{"id":178442,"date":"2026-02-21T17:56:35","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T22:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=178442"},"modified":"2026-02-21T17:56:35","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T22:56:35","slug":"potential-solutions-hawks-troubling-2025-26-trends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2026\/02\/21\/potential-solutions-hawks-troubling-2025-26-trends\/","title":{"rendered":"Potential Solutions For The Hawks’ Troubling 2025-26 Trends"},"content":{"rendered":"

Though the Atlanta Hawks are still vying for a playoff berth, they’re in a precarious position. Their record (27-31) is ninth in the Eastern Conference standings, putting them just 0.5 game ahead of the 10-place Charlotte Hornets. The 11th-place Milwaukee Bucks are only 1.0 game behind the Hawks, and expect to get two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a> back soon.<\/p>\n

As they’re clearly remodeling their franchise, there’s no mandate that the Hawks have to clinch a postseason berth. However, there are a couple of troubling trends that need to be addressed as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

Potential Solutions For The Hawks’ Troubling 2025-26 Trends<\/h2>\n

Zaccharie Risacher’s Unreliability Creates A Conundrum<\/h3>\n

When the Hawks win, sophomore swingman Zaccharie Risacher<\/a> is shooting 38.3% from 3. When they lose, he\u2019s shooting 32.6% from 3, which is a dramatic and significant difference. As has often been said, correlation doesn’t equal causation. However, it’s clearly a problem for a player who takes 47.4% of his field goal attempts from beyond the arc. Because he’s supposed to be the starting lineup’s 3-point specialist, balancing and complementing Jalen Johnson<\/a>‘s strengths with his floor-spacing, his efficiency from beyond the arc is even more conspicuous.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, as a player’s who’s made 35.4% of his 3s this season and 35.5% of his career 3s, there\u2019s literally too much variance in Risacher’s 3-point performances to be relied on as a starter.<\/p>\n

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Unfortunately for Atlanta, career 3-point specialist Corey Kispert<\/a> is shooting 32.9% from 3 in a Hawks jersey. He’s also a tier below Risacher, defensively, lacking his length and instincts. The only other frontcourt player they have in the rotation is forward-center Mo Gueye<\/a>, an outstanding multi-positional defender. Gueye –who should be used as a roller, rim roller and asked to post up smaller players –takes 42.4% of his shots from 3. Yet, he’s made 28.9% of them.<\/p>\n

What’s The Solution?<\/h4>\n

The solution could be playing 23-year-old forward Caleb Houstan<\/a>, who they promoted to the 15-man roster on Feb. 19. Houstan has made 38.9% of his 3s over the past 3 seasons. An eye-popping 88.8% of his field goal attempts were 3s during that stretch. In the NBA G League, he\u2019s shooting 40.1% on 3s on 8.7 attempts per game. If his team defense (namely his rotations) are solid, he could truly be an improvement over Risacher.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the four-man lineup of Johnson, Nickeil Alexander-Walker<\/a>, CJ McCollum<\/a> and Dyson Daniels<\/a> has been dominant. Per 100 possessions, they’re outscoring opponents by +20.5 points. Swap McCollum with Gueye and and they’re outscoring opponents by +14.0 points per 100 possessions.<\/p>\n

Is Nickeil Alexander-Walker In Over His Head?<\/h3>\n

In 2025-26, Alexander-Walker\u00a0is putting up career numbers, averaging 20.0 points and 3.7 assists per game while shooting 37.3% from 3. However, when he entered the 2025 off-season as a prized free agent, teams weren’t salivating over what he could do as a scorer. In his time with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Alexander-Walker had established himself as a high quality 3-and-D wing.<\/p>\n

Because of Trae Young<\/a>‘s injuries and eventual trade, he’s been asked to play more of an on-ball role in Atlanta. Nevertheless, he’s overburdened in this role, as evidenced by him shooting 34.5% on isolations<\/a>. The problem for the Hawks is that none of their players, aside from Onyeka Okongwu<\/a>, is shooting over 38 percent from the field on isos. What makes that even more of a problem is the team’s on-off numbers<\/a>. When Okongwu is on the floor, the Hawks have a 112.3 offensive rating. When Okongwu’s off the floor, their offensive rating jumps to 117.9.<\/p>\n

Looking at their career numbers, Alexander-Walker only made 38.9% of his isolation attempts heading into this season. Johnson, who currently has the keys to the franchise, made 43.6% of said attempts. McCollum is Atlanta’s most accomplished scorer with 17,758 career points (playoffs included) but more likely to shoot under 40 percent on isos than above it. With that in mind, Atlanta’s lineup data, the five-man unit of Johnson, Daniels, Alexander-Walker, McCollum and Okongwu is outscoring opponents by +13.2 points per 100 possessions.<\/p>\n

What’s The Solution?<\/h4>\n

Jonathan Kuminga<\/a>, who could make his team debut next week, isn’t the most polished iso scorer. If he was, the Golden State Warriors probably wouldn’t have traded him. However, heading into this season Kuminga made 42.0% of his isolation attempts. For reference, Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Doncic<\/a> is shooting 42.3% on isos this season. As a player who’s averaging 16.2 points per game when he’s on the court for 20+ minutes, this is certainly significant.<\/p>\n

Of course, it would be easy to let Kuminga be a focal point of the second unit. After acquiring McCollum, the Hawks’ bench ranks 15th in points per game<\/a> (38.7) and ninth in field goal percentage (.471) though. He could help but he wouldn’t be necessary, per se. He’d likely have a greater impact in the starting lineup. Since the Young trade, the first unit is tied for 15th in points per game (75.4) and is dead last in field goal percentage (.442)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If Kuminga is sharing the court with the first unit sans Risacher, the remaining starters should feel a lot of weight being taken off their shoulders. With a more balanced scoring load, players might even conserve energy. This could help prevent them from making careless mistakes and finish games strong.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a9 Brett Davis-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Though the Atlanta Hawks are still vying for a playoff berth, they’re in a precarious position. Their record (27-31) is ninth in the Eastern Conference standings, putting them just 0.5 game ahead of the 10-place Charlotte Hornets. The 11th-place Milwaukee Bucks are only 1.0 game behind the Hawks, and expect to get two-time MVP Giannis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":178518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1608,62,3],"tags":[3825,1934,2844,4297,49104,947,2830,49147],"class_list":["post-178442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hawks","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","tag-caleb-houstan","tag-cj-mccollum","tag-corey-kispert","tag-jonathan-kuminga","tag-mouhamed-gueye","tag-nickeil-alexander-walker","tag-onyeka-okongwu","tag-zaccharie-risacher"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178442"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178519,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178442\/revisions\/178519"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}