The Athletic NBA Daily
6 Young Players on the Rise + Hawks keeping Trae Young? | Slam N Jam
Sat, 22 Feb 2025
Andrew Schlecht and Alex Speers discuss the week of NBA Basketball, all star weekend aftermath, Defensive Player of the Year Odds, and 6 players the guys think are poised to make a leap in the last part of the season. Then they are joined by Lauren Williams of the Atlanta Journal Constitution to discuss the Atlanta Hawks and the future of Trae Young, how Risacher has performed, and the emergence of Dyson Daniels. Then the boys play a fun edition of Andrew vs. the Beat, a trivia game where Andrew is pitted against a beat writer.Host: Andrew Schlecht and Alex SpeersWith: Lauren WilliamsExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio/Video Editor: Jake Kleinberg Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What are the highlights from All-Star Weekend?
Welcome to the Saturday Slamma Jam here on the Athletic NBA Daily. On today's show, we're talking about the updated Defensive Player of the Year odds, the players that are making a pre-leap, and then Lauren Williams joins the show to talk about the Atlanta Hawks. But to start with, Al, tell me about the top stories this week.
Well, Andrew, our top story this week was All-Star Weekend in San Francisco. In the Skills Challenge, one of the teams won. More importantly, that little trickster Chris Paul tried to break the game by not even attempting to make a three-pointer and instead just throwing the balls haphazardly toward the basket.
Thankfully, the league stepped in to uphold the sanctity of the Skills Challenge, which again, one of the teams won. In the three-point contest, the big question was whether Damian Lillard would three-peat as champ, but he did not. Instead, it was Tyler Hero in his first All-Star game who won the three-point contest, defeating Darius Garland and Buddy Heald in the final.
We would see a three-peat on Saturday, however, as Mac McClung did four pretty cool dunks and easily beat the other three contestants, winning his third straight dunk contest. As for the actual All-Star game, the big news this year was the NBA's new format. Ditching the typical 48-minute game, the NBA finally listened to all of us Kevin Hart fans who have been clamoring for more Kevin Hart.
Hart was on the broadcast team. And spent the night cracking my ass up. Thankfully, he did finally get serious for the main event, pretending like inside the NBA isn't going to be on TV anymore. Ernie and the gang were honored at half court, a beautiful sendoff that was sadly cut short by a basketball game that had double booked the court at the same time.
While All-Star Weekend was a big event for the NBA, the actual top story this week was the news that Victor Wemby would be shut down for the rest of the season due to a blood clot in his shoulder. The Spurs announced that this is an isolated event. They do not expect any long-term issues, but it's a disappointing end to a great season for Wemby, who put up 24-11-4.
while leading the league in blocks, something that he will continue to do despite not playing another game. He has a 74-block lead on the number two player, Walker Kessler. Wemby will, however, miss out on a likely Defensive Player of the Year award and a possible All-NBA spot as well. Now, is there a possible Ewing theory with Wemby and the Spurs? Don't do that. No, not at all.
But the Spurs did win their first Wemby-less game post-All-Star break against the Phoenix Suns, who have now lost seven of their last eight. Another player who won't be playing for a while, like Wemby, but for a completely different reason, is Bobby Portis. Portis was suspended 25 games for violating the league's anti-drug policy.
In a statement, Portis explained that he took an unapproved pain medication, Tramadol, when he intended to take Toradol, an approved medication. eighth with only three games remaining in the regular season. Is there a possible Ewing theory with Portis and the Bucks? Question mark? No, it's Bucky Portis.
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Chapter 2: Who are the young players poised for a post-All-Star breakout?
and has been shooting 55 from the field 38 from three on almost five attempts and 87 from the free throw line he's been the third leading scorer on the thunder since january 2nd and has been just such a huge piece of what they do uh in the month of of february he's had just a ridiculous month if you look at his splits he's averaged 25 and two in the month of february a lot of that buoyed by a 41 point game that he had but
I think as the Thunder kind of move into becoming contenders and like a team that is just in the playoffs as a mainstay, I think they're going to need like a more consistent go to score off the bench. And that's something they kind of struggled with, especially when Shea is when Shea is on the bench. They have struggled a lot. And I think that Aaron Wiggins could be a part of that solution.
You know, he's only 26 years old. He's a guy that he was the 55th overall pick. He's not somebody that was really supposed to be here kind of thing. But he's really developed into a three-level scorer. He's a guy that's got a couple really nice spin moves to the bucket and can finish around the hoop. And then he's a guy that has really shot the ball well off the catch.
And so he's somebody, if he can catch this kind of consistency, not that he's scoring 20 points per game, that he's scoring 12 points per game the rest of the season off the bench. I think that he could make a huge impact
on this team and on the playoffs as a whole because the Thunder just needs some more consistent scoring off the bench and not just from three, but just in transition, grading in the half court. He can shoot a mid-range jumper. When he does get to the free throw line, he makes his free throws.
He's just a guy that I think the Thunder have started to count on a little bit more over this last stretch, and he's somebody that I think could become the future six-man for this team. The Thunder have him locked up
on what i think is one of the best contracts in the nba he's 10 million this year he's 9 million the following year eight seven and then he's at 7.9 in 2829 and if he really is like this sixth man for the thunder getting him at under 8 million in 2829 it's going to look ridiculous So just want to give a shout out to Aaron Wiggins.
And I think that he's somebody who is developing and becoming like a legit NBA score. And you can just kind of see it in his confidence level.
So my final pick. less about me believing that this guy has some crazy ceiling. This is more about this guy fell into an incredible opportunity where he, in my opinion, is obviously about to put up career numbers. And that player is 24 year old Quentin Grimes of the Philadelphia 76ers. He was recently traded the Sixers from the Mavericks.
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Chapter 3: What are the recent changes in the Atlanta Hawks roster?
Thank you for answering all of our Hawks questions today. It is now time to play Andrew vs. the Beat, Hawks edition, featuring Lauren Williams from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Now, Lauren, you've played this before. I've come up with eight questions about the Hawks. I'll leave you one last time, if I remember correctly. Some are easy, some are hard.
You're going to give me a number between one and eight. It'll correspond to a question. If you get it right, you'll get at least two points. If you get it wrong, Andrew will have a chance to steal for one, and we'll go back and forth until all the questions have been asked and answered. So to start us off, Lauren, I just need a number between one and eight.
Okay, six.
Question number six. Okay, how many players on the Hawks' current roster have had a 30-point game? And as a hint, before the trade deadline, the answer would have been seven.
Okay, so that's a little bit of a hint.
It may actually make it more difficult to figure out. You have to do some additional math. But before the deadline, it would have been seven. What is it now? The number of players on the roster who've had a 30-point game.
And this is after the trade deadline. The current roster.
Current roster.
Okay. Zach. I think Dyson. Jalen. Definitely trade. Definitely.
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Chapter 4: How is Trae Young's future with the Hawks looking?
Okay. Which of the following is not... A basketball reference official nickname for a current Atlanta Hawk. Okay, so I'm going to read you five nicknames. Four of them appear on basketball reference. One does not.
Okay.
Are you ready?
Yeah.
Those nicknames are Swiss Bank, The Gardener, Baby Durant, Stat Stuffer, and The Closer. Okay. Once again, that is Swiss Bank, The Gardener, Baby Durant, Stat Stuffer, or The Closer. Which one of those is not a real basketball reference nickname?
I'm going to go with Stat Stuffer.
Stat Stuffer. Is the nickname for Terrence Mann. Stop.
What a nickname. So who's the gardener?
Andrew has to guess. So the remaining names, Swiss Bank, the gardener, Baby Durant, and the closer.
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