Atlanta Hawks: 3 Players That Disappointed This Season
The Hawks got a taste of fresh young talent in the form of Trae Young and John Collins this year, but unfortunately, that was all. Both of them led the team in scoring and gave the franchise tangible hopes of a bright future, to say the least. Moreover, 42-year-old Vince Carter laced up for what would've been his last season in the NBA as Atlanta finished 12th on the Eastern Conference standings for the 2018-19 season.
The NBA draft is an effective way to harness vibrant and cheap talent, and evidently so, the Hawks benefited in a big way from it this past season. Trae is right up there with Luka in the race to win 'Rookie of the Year' and in the process of getting there, has provided his organization with a spark it so desperately needed.
Nevertheless, there were only a handful of games when the Hawks looked anything more than just Trae or Collins, and that's where our attention lies. To call the supporting crew in Atlanta non-cooperative would be an understatement. Apart from the two freshly baked talents, no other player could average more than 14 points per game throughout the regular season.
Let's try and pick out the three Hawks players who tempered all expectations laid upon them before the start of the season.
#1 Kent Bazemore
In his fifth season with the Hawks, Kenneth Lamont Bazemore Jr. played 67 games and started in 35 of them. Clearly, the entry of youngsters into the mix left Kent with lesser playtime than what he got last year - when started all 65 games he appeared in.
Coming off a near-career-high season in scoring, Baze could afford only 11.6 points per game for his team's 2018-19 campaign. With a subpar field-goal conversion of 40%, he finished with just 2.3 assists and less than 4 rebounds per game. One of his very few highlights from this past season was his career-high score of 32 against the Pacers back in December.
Despite his sober numbers, Bazemore declared recently that he would exercise his $19.2 million player option and return to the Atlanta Hawks for the next season.