Snyder's vision has Hawks evolving at both ends of court

The good news: that instance of stylistic tension was more the exception than the rule for Atlanta this season. Though the roster is nearly identical to the one that underwhelmed last year (John Collins being the only meaningful subtraction), and some ingrained tendencies still rear their heads, Snyder has largely succeeded in instilling his principles and getting buy-in at both ends of the floor.

On offense, that means playing with more pace, more ball movement, more weak-side activity, more continuity, less predictability, less Trae Young heliocentrism, more interplay between the team's two ball-dominant guards, and a healthier overall shot diet. Before Snyder took over last season, 61% of the Hawks' shots came at the rim or from 3-point range, the second-lowest rate in the league. Through 10 games this season, that's up to 71%, the ninth-highest proportion in the league. They're also up to 16th in passes per game, throwing about 26 more on average than they did last season, when they ranked last both pre- and post-Snyder hiring.

Young is starting more possessions off the ball, Murray is playing much more decisively, and the team's big-wing brigade - now led by breakout third-year combo forward Jalen Johnson - is more involved and more empowered. Last year, 53% of Young's field-goal attempts and 48% of Murray's were pull-up jumpers. This year they're at 45% and 35% respectively. The two have whittled their collective time per touch from 10.9 seconds down to 9.4. All of which has coincided with a considerable dip in both players' long-mid-range attempt rates.

Riding those changes to the league's fifth-best offensive rating may not feel like a huge accomplishment considering the Hawks finished seventh in 2022-23, but they've been 5.4 points per 100 possessions better than league average so far - compared to 1.8 last year - and that's with Young shooting 40% from 2-point range and 29% from deep. The process has been sound, and the results should only improve.

Several factors have helped Atlanta achieve its objectives and succeed with a reconfigured offense. One, as Basketball Action Dictionary creator Bowser2Bowser recently detailed in an excellent video, is a simple tweak that's moved the team's center to the weak-side slot in 5-out alignments, opening up new driving and cutting lanes.

Another is that the team is playing at a breakneck pace. Their average time to shot is the fastest in the league, they're lapping the field in transition frequency (running on 19.4% of their possessions, while the next closest team clocks in at 18.2%), and they rank second in points per transition play (1.42). Murray and Young make magic in the open court, the former with stampeding drives and the latter with precision hit-ahead missiles. This was also true last year, by the way; even as the two guards struggled to find their equilibrium in the half court, they had instant synergy in transition. The team just didn't take advantage of it often enough.

This year that synergy is being amplified by the ascendent Johnson, who hasn't so much stepped into the Collins role as he's expanded and reshaped it. The Hawks' transition rate ticks up by 6.4 percentage points with him on the floor, a 99th-percentile differential that speaks to his ability to both initiate and punctuate those possessions; he's an uber-athletic finisher who loves to streak behind the defense, but he's also a dangerous passer in the open floor - someone who can rip the ball off the rim, lead the break, and cap it with a feathery lob or a no-look dime to a shooter:

The Hawks have also found a more balanced division of labor. They've gone from 11th to 26th in isolation frequency, and from first to ninth in the portion of their possessions finished by a pick-and-roll ball-handler. (They've ranked no lower than third in that category since Young's rookie season in 2018-19.) They're setting about seven fewer ball screens per 100 possessions than they did last season, per Second Spectrum. Young's usage rate is his lowest since he was a rookie.

This is still obviously a pick-and-roll-oriented offense - that's what you do when you employ one of the five best pick-and-roll operators in basketball - but Atlanta has spiced things up with more variety, replacing a chunk of rote high-ball-screen and double-drag actions with elbow and high-post sets geared toward handoffs and split cuts. The upshot has been a lot more mid-possession touches for Young that deliver him the ball on the move. He's slingshotting into the middle of the floor out of actions like high-post splits, Chicago, and Blind Pig (a three-man sprint-and-handoff play that isn't new to the Hawks but has become much more of a staple, thanks in part to the aforementioned 5-out configuration):

Once again, this stylistic makeover wouldn't look the same without Johnson's development, namely as an off-the-bounce attacker, 3-point shooter, and connective passer. The Hawks have had very little frontcourt playmaking in recent years, which is a big part of the reason their possessions tended to stall out and devolve into iso-ball after their initial actions were contained. Now, on top of being able to run more stuff through Johnson at the elbows, they're able to maintain their flow deeper into the shot clock because of how comfortable he is making the next play and how confidently he's stepping into threes. That flow has also been aided by lower-viscosity play from Hunter and Saddiq Bey, who are making quicker decisions and driving closeouts with newfound ferocity.

In part because of the ecosystem around them, and in part because of their own adjustments, the Murray-Young backcourt fit looks a lot smoother in year two than it did in year one. The two of them are actually working cooperatively in the half court, rather than simply taking turns piloting the offense while the other stands around on the perimeter. They're passing to each other six more times per game than they did last season, and assisting each other's baskets nearly twice as often. Last season, even at the best of times, the dynamic between the two guards was one of coexistence rather than symbiosis. This season it's tilting more toward the latter.

It helps, of course, that Murray is currently hitting nearly 45% of his catch-and-shoot threes. That's made him a more viable floor-spacer and kickout target for his perpetually paint-bound backcourt partner - either as a nail-help beater one pass away on the wing, or on baseline drift plays like the one the two connected on for a game-winner over Orlando last week. Their budding chemistry isn't just about improved ball-sharing, either. They're also creating successful interactions on plays in which no passes are made between them, plays in which they screen for each other away from the ball or sow confusion by ghosting those screens.

That doesn't mean there haven't been hiccups, even beyond the fact that Young can't seem to finish at the rim, buy a floater, or get a three to drop right now. As with Murray's penchant for long mid-rangers, Young hasn't quite kicked his habit of checking out of possessions when he isn't directly involved, or once he's given up the ball.

He still has a tendency to linger in the paint after driving and kicking, rather than relocating out to the perimeter. And he still spends too many of those possessions chilling out near midcourt, declining to engage even when doing so might salvage a dying possession or prevent a turnover:

When he got an open 3-point look off a move to the corner during Saturday's loss to Miami, my jaw almost hit the floor. Kyle Lowry, who was guarding Young on the play, looked equally bewildered, and for good reason. That was the only corner three Young has attempted all season. No one's asking him to transform into Steph Curry overnight, but that really shouldn't be such a rare occurrence. His stagnancy in this area, amid so much encouraging change, is an ongoing source of frustration.

Of course, offense isn't and never has been the Hawks' problem during the Trae era. They currently rank 15th in non-garbage-time defensive efficiency, which, should it hold, would be their best finish in seven years. They've dialed up their aggressiveness and activity level, which is an interesting pivot from Snyder after nearly a decade spent running a conservative deep-drop scheme in Utah. Capela is no Rudy Gobert, but he and Onyeka Okongwu are very good rim-protectors who excel on the back line. Instead, they're often being asked to play at the level, with everyone else tasked with rotating behind them.

Atlanta is playing with fire, giving up a ton of threes and rim shots as a consequence. But they're also forcing gobs of turnovers to help fuel their deadly transition offense, and for now the tradeoff is working well enough. Johnson's secondary rim protection (on top of his ability to check the jumbo playmaking forwards of the world) has helped make those coverages viable, as has Okongwu's lateral agility and Murray's tenacity at the point of attack.

Perhaps most importantly, Young is working harder and making fewer mistakes on that end of the court than he ever has. That doesn't mean he isn't still a clear defensive minus; he still gets wiped out on his share of screens, makes halfhearted dig-downs, and gets overpowered, on top of getting caught ball-watching and blowing the odd rotation. But the effort and the intent are there. He's fighting hard to stay attached to ball-handlers and get back in the play after being screened. He's usually in the right spots as a team defender, and he's tagging and recovering as effectively as his 6-foot-1, 165-pound frame will allow.

You can watch him here riding Mike Conley's hip and funneling him right to Capela for a block, or holding in the lane to tag Zion Williamson's roll before flying at Matt Ryan in the corner with a max-effort closeout:

These aren't extraordinary plays by any means, but they're the type of plays Young hasn't made with any consistency before this season.

Ten games obviously doesn't mean much, and Young and the Hawks still have a lot to prove. They've basically been running an eight-man rotation to this point, and Young's the only one of those eight to even miss a game so far. Will they be able to stick to their new diet when adversity hits, or will they resort to reheating their leftover comfort food? Their structural problems (multiple defensive liabilities, mediocre shooting) might prevent them from improving on last year's result even if they stay fully bought in.

For now, though, there's something to be said for simply making the environment here more inviting, even if that doesn't amount to much tangible progress by season's end. Change is hard, and it rarely happens in linear fashion, but it's a noble endeavor. Growth for growth's sake is still worth celebrating.