NBA Notes: Hawks, Jalen Johnson, Hornets, Celtics, Jayson Tatum

Hawks

ESPN revealed its one pressing question for every team last season, and the biggie for the Hawks is … well, if last season was a fluke.

Atlanta was among the East’s best teams after January, before falling to the eventual champion Knicks in the first round of the playoffs. They made some moves in the offseason, including the acquisition of Lu Dort, a former NBA champion with the Thunder.

Everything now is centered around Jalen Johnson. Will it be enough to build on a wildly underrated year? ESPN asked as much.

“To be clear, the Hawks’ 51-point loss in their elimination game isn’t the strong finish we are referring to,” wrote ESPN’s Tim MacMahon. “But Atlanta did account for two of the Knicks’ three playoff losses, and the Hawks went on a 19-4 run with a plus-13.9 average point differential at the end of the regular season after committing to CJ McCollum in the starting lineup.”

McCollum will likely now come off the bench, thanks to Dort. But that’s beside the point.

Atlanta added to the roster this summer — drafting Kingston Flemings in the lottery and trading for ring-earning role players Lu Dort and Aaron Wiggins — and is positioned to be aggressive at the trade deadline or next summer, when the Hawks could have about $45 million in salary cap space,” MacMahon wrote.

Hornets

It will be a different look and feel for the Hornets after trading LaMelo Ball to the Timberwolves and Miles Bridges to the Suns.

But like the Hawks, the Hornets were another pleasant surprise. Like the Hawks, it’s fair to wonder if they can keep a good thing going.

“Charlotte has been very methodical in its build, and ownership and the front office have taken strides to avoid falling into the traps that ascending teams can sometimes make when they chase the middle,” wrote ESPN’s Brian Windhorst. “The Hornets got to the middle last season but clearly the team didn’t believe that LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges, both of whom have expensive contracts and will be searching for extensions soon, were part of the rise so they tried to maximize their position by trading both.”

So, yeah, it’s almost like starting over in Charlotte. But not quite.

“The acquisitions of veterans Naz Reid, Grayson Allen and Dennis Schroder, in theory, augment newly established cornerstones Brandon Miller and Kon Knueppel,” Windhorst wrote. “But Charlotte needs to get Miller into an extension that makes sense for both sides — an age-old tale — and Knueppel suffered a moderate hamstring injury that is going to cause him to sit out all of training camp and the start of the season. In a very competitive Eastern Conference, getting back to the play-in might be a chore.”

Celtics

The Celtics are coming off a fantastic regular season in which they shocked most everyone. Jayson Tatum was out for most of it following Achilles surgery. So Jaylen Brown put himself in the NBA MVP conversation by leading Boston to unforeseen very good things.

Then the Celtics traded Brown to the Sixers. A move that, clearly, many of us still don’t understand. But it’s too late to turn back now. And now, it’s Tatum’s turn.

“Tatum made it a point to get back on the court before last season ended, proving his Achilles injury couldn’t keep him down,” wrote ESPN’s Vincent Goodwill. “The results were mixed in the short term, as his regular-season percentages were down across the board and he sat out Game 7 of the Celtics’ first-round series because of left knee discomfort.”

Now? Questions abound. Namely, can Tatum do this season what Brown did last?

“Trading Jaylen Brown was a full endorsement of Tatum’s ability to take the throttle while retooling to get back to championship status,” Goodwill wrote. “But is Tatum fully recovered from the injury and ready to assume control?”