The Hawks made the wrong decision to fire Landy Fields as their general manager
The Hawks made the wrong decision to fire Landy Fields as their general manager
The Atlanta Hawks announced on Monday afternoon that they have fired Landry Fields as general manager of the franchise. It wasn't the right choice.
Fields, who played five years in the NBA, took over as assistant GM of the Hawks in 2020 and was promoted to general manager in 2022. The Hawks did not have tremendous success during his tenure with the organization, but one could argue that their shortcomings were hardly his fault.
In fact, this past season may have actually shown the most examples of his savviness as a front office executive.
Fields made one of the most interesting moves of the offseason, trading away Dejounte Murray for NBA Defensive Player of the Year finalist Dyson Daniels.
Daniels looked like one of the most promising young defenders in the league this season and a great asset for Atlanta.
More: Dejounte Murray got hurt during his Pelicans debut and it was an awful start to the Dyson Daniels trade
While the Hawks failed to make the playoffs, they showed competitiveness en route to the play-in tournament despite coming off a season in which they were a lottery team last year.
One of the main reasons why Atlanta fell short this season, too, is because 23-year-old forward Jalen Johnson missed a significant amount of the season due to a shoulder injury in January 2025.
Atlanta also added a solid young player in NBA Rookie of the Year finalist Zaccharie Risacher, signed 24-year-old big man Onyeka Okongwu to one of the best contracts in the league, and signed Johnson to a reasonable deal as well. The organization additionally found an above-average second-round pick in Mouhamed Gueye during the 2023 NBA Draft.
Even finding a valuable role player like Georges Niang was both smart and effective maneuvering.
Some of the first-round picks (e.g. AJ Griffin leaving basketball two years after he was selected at No. 16 overall) have looked less outstanding. But the Hawks seemed like they were at least heading in the right direction of both competitiveness and youthful energy guided by an apparent interest from ownership to make difficult cost-cutting decisions.
It is a shame Fields will never get a chance to finalize the roster that he was only just now gaining some momentum with in Atlanta.
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