There’s finally going to be unity and order established in this franchise. The Atlanta Hawks have made a brilliant move in signing former Utah Jazz HC Quin Snyder to a 5-year contract as their playoff push grows even more contested and tight.
This might very well be the best thing that has happened to the Hawks organization since Dominique Wilkins was suiting up for the team.
Quin Snyder brings so much credibility, success, duty, and discipline to this franchise as he was one of the most successful managers in Utah Jazz history. Sure, that isn’t saying too much as the Jazz have never one the NBA championship and Snyder failed to make it out of the 2nd round, but he still went 372-264 and had a .585% winning percentage (2nd only to Jerry Sloan in Jazz history).
And I attribute the playoff misfires more to the players than Snyder himself.
I mean, Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell, and Mike Conley Jr. is a decent “Big 3” for any team, but it really wasn’t one that should be expected to win the Western Conference in hindsight. Gobert is very limited offensively, Conley Jr. was coming to the end of this career, and Mitchell was a young, inexperienced player that had no one to “look up to” for championship experience.
Thus, when new Jazz GM Danny Ainge decided to blow the roster up this past offseason, it made sense that all of these people found themselves either out of a job or on a new team before long. Still, an exception can be said for Snyder as he voluntarily resigned from his post as he didn’t want to be a part of a rebuild, which the Jazz now finds itself in after 6 years of early postseason failure.
Nevertheless, this article is about the Hawks, so I’ll just say that this move will be the deciding factor into whether or not Trae Young can lead an NBA franchise to a title win.
Snyder showed in Utah that he could turn young, inexperienced guards into an all-star caliber player (Donovan Mitchell), and Trae Young has already proven his ability at the all-star level. Therefore, the only way for him to improve is to show that he can compete at the highest level with the very best players in the NBA during the playoffs, which is where Quinn Synder should come in.
The former Jazz HC will get this Hawks team to play expansive, volume-shooting style of basketball to best suit the strengths of Young, Bogdan Bogdanovic, and Dejounte Murray, while John Collins and Clint Capella can provide the rebounding and interior cover that such a team requires to be successful.
Essentially, I’d expect this Hawks team to look a lot like how the later versions of Snyder’s Jazz played, though a touch more clinical wither their shots.
Still, the success of the Atlanta Hawks and Quin Snyder will all boil down to whether or not he can get on the same page as Trae Young. Snyder needs a leader to manage the units on the floor and galvanize the locker room if his brand of basketball is to succeed as it did in Utah (in the regular season).
If Young gets into another fight with one of his head coaches or is unwilling to lead the Hawks, then Snyder will fail and get the boot before the contract reaches its 3rd year. Reversely, if Young buys in and becomes the leader the Hawks think he will be, then Atlanta could seriously challenge for the Eastern Conference crown in a few years.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
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