- The Hawks were also short-handed in Saturday’s win over Miami, per Lauren Williams of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Dyson Daniels was unavailable due to illness, and Bogdan Bogdanovic was sidelined with a left lower leg contusion. Vit Krejci replaced Daniels in the starting lineup, and two-way player Keaton Wallace logged more than 13 minutes after being called up from the G League. “A lot of guys found themselves in some different situations,” coach Quin Snyder said.
- Hawks big man Larry Nance Jr. suffered a hand injury during the game, the team announced (via Twitter). Additional details and a timeline for his return will be shared later.
The Hawks acquired one of the best defenders in the NBA when they obtained Dyson Daniels in this past summer’s Dejounte Murray trade, Jared Weiss of The Athletic writes. Daniels’ 6.5 deflections per game so far this season represent the highest average since the NBA started tracking the stat.
“Dyson is a menace and I’m excited he gets to show that more this year,” said teammate Larry Nance Jr. “Deep wing and guards situation in New Orleans, then he comes here and gets put in a situation where he can grow and expand and make mistakes without having another player breathing down your neck for minutes.”
Weiss explores Daniels’ defensive prowess and how he became such an effective weapon on that end of the court. He’s averaging a league-high 3.1 steals along with 13.0 points, 5.1 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 0.9 blocks per contest.
“I think the trade for him was a massive blessing in disguise. Well, not even in disguise,” Daniels’ friend Josh Giddey said. “He’s just had the opportunity to flourish and show his true colors. He’s one of the best defenders in the world. He’s always had that defensive ability and I’m glad it’s on full display for everyone to see. … Maybe I’m biased because we’re very close, but in my opinion, he’s the runaway for Defensive Player of the Year.”
We have more from the Southeast Division:
- The Hawks reset their franchise’s trajectory by trading for Daniels, cap expert Yossi Gozlan writes on his subscriber-only Substack. While Atlanta is still in play-in territory, the team replenished its draft capital by acquiring two first-rounders alongside Daniels in the Murray trade, as well as a strong rotation player in Nance.
- As we wrote on Friday, Magic star Paolo Banchero remains out but had his injury designation changed to “return to competition reconditioning” as he nears his first game back since October. He spoke on Friday to reporters, including The Orlando Sentinel’s Jason Beede, about the checkpoints that remain before he can play again, explaining that he still hasn’t participated in any five-on-five scrimmaging and hasn’t done full contact, both of which are precursors to returning from an injury. “I’ve been trying to get back since I first went out, really,” Banchero said. “Now, it’s just going to be the fun part of getting back into actually playing. I feel I’ve just been showing up to the arena, just to watch for a long time now, so I’m going to just be excited just to be suiting up to play, warming up and getting back out here with the team.“
- Heat guard Dru Smith underwent successful surgery on Friday for his ruptured left Achilles, the team announced (via Twitter). He’s expected to miss the remainder of the 2024/25 season.
Veteran forward Dorian Finney-Smith returned to the Nets‘ starting lineup on Friday vs. San Antonio after missing three games due to a left calf contusion, an injury he admitted was related to a left ankle sprain that cost him several games in November and early December, according to Brian Lewis of The New York Post.
“Same ankle, which kind of ran up my calf, changed the way I ran,” Finney-Smith said. “You know your body adjusts to pain, so I started running a little different. So it started causing me to irritate my calf. I’ll be all right. I’ve just got to be smarter, listen to my body sometime.”
Besides being an important part of Brooklyn’s starting lineup, Finney-Smith is considered a prime candidate to be traded before this season’s deadline, so the Nets will want to keep him healthy for both reasons.
[RELATED: Grizzlies Interested In Finney-Smith]
Finney-Smith’s three-and-D skill set would be a fit for just about any contending team and he can become an unrestricted free agent at season’s end if he turns down his 2025/26 player option. With that in mind, the rebuilding Nets are expected to try to get what they can for him rather than risk losing him for nothing in the summer.
Here’s more from around the East:
- The Celtics were missing a pair of starters on Friday vs. Indiana, with Kristaps Porzingis out due to a left ankle sprain and Jrue Holiday unavailable for a second straight game due to a right shoulder impingement (Twitter link). The defending champions weren’t hampered by the absences though, blowing out Indiana by a score of 142-105, led by Jaylen Brown‘s 44 points.
- The Pacers were without forward Obi Toppin for Friday’s blowout loss. Head coach Rick Carlisle – who acknowledged on Thursday that Toppin would “probably miss some time,” per Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star – said before Friday’s game that he doesn’t yet have a sense of a timetable for Toppin, but noted that he has always been a quick healer (Twitter link via Dopirak).
- Lauren Williams of The Atlanta Journal Constitution explores the All-Star case that Hawks forward Jalen Johnson is making this season. Besides averaging new career highs in points (19.8), rebounds (10.3), and assists (5.5) per game, Johnson has posted impressive on/off-court numbers — Atlanta has a +0.9 net rating when he’s on the floor and a dismal -10.4 mark when he isn’t.
- After injuring his right knee on Monday, Wizards big man Marvin Bagley III has been diagnosed with a sprain, tweets Josh Robbins of The Athletic. Bagley was out Thursday and figures to remain on the shelf for the foreseeable future, but he avoided a worst-case scenario, according to head coach Brian Keefe, who said he doesn’t expect the injury to be a season-ender, per Varun Shankar of The Washington Post (Twitter link).
2:13pm: Plowden’s two-way contract is now official, the Hawks announced in a press release.
9:10am: The Hawks are signing free agent wing Daeqwon Plowden to a two-way contract, agent Drew Kelso tells Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link).
Atlanta opened up a two-way spot last week by waiving Seth Lundy, who has yet to play this season as he continues to recover from an ankle injury. Plowden will now take that spot, Lauren L. Williams of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution confirms (via Twitter).
Plowden, 26, is a Philadelphia native who spent five college seasons at Bowling Green prior to going undrafted in 2022. He is technically an NBA rookie, having spent his entire professional career to this point playing in the G League.
Plowden, who played for the affiliate clubs of the Pelicans and Magic during the 2022/23 and ’23/24 campaigns, was signed by the Warriors on a two-way deal over the summer. While Plowden drew strong reviews for his play in Summer League, Golden State wound up waiving him in September to make roster space for second-round pick Quinten Post.
The College Park Skyhawks, Atlanta’s NBAGL affiliate, acquired Plowden’s returning player rights a few months ago. After being cut by Golden State, he quickly signed an Exhibit 10 training camp deal with the Hawks, then was waived before the ’24/25 season began.
Plowden has been playing for College Park this season, averaging 14.2 PPG, 3.7 RPG and 1.0 SPG on .427/.385/.783 shooting in 14 games (27.8 MPG).
After getting off to a decent 4-5 start this season, the Hornets have plummeted down the standings over the past month-and-a-half. Monday’s loss to Houston, Charlotte’s 13th in its last 14 games, dropped the team to 7-22 on the season and inspired a players-only closed-door meeting after the game, according to Roderick Boone of The Charlotte Observer.
“I feel like we established ourselves in the first 10 games as a team that plays physical,” forward Miles Bridges said. “At one point we were leading the league in offensive rebounding. We’ve just got to get back to that. We had a great conversation. Taj (Gibson) really got us together in the locker room — players only — and he talked to us. I talked to the team, Taj talked to us a lot. I feel like that really got to us, so I feel like these next couple games we’re going to see who really wants to play.”
Bridges is the longest-tenured Hornet, having been with the organization since 2018. Gibson is a newcomer, but he was brought in to be a “meaningful voice in the locker room,” Boone writes. The veteran big man played that role in Monday’s meeting.
“I think them talking to us, I think they both said what everybody is thinking,” center Mark Williams said. “I think it just starts with us. We’ve got to be tougher, got to play harder. Just do all the things it takes to win. Just got to have some pride out there. I think we just lacked that tonight.”
Here’s more from around the Southeast:
- Hornets forward Brandon Miller has missed the past three games due to a sprained ankle, but he was initially listed as questionable for Monday’s game before being downgraded to out and appears to be on the verge of a return, per Boone. “The last couple days he’s rejoined some group activities that we’ve had. I think he’s really making good progress,” head coach Charles Lee said. “After (Monday’s) game, we’ll continue to evaluate him and see where he is maybe after Christmas.”
- According to both Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald and Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Heat had been planning to promote guard Dru Smith from his two-way contract to a standard deal in the coming days in order to get back to the required 14-man minimum. That plan is now up in the air after Smith exited Monday’s game with a lower left leg injury. He’s undergoing an MRI on Tuesday to determine the extent of the injury, as Chiang relays. “Obviously, the air went out of the building seeing him fall like that,” head coach Erik Spoelstra said. “It wasn’t a contact injury. I don’t know the extent fully right now. I don’t want to pontificate until we get the MRI. But, yeah, we were all messed up for a while.”
- Heat two-way guard Josh Christopher was the best player John Hollinger of The Athletic saw at the G League Winter Showcase in Orlando. As Hollinger writes, Christopher has improved his shooting and decision-making and is no longer simply getting by on his athleticism. While it remains to be seen whether or not there will be NBA minutes available going forward for the former No. 24 overall pick in the wake of Smith’s injury, Christopher did make his Heat regular season debut on Monday, logging a couple garbage-time minutes in a win over Brooklyn.
- Hawks rookie forward Zaccharie Risacher didn’t get to play for the French national team at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, but this year’s No. 1 overall pick hopes to represent his home country in future international tournaments, starting next summer, as he tells Benjamin Moubeche of BasketSession (hat tip to BasketNews.com). “The French national team is a childhood dream,” Risacher said. “It’s always something special. Every competitor wants to win medals for their country, and for me, it would be an immense honor to represent France at the (2025) EuroBasket.”
De’Andre Hunter is playing like a Sixth Man of the Year candidate, providing the Hawks with a scoring punch off the bench, Lauren Williams of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes. Through 17 outings, Hunter’s 19.8 points per game and 45.3% shooting from beyond the arc are both career highs.
“He’s definitely in the running for Sixth Man of the Year, especially if you keep winning and doing the things we’ve been doing,” guard Trae Young said. “Because there’s not a guy come on the bench doing what he’s doing right now and being aggressive and scoring and efficiency and things like that. He’s really bought into it, and it’s made our team a lot better.”
The former No. 4 overall pick out of Virginia was an effective starter after being selected in 2019, averaging 14.3 PPG in 263 games (237 starts). After missing the first 11 games this year, the Hawks elected to bring him off the bench instead of starting him, and he’s thrived in the new role.
“We all know De’Andre can play,” center Onyeka Okongwu said. “He’s been able to play. He’s always been a scorer, defender. He’s finally healthy. Nothing he’s doing is really surprising to me. I’m glad he’s having the year he’s having right now. He deserves it the most.”
We have more from the Southeast Division:
- Young is averaging career lows of 39.0% shooting from the field and 32.0% from three, but Williams writes in another story that the three-time All-Star is focused on making an all-around impact to win games rather than dwelling on his shooting percentages. “My percentages aren’t the way they’ve been, but I’m taking different types of shots, too,” Young said, noting that he has no qualms about taking low-percentage shots at the end of quarters or as the shot clock expires. “I’m obviously getting guys involved, and that’s my main priority, and obviously, the defense is the first priority.” As Williams notes, the Hawks star is leading the NBA in assists per game this season with 12.2 per contest.
- Since their starting center returned from injury on Dec. 3, the Hornets continue to take a conservative approach with Mark Williams, including having him not play in back-to-backs. Williams understands the vision, but is eager to resume his normal playing schdule, Roderick Boone of The Charlotte Observer writes. “Just overall, as a leader of the team and one of the leaders of the organization, you have to understand what is your vision, what is your bigger picture? And as bad as you want to win games, we also want to make sure that we are putting our players in the best position possible to have great careers,” coach Charles Lee said of Williams.
- Heat star Jimmy Butler exited in the first quarter of Friday’s game against the Thunder after turning his ankle and didn’t return. However, as noted by ESPN, he was ruled out for the rest of the night due to an illness, not his ankle injury. There was no word of the ankle in the team’s announcement. It’s not yet clear how much time Butler, involved in trade rumors this season, will miss due to either ailment.
- With Butler ruled out, second-year Heat wing Jaime Jaquez Jr. started the second half and played 30 minutes, his third-most in a game this season. Ira Winderman of South Florida’s Sun Sentinel speculates whether Jaquez could serve as Butler’s replacement in the starting small forward role if the latter is moved via trade.
Well-traveled Magic veteran guard Cory Joseph is becoming a valuable locker room presence for a rising young Orlando squad in his first season with the team, writes Jason Beede of The Orlando Sentinel.
“The league’s getting younger and they keep me young, too,” Joseph said of his Magic teammates. “It continues to change and you have to continue to adapt. I’m asking a lot of questions as well, trying to learn from them.”
Rookie forward Tristan Da Silva, the No. 18 pick in this summer’s draft, sang the point guard’s praises.
“He’s a great leader for this team, even though he’s not on the court as much,” Da Silva said. “He still has a huge impact on this team.”
There’s more out of the Southeast Division:
- New Hawks guard Dyson Daniels‘s goal is to improve his shooting mechanics and increase his three-point output this season, per Lauren Williams of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Williams notes Daniels has made 30.8% of his 3.4 three-point tries per game overall this season, but also enjoyed a more consistent run between November 18-29, when he nailed 42.9% of 3.5 attempts per game.
- Washington, D.C.’s Capital One Arena, home to both the Wizards and the NHL’s Capitals, has gotten the green light for a $515MM renovation, ensuring that both clubs will stick around for the long-term, writes David Aldridge of The Athletic.
- Following a Thursday loss to lowly Washington, the Hornets have now dropped nine of their last 10 contests and fallen to a 7-20 record on the year. Rod Boone of The Charlotte Observer wonders how, or if, Charlotte will be able to right the ship this year, even in a less competitive Eastern Conference — three East play-in teams have records below .500, but Charlotte is 4.5 games back of the No. 10 seed. The Hornets’ “core four” of All-Star point guard LaMelo Ball, forwards Brandon Miller and Miles Bridges, and center Mark Williams has rarely been able to stay on the court together thus far this season.
The Nuggets are open to the idea of making a significant trade prior to the February 6 trade deadline, but they’re hoping they’ll see enough from their current group in the coming weeks to feel confident about not having to make a major in-season deal, according to Bennett Durando of The Denver Post, who takes a closer look at Denver’s trade candidates and potential paths.
Meanwhile, following up on the rumor linking Zach LaVine to Denver and Michael Porter Jr. to the Bulls, Marc Stein and Jake Fischer of The Stein Line (Substack link) confirm the Nuggets are indeed considering whether to trade Porter, whose $35.9MM cap hit would be necessary to complete a trade for a player earning a substantial salary.
According to Stein and Fischer, the Nuggets have “always been somewhat unsure” about Porter’s value on the trade market, due in part to his injury history, and are wary about making the team smaller by swapping him out for a guard like LaVine.
Sources tell The Stein Line that some people in the Nuggets’ front office believe that if the team needs to make a moving involving Porter, trading him for two starting-caliber players instead of a single star would be the best course of action. Fischer and Stein point to the Hawks‘ duo of De’Andre Hunter and Bogdan Bogdanovic and the Nets‘ duo of Cameron Johnson and Dorian Finney-Smith as examples.
I may be unsure about Porter’s trade value myself, but given two years and $79MM left on his contract after this season, I have to think that Atlanta and Brooklyn would require some serious sweeteners to seriously consider those trade ideas. That’s an issue for the Nuggets, who aren’t exactly stocked with draft assets — they’ve traded away three future first-round picks and included protections on all of them, complicating their ability to offer additional first-rounders or swaps in subsequent trades. That’s why targeting a distressed asset like LaVine makes sense in the first place.
Here are a few more trade-related notes and rumors from around the NBA:
- The Suns are Jimmy Butler‘s preferred landing spot in the event of a trade, according to John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7 (Twitter links). However, Gambadoro says Phoenix plans to wait until at least mid-January before making any decisions on trades, which includes anything involving Butler. Although Gambadoro believes the Suns like Butler, it’s unclear if they’d have the pieces to acquire him, given that Bradley Beal (who holds a no-trade clause) would have to be included in any deal.
- Net Income of NetsDaily rounds up a few recent trade rumors involving the Nets and provides his own analysis on each of them. According to NetsDaily, Brooklyn is believed to be seeking at least one first-round pick and potentially “a prospect or two” for Cameron Johnson and is very reluctant to take on multiyear money in trades unless the accompanying return is “rich.”
- Bobby Marks of ESPN (Insider link) has published his pre-deadline trade primer for the 2024/25 season, running through all 30 NBA teams and taking a closer look at the big questions they have to answer, their tradable players and draft picks, and various restrictions they’re facing.
- Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report examines 10 potential trade candidates, including a pair of Trail Blazers centers (Deandre Ayton and Robert Williams), and considers which landing spots are most realistic for them.
The Hawks hope to trade starting center Clint Capela before his $22.27MM contract expires in the offseason, sources tell Jake Fischer of The Stein Line (Substack link).
Atlanta has seven weeks to try to move Capela, with the trade deadline set for 2:00 pm CT on February 6.
According to Fischer, the Hawks’ willingness to deal Capela is at least partially motivated by their confidence in young backup center Onyeka Okongwu, a former lottery pick who is in the first season of a four-year, $62MM rookie scale extension. Okongwu will miss at least the next four games due to left knee inflammation, but he’s reportedly viewed as a long-term part of the team’s core.
After playing a career-high 33.6 minutes per game during the 2018/19 campaign, Capela has seen his playing time decline in each of the past six seasons. He’s averaging 23.0 MPG in ’24/25, the third-lowest mark of his 11-year career.
Capela’s minutes may have been steadily dwindling over the past several seasons, but he remains quite productive, with his per-36 averages for ’24/25 right in line with his career rates. In 27 games this season, he’s averaging 10.0 PPG, 9.4 RPG and 1.0 BPG.
A 30-year-old big man from Switzerland, Capela has popped in several trade rumors in recent years. He’s in his sixth season with the Hawks, who acquired him in a four-team deal in February 2020.
As Fischer observes, the tricky part for Atlanta is Capela’s cap hit is pretty significant. It’s understandable that the Hawks would want to get something in return for him if they don’t plan to re-sign him (they already have a lot of money committed to their roster in ’25/26), but it might be difficult to get solid value back for Capela, given his salary, expiring contract, and the fact that center is a pretty deep position in the NBA.
The NBA announced the All-Tournament Team for the NBA Cup on Thursday, with Giannis Antetokounmpo headlining the five-player group (Twitter link). The Bucks superstar was named tournament MVP after Milwaukee defeated Oklahoma City in Tuesday’s final.
Here’s the full team, along with the amount of votes each player received (in parentheses) from a group of 20 media members:
- Antetokounmpo, Bucks (20)
- Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder (20)
- Damian Lillard, Bucks (19)
- Trae Young, Hawks (12)
- Alperen Sengun, Rockets (6)
All five players advanced to at least the semifinals of the league’s second in-season tournament. Antetokounmpo and Gilgeous-Alexander were unanimous selections, while Lillard fell one vote shy.
According to the full voting results, Thunder big man Isaiah Hartenstein (5), Magic forward Franz Wagner (5), Hawks forward Jalen Johnson (4) and Thunder forward Jalen Williams (3) narrowly missed out on making the team. Six other players received one vote apiece.
The voting for the team is based on each player’s performance over the entire NBA Cup, including group play and the knockout round games. The Bucks went undefeated (7-0) to claim the trophy.