Now that the Kevin Durant dust has settled, eyes shift to Russell Westbrook and where he can land in a possible trade. The Atlanta Hawks have emerged as one of the potential suitors.Much of the free agency attention for months now have been dominated by the uncertainty of whether Kevin Durant would return to Oklahoma City. As the world found out yesterday, the 2014 MVP agreed to join the Golden State Warriors to form a super team that will be the immediate favorite to win the 2016-17 NBA Title.
Once it was evident that Durant was gone, the attention fell on Russell Westbrook and questions surfaced if the Thunder would look to trade him since he becomes an unrestricted free agent next summer. The idea behind this was that the Thunder could bring in as many assets as possible instead of taking the risk of Westbrook signing elsewhere with another team and Oklahoma City would end up with nothing to show for it.
As possible destinations for Westbrook, the Atlanta Hawks have emerged. There are only a few teams in the NBA that have the assets to entice the Thunder to make the blockbuster deal.
Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck proposed a possible trade that the Hawks could use to acquire Westbrook:
Hawks receive: Russell Westbrook
Thunder receive: Dennis Schroder, Paul Millsap, 2017 first-round pick
Beck chose Atlanta as his favorite destination for Westbrook in terms of fit and opportunity to win a championship:
“They’ve got a good solid team, but not a great team. Now you would have something with Westbrook, Bazemore, and Dwight Howard.”
People often assume that Westbrook would prefer a bigger market because of his off the court behaviors such as being into fashion and having a ‘full of himself’ mindset. Beck continued to explain why this isn’t the case:
“He’s a pretty low-key guy from what I understand. From what I understand he doesn’t go out a lot, he married his high school sweetheart, he’s kind of a low-key guy so we shouldn’t automatically assume that it’s got to be a New York or L.A. thing.”
Bringing Westbrook to Atlanta would make them immediate threats to dethrone the Cleveland Cavaliers in the East. This doesn’t mean they would be favorites, but Westbrook is one of the top five best players in the league. Inserting him in a lineup with Howard and Bazemore and being coached by Mike Budenholzer is pretty much guaranteed success.
A risk that comes with this deal for Atlanta was using Westbrook as a one-year rental if he were to decide to sign elsewhere after the 2016-17 season. At this point though, if the Hawks could compete for and Eastern Conference Championship, that could be enough to entice Westbrook to sign long-term.
With this all being said, if a team ever has a chance to land a generational talent such as Westbrook, you take it. He is a player that immediately puts you into title contention and considering he would be in the East, it bolsters those chances even more.
If the Thunder show interest in this deal, the Hawks should pull the trigger immediately.
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