AJ Griffin Trade, Atlanta Hawks 2024 NBA Draft, Nikola Djurišić Selected At No. 43 Overall

AJ Griffin Trade, Atlanta Hawks 2024 NBA Draft, Nikola Djurišić Selected At No. 43 Overall

on today’s show the second day of the 2024 NBA draft is in the books AJ Griffin is no longer a member of the Atlanta Hawks and they do add a second round pick and an interesting player we’ll get into all that and more coming up you are locked on Hawks your daily Atlanta Hawks podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day Hello friends welcome to episode 1751 of the Loon Hawks podcast I am your host Brad Roland coming to you on a Thursday evening here in late June the 2024 NBA draft is now over day one day two it is all in the books at this point in time the offseason is firmly here and of course St podcast by the folks at the game time app download the game time app right now create an account and use promo code lock on NBA for $20 off your first purchase with game time terms apply also want to say at top of the podcast as I always do on this show to check out loon Hawks anywhere you might find your podcast make us your first listen each and every day find us on YouTube we can also like this episode of the podcast as well as subscribe to the show moving forward as well as on Apple on the audio side and Spotify overcast Etc it’s been very busy on this podcast for quite some time now we did a Full Slate of pre-draft content which I recommend still listening to now there’s still plenty of good Insight in those episodes and then after day one of the draft I was on site at the Hawks facility I did a podcast last night on Wednesday evening talking about the hawk number one overall pick z r as well as what ler Fields had to say about that all the mations there the latest Intel Etc day two was not quite as historic for Atlanta no number one overall pick in this number two uh sort of day number two class but there were some transactions and probably a little bit of a shorter episode I will say as I’m trying to get this done in sort of bonus knockout Fashion on a Thursday evening but there were two transactions kind of in one so all that said we’ll Dive In now and the lead story on this Thursday is that AJ Griffin is no longer a part of the Atlanta Hawks roster so I’ve r a few times in the last couple of weeks on the show and also on patreon where you can find me at patreon.com BTR Roland that I’ve had my eye on AJ Griffin and potentially being traded at some point in the offseason I wasn’t guaranteeing it or anything like that but um I had referenced it last time on the show on this same feed wherever you list this podcast at the end of the show I talk about AJ kind of being potential trade guy maybe even as soon as today and because of that I kind of saw that coming on some level I was not surprised some were for sure I was a little bit surprised they only got the number 44 overall pick in the draft for AJ I will say that I probably would have guessed if you told me he was gonna get traded today would have been a pick somewhere in the 30s if I had to guess but clearly that pick was not available to them they took the deal that was offered to them at number 44 which became 43 later on but that was uh done about 2 eastern time on Thursday when it was reported by WJ and quickly confirmed by me and others that it was going to be just straight up AJ for the 44th pick in the draft AJ had to make about four million or so in his third season and the Hawks also I think sneakily had to decide on his fourth year option by October which is about $6 million not crazy money but certainly not nothing and I’m not sure if that was going to be a pickup for them or not it wasn’t going to be you know most of the time first round picks their options get picked up most of the time but it was not going to necessarily be a lock that would happen um and look anyone that’s followed this team closely will know this but if you haven’t I’ll just kind of give you the broad Strokes here it was kind of a Lost season for AJ Griffin so many people have asked me this question broadly like how does a guy who goes 16th in the draft two years ago get traded for for the 44th pick two years later and it was all basically about this last season so he wasn’t great at Summer League a year ago last July he wasn’t great in October or November it was a little bit strange he wasn’t awful awful but just wasn’t playing very well and then he had the lengthy personal absence so um he was gone away from the team for several weeks kind of um under the cloud of mystery we didn’t you know Hawks and look this is AJ’s right for sure it was deemed to be a personal absence the Hawks respected that privacy of AJ didn’t really release any details about that he did one interview when he came back but not a ton of details there was family stuff that was reported out there um mental health stuff potentially was speculated on all that stuff but we’ll never know the full details there I wouldn’t guess but he didn’t play basketball for quite some time and was clearly struggling personally on some level he came back but was basically completely off the radar for the Hawks as far as basketball was concerned for most of the season after that he did go to the g- league in February um showed some signs I thought he played better there and showed some physical stuff that was better than he was early in the year playing with a little bit more confidence um but I was hearing even back then like pre deadline in February that he was potentially going to be moved by the hwks at that point time it didn’t happen but that has never really stopped and look there is basketball stuff too so AJ functioned much better and much more naturally I would say for his skill set and his Tendencies under Nate McMillan so that doesn’t mean that Nate is better than Quinn in fact he’s not in my opinion but Nate ran a much more methodical they didn’t really run as much it was not as based on Tempo and quick decisions Etc and AJ kind of plays at his own speed right now he’s not a fast twitch guy never has been he’s a processor that’s kind of a little bit slower more plotting Quinn likes to play faster again AJ didn’t really take to that immediately we saw that even last year when Quinn came in mid-season the previous year and um basically fell in a rotation by the end of the year and you know I I talked about this a lot at the time because everybody was healthy at that point in time which is a far cry from now at least has been recently for the Hawks uh Quinn wanted to play nine guys and he basically had to choose between Jaylen and AJ and at the time it seems crazy now because of jaylen’s ascent but that was a real decision AJ had been playing more and um you know was probably a little bit ahead of Jaylen for part of that season and then jayen came back anyway um he fell out rotation a little bit there it was the same this year even before the personal outs he was not playing a lot which was kind of surprising but not totally shocking and look AJ is still a very talented guy the shooting is real the wing you know being a wing wing who could shoot it and had that pedigree as a former top five Prospect in his class that’s all interesting he’s also very young he’s younger than a lot of guys who were drafted in the last two days for instance but for me I think he needed to change a senator I think AJ if was going to kind of fix his career and get get back on the right track it might have been needed to go somewhere else just to have the change of scenery different coach different situation all that stuff um I’ll be rooting for AJ to succeed I gotta say I think he could revive his career in Houston but the reaction of people who don’t follow the hwks closely last year and in particular overall is different than people around the team people around the team or people that cover the team closely are not as not as surprised they noticed this year was kind of a completely lost season he barely played and it wasn’t really injury he had a couple injuries too but it wasn’t injury only to why he wasn’t playing so all that said I understand it doesn’t look good it is what it is to have a guy be drafted in the first round middle of the first round two years ago and then having him be gone by year three and be traded for a midc round pick especially after he was really good and that’s something I should at least note AJ had a good rookie season like a good rookie season on a team that was trying to win he played well he was efficient and yeah he’s always had some questions defensively in particular slow feet not the greatest athlete in the world but he was he managed to play Rotation minutes as a rookie and do it pretty well and obviously a big fall since then so I’ll stop there as far as like what’s gonna happen now obviously AJ is gonna be in Houston and hopefully they he’ll do well for his sake but um yeah second year was kind of rough and you know all that kind of stuff happens in the NBA this is not the first time it’s going to happen uh nor would it nor will it be the last with regard to a guy that maybe has a nice strong rookie season kind of falls off and gets moved on from change of scenery Etc but that is the story now about what transpired there with regard to AJ we’ll have more on what happened next because the Hawks after they traded the for the pick that became number 44 for the AJ trade they made another small move that actually became a three team trade on the whole and they added a pretty interesting prospect that we’ll get into in a second but first work from our partners on today’s podcast Today’s Show is brought to you by game time game time is authorized taken Marketplace at the NBA and that makes getting tickets for basketball baseball Etc faster and much easier for you that killer Deals they have all in prices be from receipts and the lowest possible price guarantee and that makes game time a fantastic option makes things easy for you across the board I’ve been using them for a long time at game time and it really has come in handy for me for concerts for shows for 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wasn’t announced yet but it was finalized we knew about that basally at that point in time three hours later or so middle of the first round sorry middle of the second round number 44 overall it’s coming up and it ended up being a small trade for the Hawks to go from 44 up to 43 and they added some cash considerations to move up one spot now you might be confused by this because it’s not happened for a long time for the most part the Hawks sent cash in this trade that’s welcome change from previous years I would say um if you are a longtime listener you will probably know that I have done some rants in the past about the Hawks selling draft picks or making financial decisions based on acquiring just cash that can’t be used for basketball that just go kind of goes in the owner in the owner’s pockets for instance um no rant today they used cash smartly to move up a spot and get their guy along the way here so technically structure is a three- team deal with Houston who got AJ Griffin uh and then Miami at the end of that and they drafted Nicole jurich so it’s Nica Urich I believe is the way it’s supposed to be pronounced my apologies there not a native speaker obviously but that’s the pronunciation guy that the NBA gave out um 20-year-old Wing from Belgium by way of Serbia he played at Mega in the last few years the same team this year that had nicoa topic who went in the lottery to Oklahoma City actually um jurus was actually in the um draft last year ended up withdrawing and then uh coming back playing at Mega and then obviously staying in the draft time around Mega’s kind of a prospect Factory in some ways they’re kind of geared towards promoting young guys and structuring around them making them making them look good Etc they build around those young guys in a way a lot of teams don’t overseas and actually your’s numbers went way up this year when topic got hurt which actually happened later in the year because then yich was kind of the primary guy when toich was actually sitting and his accounting stats went way up um broadly speaking I’ll say this and we’ll come back to it later on I’m sure I like this bet for the Hawks he has some actual creation upside that you will not find with a lot of picks in the 40s I would say um obviously there’s downside too you would have been available at this point in time but and look not everything is perfect here but like people that I trust and their evaluations who have watched him more than I have like this piit compared to like where you know at 44 43 44 to where he was actually going so Brian schroer been his podcast many times had him in the 20s I think Ben Fifer as well had him in the 20s sasini I know had him 37th in his draft guide so higher than where the Hawks drafted him so what does that tell you we’ll see but there are people that I trust that that like the player and the Prospect and the upside as far as like what Ur is gonna look like in the NBA um only time will tell but I’ve seen him enough to be dangerous here talk about him a little bit here a good athlete with real Wing size about a 67 in no shoes which is a very solid Wing size not a huge Wings span 68 that’s fine for where he is as kind of a pure Wing not a not a forward like definitely going to be a two3 in the NBA kind of thing it gets there uh has multi-level scoring Acumen I would say not shy in a good way he’s very um aggressive attacking shooting hunting a shot and with good reason I like his passing as well he sees passing LS they’re not they’re not always there to everybody not an elite passer but certainly someone who’s not afraid to pass and can definitely make good reads um pretty good finishing numbers a pretty good athlete again like can jump jump around the rim and finish um one of the questions with him is his perimeter shooting which is not fantastic right now he shot 31% from three this year um has never shot a high percentage from three at any level that I can find um it’s not broken as far as mechanics are concerned but the ball has not gone in for him a ton doesn’t mean it can’t but um not a whole lot of evidence of him being a high L shooter he probably would have gone earlier in this class for instance um defensively he’s not special but I think he he could be fine I think he’s not you know inattentive again a pretty good athlete has enough length enough physicality he’s probably if anything like kind of overeager which is better than the other way around what you don’t want is someone doesn’t care defensively I think he’s pretty aggressive like he’s like he has an offense like kind of maybe over rotating or being overly aggressive getting fouls Etc but I don’t mind that I’m gonna watch more of course and but from what I’ve seen it makes total sense to me to take a swing on him at this pick in the 40s um you know he was certainly one of my two or three highest rated guys remaining when the Hawks got to that spot and look in the second round the bands are very narrow like uh people were like hold breath for certain guys and yeah there was a few guys that I thought might get to Atlanta that that I actually had higher than yourage but they didn’t get there so it’s like and also it’s kind of a crap shooting second round I don’t mean that in a negative way I’ve actually said for a long time that a lot of teams kind of wave away second round and they probably shouldn’t but you got to know you’re not going to be getting a lock of a guy that’s gonna help you for sure it’s it’s about either taking upside swings which I think more is more what your Stitch is or guys that you could think can kind of help you pretty soon so like last year for I you always use the Hawks as an example on purpose last year the Hawks did moay as the upside swing and Seth Lundy as more of the like projectable Wing player not Sky High upside but has NBA skills and with Lundy is it was it was a jump shot y it’s definitely kind of a combination I would say probably a little bit more upside based but um there are different kinds of projects there and second round picks but I think that makes a lot of sense to me and again it’s hard to expect anything with a pick in the 40s the median projectable outcome for this pick is not going to be a huge NBA contributor but there is upside here I would say I’m in favor of just looking at Wings in general obviously Ray is different and that he was number one overall pick in the draft so there’s a different expectation level there a different Baseline there I talked about him extensively yesterday on the show and I promise you I’ll be talking about him a lot in the coming days but even you know yich and Seth Lundy last year you got V C’s been in the system a couple times just keep swinging on Wing players and hope you hit some I saw some people on you know YouTube Twitter Etc they were kind of like they wanted a center or they wanted look I I get that too but there’s nothing there’s nothing wrong with having a bunch of wings if there’s a spot you can’t have too many of it’s wings especially second round wings like just add hopefully you’ll hit on a couple of these guys um but in the end just keep throwing it throwing your resources at wings and I don’t mind that whatsoever I think y s again has a path to be an NBA player we will see if he actually gets there but notable that they found a pretty talented guy in the second round using the pick that they traded uh sorry that they acquired for AJ Griffin uh earlier the day okay we’ll get into some final thoughts on today’s podcast with regard to the ler tax side of things because they did save some money in the AJ trade and people kind of talking about tax stuff today I saw Bobby marks Etc we’re getting a little bit that in a second and then also kind of preview Friday because when the Hawks are going to actually introduce their prospects to the media we’ll see how that’s going to go but first and work from our partners on today’s podcast Today’s Show is brought 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be a factor I wouldn’t put it past them I think they’re G to be pinching pennies on some level to avoid the tax at some point if I had to guess but AJ it wasn’t like an overwhelming salary but maybe it played a small part in what they actually took for him or what they got back for him potentially second round picks all that stuff um as far as what the situation is now because there was conflicting stuff that I saw out there some mistakes I saw from people kind of tweeting just nonchalantly about this the Hawks are still even after trading AJ for no salary back projected to be over the tax line right now so 10 guys that under contract right now take AJ away not adding in Urich yet 10 guys that includes the number one overall pick because it’s it’s a kind of a fixed cost at 12 and a half million or so with ret 10 guys $167 million in those 10 guys Bruno and Garrison Matthews have non- guaranteed deals at this moment in time for a couple more days um if are kept it would be about 172 or so with 12 players on the roster as a reminder you have to have at least 14 guys on contract that you are paying so you can’t just have 12 guys and you have to pay 13 and 14 even if it’s the minimum it’s more than a million dollars even for the rookie minimum so that takes you over the tax line because the tax line is about 171.5 so even with taking AJ away not adding Urich and you are still comfortably over the tax doing nothing else and that does not include a single dollar for V Cree nor sadik Bay and I’m not sure they’re gonna bring Bay back I’m pretty darn sure V will be back if I had to guess I’m not saying it’s 100% but certainly leans that way from what I’ve heard so Factor him into filling out the roster Etc um because they used cash in the trade and this is hat to to keep Smith of spot track uh to get your stitch in the trade actually today the Hawks are now hard capped technically at the second apron above the tax line what does that mean basically it means that the Hawks cannot exceed the second apron for any reason it’s now a hard cap versus a soft cap which is what usually with the NBA is that does not however practically matter because there was no chance and I’m not leaving it there was no chance the Hawks were G to go over the second apron in this year anyway zero percent chance and now it really can’t happen but they weren’t gonna do that anyway so the panalty there is basically nothing um anyway we also don’t know this I purposely held this to the end Urich doesn’t have to come over right now so there’s this concept of draft and stash um 95% of the time it’s not a college guy in America that does this it’s a European or International or South American Australian Asian player someone that’s not from the United States there’s always this question of are they gonna come over or not because he’s been a he’s been making money overseas he’s been a pro overseas I’ve been asking around since the uh actual draft and I’m recording this podcast at like 8:30 p.m. eastern time on Thursday I have not gotten a straight answer yet about whether he’s going to come over for this year um there’s at least a chance he stays overseas and it’s sort of a draft and Stat situation um based on what I know right now I would slightly lean to him coming over but I don’t know so I’ll just be honest with you about that but he could sign a two-way he could sign a second round pick exception contract like they did with moay last year where basically he’s signing for the minimum um but for multiple years like for instance moay got a four deal last year at number 39 overall but it was a four-year deal that was quite Team friendly two years of guaranteed money and then some non- guarantees a club option at the end of it um that’s kind of the hky special of sorts from back in the day with Sam Hy in Philadelphia so we’ll see what that looks like but the Hawks might be interested in having eurus on a full contract at the rookie minimum because rookie minimum deals are cheaper than veteran minimum deals the cheapest contract you can have for a full season in the NBA is a rookie minimum deal he’s the only player that can sign that deal right now maybe maybe if they sign somebody else that’s that was not drafted that could happen but uh keep that in mind we’ll see if that actually happens but that would be helpful if they’re trying to stay on the tax line maybe later on but just to be very clear trading AJ does not get the Hawks out of the tax it saves the money but it’s not necessarily all the way there and by the way even if I got question about this as well even if the Hawks wanted to cut Bruno and Garrison which I would not do to be clear they still couldn’t stand up the tax without another move somewhere else else to cut money and doesn’t mean you have to it doesn’t mean you have to be only cutting money like you can make a trade in which you save money that’s also a basketball trade it doesn’t have to be a straight salary dump like we’ve seen before with the Hawks with John Collins or Kevin herder which they gotta pick for keep that at mine The Herder deal was always better than the Callins do because they actually got a pick for Kevin herder but um it doesn’t have to be that it could be that but we’ll see uh just lots of questions about that want to at least answer that at the end of the podcast but yeah I mean hold on tight I would say uh as of hour ago or so the Hawks updated their announcement um Urus is supposed to now be in attendance for the press conference on Friday in morning so I ref this last night but um Reay and now Urich are going to be introduced formally at their press conference on Friday morning at 11:00 am at the Hawks facility it’ll be it’ll be the Bob the Bob wrathman show my guy Bob wrathman as the MC of that event I believe it’s going to be live on hawks.com least the Hawks have said that I don’t know if it’s going to be happening but I I assume it will be so keep that in mind and uh that’ll be interesting we’ll see how much news there is from that maybe we find out about um EUR Stitch coming over but newswise I tend to keep my expectations pretty low uh but obviously some non- news stuff like people want to get to know rese in particular I’m sure as the you know the new guy in town number one overall pick I’m sure there’ll be lots of questions about his experience in Atlanta and coming over to the US and all that stuff it’ll be interesting but as far as news is concerned we’ll see how that how much of that comes up and obviously just to say the the very clear thing the Hawks have other business to take care of the draft is not come and gone but they have decisions to make we’ll talk about probably tomorrow on the show um about sadik Bay about bee about Seth Lundy about Bruno about Garrison Matthews that’s all Happening by Saturday so like that’s happening free agency begins on Sunday you got the Trey and de jante thing you got the uh Clint capella and an a kongu thing you got the DeAndre Hunter situation all of that is up in the air V Cree Maybe signing sadik all that stuff keep it locked here we’ll have much more in the future please subscribe to this podcast a little bit shorter today I know but please stay tuned I’m planning to do a show probably tomorrow night um if something happens before that I will jump into action over the weekend usually I’m not doing podcast but obviously this is gonna be a big weekend so if a trade happens I’ll be jumping into action there as well and then summer league schedule will be out pretty soon I imagine uh all that stuff’s gonna be coming so stay tuned please subscribe to the show tell your friend about the podcast like the show on YouTube check us out on Apple and Spotify and overcast follow the show on Twitter at lockon Hawks I’m currently locked out on my Twitter account right now for bizarre reason I’m not really sure why but I at BT Rolland if you want to find me there as well thank you for listen everybody I definitely appreciate everyone checking out the show especially in the last month but really always and we’ll see you all next time

Brad Rowland (@BTRowland) hosts episode No. 1751 of the Locked on Hawks podcast. The show focuses on the Atlanta Hawks trading AJ Griffin in a three-team deal with the Houston Rockets and the Miami Heat that eventually landed Nikola Djurišić in Atlanta as the No. 43 overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft.

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