Double Dribble Previews: Southeast Division

Mo Dakhil (0:05)

Welcome to the Double Dribble Podcast with Dubin and Daquil. That's Jared Dubin, author of Last Night in Basketball. He just dropped his Three Things About the Celtics in his Season Preview. Make sure you are subscribed to his newsletter. I'm Mo Daquil, former NBA video coordinator. Right from Bleacher Report, you will see me on NBA TV at some point this season. And you know, I'm around, Jared. I do things.

SPEAKER_2 (0:27)

I'm around, and I don't know what else to say other than that.

Jared Dubin (0:32)

We both do things. We're outside, you know.

Mo Dakhil (0:34)

We're here.

SPEAKER_2 (0:35)

We're here.

Mo Dakhil (0:36)

We're enjoying each other's company, and we're alive and well. Jared, how are you doing today?

Jared Dubin (0:42)

I'm doing great, man. I'm ready to talk about the Southeast Division, where there were a lot of changes this offseason.

Mo Dakhil (0:47)

Yes, we're continuing our season preview. We finished with the entire Western Conference. We did the Atlantic Preview before we did the whole Western Conference. You guys can go back and listen to all of those. Then we're now, as Jared just said, the Southeast Division. Again, folks, if you haven't been listening, Jared does all the homework. I'm just that kid in the group project that just hangs around and does nothing.

Jared's going to ask a couple of questions. Pretty generic, but it's a great way for us to talk about the teams and what our viewpoint is for them, and we go from there, and we do it in alphabetical order in the division. So Jared, take it away.

Jared Dubin (1:29)

We are going to start with the Atlanta Hawks, and in case this is your first time listening, what we do with each of these teams is we go through each of their major moves this off season, and then we talk about one thing we are excited about or looking forward to for the season, one thing we are worried about or concerned about or not looking forward to for the season, and then we make a prediction on literally anything that's going to happen this season. It could be they're over under, it could be the result of the season, it could be that someone's going to get traded. Literally anything under the sun, you just predict anything that you want about the season for that team.

Like I said, we are going to start with the Atlanta Hawks who hired our friend Tim Bonteps, extended CJ McCollum, drafted Kingston Fleming's and Zuby Ejiofor, guaranteed Buddy Hield salary, declined Jonathan Kaminga's option, traded for Aaron Wiggins, Lou Dorton, Ryan Nemhardt. They're over under is 43.5 wins. Mo, what are you most excited about when it comes to the Atlanta Hawks this season?

Mo Dakhil (2:25)

I'm actually very excited for them, for Quinn Snyder to have his team.

This is the team Quinn has wanted. Last season, it was the whole Trey Young. At the beginning of the season, how are we dealing with Trey Young? How will he handle this? And how do we conform our team into that?

This season, it's like, nah, from the get-go, this is our squad. This is our team. I don't foresee any major moves or anything down the pipeline. And I think they all get to go in from the beginning. Jalen Johnson, Nikhil Alexander Walker, CJ McCall. They know the ball's in there. I know CJ wasn't there when Trey was there, obviously. But they know the ball is going to be in their hands, right? They know how they're going to handle things. They push the Knicks more than anybody besides the Spurs in the playoffs. And I feel like they really have a grasp of who they want to be. And then they've added more wing depth, which is amazing. Aaron Wiggins. And then they weren't done taking from OKCN. They took Galu Dorg out of the deal. Like, I'm kind of just excited for the team as a whole, kind of having the mindset of like, we don't have to play Kate to trade now. We get to just be us from the very beginning of the season.

Jared Dubin (3:50)

Yeah, I'm very interested to see how much of what they did down the stretch of the regular season and in the first few games of the Knicks series carries over into this season, because they know they have this, like you said, like very Quince Snyder style team now, where there's going to be burden sharing offensively. It's not just going to be one guy at the controls and sort of pounding the dribble and making sure that he makes all the decisions. It's going to be a combination of Jalen Johnson and CJ McCollum and Nikhil Alexander Walker and even Dyson Daniels and whoever they bring off the bench. And Iñeko Kanwu will handle the ball at the top of the key sometimes. Like, they're going to have everybody doing a little bit of everything and sort of burden sharing the responsibility for moving the ball and creating the offense. And that worked really well for them toward the end of last year and then in the first couple of games.