With Kristaps Porziņģis trade, Hawks aim to soar in NBA's weakened Eastern Conference

New York Times

6 hours ago

Caw-caw! Can the Atlanta Hawks take advantage of the plague of star injuries in the Eastern Conference to move up in the hierarchy? It seems like they plan on trying.
The Hawks may have a window to make a run in 2026, and they're trying to take advantage of it without compromising their future. On Tuesday, they managed at least one deal that struck that balance perfectly, as they are finalizing a deal to trade Terance Mann, Georges Niang and the 22nd pick in this week's NBA Draft for Boston Celtics center Kristaps Porziņģis. Mann and the 22nd pick will head to Brooklyn, while Niang goes to Boston.
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Boston will also send the lesser of its two 2026 late-second-round picks to the Hawks (likely the least favorable of Indiana, Boston, or Miami, but it's complicated) in the deal, while the Hawks will send Cleveland's 2031 second-round pick back to Boston. The deal won't be completed until July 6, when Brooklyn's cap space becomes available and could eventually involve other teams (more on that in a minute). The Nets now own six of the top 36 picks in this year's draft and presumably will attempt to batch some of them to move up.
TL;DR: The Hawks needed a starting-caliber center, and wow, will they get one. Tuesday's trade essentially turned two fungible players and a late first-round pick into Porziņģis, a brittle but All-Star-caliber big man who immediately massively upgrades Atlanta's frontcourt and provides a major spacing component to a shooting-starved starting five.
Before we zero in on the Hawks, a quick look at the other teams involved:
• Only needing to surrender one late first-rounder to exit the remaining $47 million in Mann's deal is quite a save for Atlanta. The Nets will take Mann into their surfeit of cap space, which remains plentiful; even with cap holds for their five first-round picks and three key free agents they probably want to keep, I see Brooklyn with about $42.5 million in room.
• Boston also might not be the final landing spot for Niang, who came to Atlanta in the midseason De'Andre Hunter trade. While the Boston native is likely stoked about a homecoming, the Celtics are still cutting salary and could eventually drop off his $8.2 million expiring deal somewhere else, especially since it fits into a nontaxpayer or room exception. Boston momentarily got below the second apron with this trade, but is still $15 million above the projected tax line and will likely lose ground there when it re-signs one or both of Al Horford or Luke Kornet. Facing a punitive repeater tax and a frozen draft pick in a 'gap year' while Jayson Tatum recovers from a torn Achilles, more salary dumps seem likely.
All that said, the exclamation point of this trade is Atlanta.
Porziņģis is far and away the best pick-and-pop partner Trae Young has ever had, one who can also punish some of the switches that have frustrated Young in recent years; he also serves as a spicy kickout option when the Hawks have Young and Jalen Johnson in action.
Obviously, health is a concern: Porziņģis has only played more than 57 games once in the past eight seasons. He saw just 42 games last season while an illness sapped him throughout the playoffs. However, his expiring $30 million deal is unusually light freight for a player of his caliber, and Atlanta can sign him to an extension beginning in mid-July.
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It's also possible the Hawks pair him with Onyeka Okongwu in a double-big-man look at times, and it can work because of Okongwu's switchability and Porziņģis' shooting. (It would seem the Hawks would want to keep Okongwu's non-onerous contract based on Porziņģis' health record; free agent Clint Capela, however, is likely gone.)
The matching salaries involved would have likely cost the Hawks in draft capital, just to part with. It was puzzling when the Hawks traded draft capital at the 2025 deadline to acquire Mann's extension, and more puzzling when Atlanta tried to fit him into its system. Niang's expiring deal was fairer, but Atlanta didn't have the frontcourt defenders to protect him on defense.
That second piece is another positive element of the Porziņģis deal, as Porziņģis offers genuine rim protection on the defensive end and a full half-foot in size on the 6-foot-8 Okongwu. Despite employing an elite wing defender in Dyson Daniels, the Hawks, who still own the 13th pick in this week's draft, were just 19th in defensive efficiency last season; even 60 games of Porziņģis should improve this, especially given how many replacement-level frontcourt minutes Atlanta had to resort to last season.
One more positive element for Atlanta is that this deal had a near-zero cost in terms of cap flexibility, adding just $5 million to its cap number. The Hawks will likely re-sign Caris LeVert at something just north of the projected $14.1 million nontaxpayer midlevel exception, but even after that, they are roughly $14 million below the tax line and $22 million below the first apron, where they are now capped as a result of this trade.
That room is important because the Hawks still have a massive $25.3 million trade exception from the Dejounte Murray deal; other than Brooklyn, they are the only team that can plausibly acquire a contract worth more than $14.1 million in a trade and not send anything back. That exception expires on July 7 but could end up being partly 'recycled' for another year, depending on other trade shenanigans that happen between now and then. It could also enable the Hawks to trade, say, Kobe Bufkin and Dom Barlow (combined salaries: $7 million) for a player who made $20 million.
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In the big picture, Atlanta's work this summer is barely getting started. Extensions for Young, Daniels and, yes, Porziņģis, all loom as key decision points, and the back end of the roster needs work.
Regardless of what happens from here, it's a strong first step from the Onsi Saleh administration. Atlanta has a plausible starting five with Young-Daniels-Zaccharie Risacher-Johnson-Porziņģis and two plus reserves behind them in Okongwu and (likely) LeVert. The rest of the roster remains paper-thin, but filling in back-end roster spots is a much easier challenge than finding All-Star talent for the marquee.
(Top photo of Kristaps Porziņģis and Cory Joseph: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)