. Cleveland would likely take Jarrett Culver or De’Andre Hunter in this scenario. The Pelicans would then probably draft Culver or Hunter at six or seven, with Chicago or Phoenix deciding on Coby White or Cam Reddish. Hopefully either team, would not ignore their need for a point guard.

Where things could really get really tricky, is if the Pelicans do trade Ball, but decide to take the Culver at pick four and Reddish at pick six or seven. They would then shift Jrue Holiday back to point guard, with Jarrett Culver and Brandon Ingram helping to initiate the offense from the wings. That would leave the Atlanta Hawks with a choice of acquiring more future assets to move down, or going with option four at the small forward position. That option is believed to be Sekou Doumbouya who played professionally in France. Sekou is a fine prospect, however he is highly unlikely to be able to start from day one. I do like his game enough, that I selected Sekou with the 8th pick in the ATL All Day Mock Draft 1.0. There has recently been a report that the Hawks are indeed interested in Sekou Doumbouya. The report again comes from SI.com expert Jeremy Woo in his latest Draft Mailbag. He was asked rather the Atlanta Hawks are interested in Cam Reddish and responded with this statement:

"Reddish is another one of the more polarizing players on the board right now—there are scenarios where he could fall out of the Top 10—but if Atlanta keeps one or both of Nos. 8 and 10, I think Reddish will be in play. Based on conversations I’ve had, the Hawks have been linked on some level to all of Jarrett Culver, De’Andre Hunter, Reddish and Sekou Doumbouya. Based on all the chatter about the Hawks trying to trade up, the sense I get is that Culver and Hunter are estimably the two players they’d have to come up from eight to get. I noted this in last week’s mock, but they’re supposedly targeting Culver if they pull the trigger to come up to four or five."