Atlanta Hawks set up for a long-term rebuild

New coach hopes to lead one of the NBA’s youngest rosters to much better things

ATLANTA There is almost certainly pain coming for the Hawks, or at least their fans, yet first-time NBA head coach Lloyd Pierce and second-year general manager Travis Schlenk refuse to notarize that word while in charge of Atlanta’s only woebegone pro team.

Training camp begins Tuesday for the team that last season lost more games than any other in the Eastern Conference. The Hawks were 24-58 and their off-season moves are not likely to move them closer to playoff contention.

They’re going to be painfully young outside of their two potential marquee players. Vince Carter, though, is 41 years old ahead of his 20th NBA season. And Jeremy Lin, 30, signed over the summer too, joining his seventh NBA team. Oh, and they signed 30-year-old centre Cole Aldrich last week.

Still, the brass is excited for training camp to open next Tuesday.

The NBA, after all, is as much about rebuilds these days as it is super teams. The Hawks qualify for the former and Pierce knows that game as a former 76ers assistant.

“Just a reminder: I won 10 games in Philadelphia about four seasons ago,” said Pierce. “It’s not painful if you know you’re doing the right things. It’s not painful if you know guys are getting better every day.”

The Hawks’ biggest off-season move was to get point guard Trae Young, a smallish scoring and passing machine last season as a freshman at Oklahoma, in the first round. They also added former Villanova multi-tasker Omari Spellman and former Maryland sharpshooter Kevin Huertee with first-round picks.

In free agency, they picked up Lin, Carter, and NBA washouts like Thomas Robinson and Alex Len. Their highest-paid player will be Kent Bazemore, a swing man with a defensive presence who was undrafted a few years ago out of Old Dominion.

Yet the Hawks’ brass is assembling one of the NBA’s youngest rosters — they ’ve added three firstround draft choices — while making it clear their plans tilt toward the long term.

Press them, and they’ll admit that they know they’re in for a long season.

The Hawks are an outlier in Atlanta.

The NFL’s Falcons, MLB’s Braves and MLS’s United are all playoff contenders. At least the Hawks have a former all-star, and their roster is tilted toward Pierce’s stated love for defence.

And Carter’s already been a champ in the locker-room; he’s been in the NBA since the year Young was born.

Pierce said the former Raptor, Net, Magic, Sun, Mav, Grizzly and King very much wants to play, yet at the same time has welcomed his role as counsellor. He’s not guaranteed to be a starter.

“Vince is a competitor. He knows in terms of his basketball career the end is sooner than later ... he wants to get on the court.”