McMillan’s firing is just the next dramatic event in what’s been a chaotic, disappointing season for the Hawks. Though the team still sits in eighth place in the Eastern Conference, they’re 28-30, far below the high expectations Atlanta had when they traded three first-round picks and a pick swap for Dejounte Murray.
It was an all-in, win-now move for Atlanta, who made the conference finals in 2021, but backslid last season, finishing ninth and losing 4-1 in the first round. At the same time, they still hedged their bets, a hallmark of the Trae Young era. Atlanta added Murray, but traded away Kevin Huerter, who started 60 games in 2021-22 and was the Hawks’ best three-point shooter.
McMillan got a four-year contract after those playoffs, but that deal was signed by Travis Schlenk, the former team president who was reassigned/fired in December.
The Hawks’ franchise player, Trae Young, clashed with McMillan all season. Young missed a game in December after skipping shootaround, effectively a quiet suspension. Shams Charania wrote that McMillan considered resigning in late December, after new GM Landry Fields took over. That came after the Hawks fired their scouting director, their director of personnel and senior advisor Rod Higgins.
Now, the Hawks have turned over control of the team to Fields, but also to owner Tony Ressler’s 27-year-old son, Nick and his friends. They’re rumored to be interested in former Utah Jazz coach Quin Snyder, but he might hesitate to join an organization with so much turnover. Not to mention that Young’s bad relationship with his old coach, Lloyd Pierce, got Pierce fired two years ago.
The real problem in Atlanta might simply be that their players are not that good. Young is a terrible defender whose offense relies heavily on drawing fouls, and whose three-point shooting is down to 32.4 percent this year. De’Andre Hunter has been a disappointment after being picked at No. 4 in 2019, center Clint Capela’s blocks and rebounds have been slipping and John Collins’ shooting has fallen off a cliff.
Murray has been good, if not a perfect fit with Young, but he’ll become an unrestricted free agent next summer.
Perhaps the 2021 Eastern Conference Finals run raised expectations too highly for the Hawks. Now, they’re shaking up the entire organization. This may be a well-thought out restructuring, but from the outside, it looks like they’re panicking.
