The Hawks front office clearly feels that the time is close to contending in the East because they've arguably been the most active team since free agency began. They’ve now handed out contracts to Danilo Gallinari (three-years, $61.5M), Kris Dunn (two-years, $10M) and most recently Rajon Rondo (two-years, $15M). They also traded Tony Snell who holds no fantasy value, but is a decent three-and-d guy to have coming off the bench.
We’ll start with the Gallinari signing since that was the biggest of their moves. The 11-year veteran had a strong 2019-’20 campaign in Oklahoma City averaging 18.7 points and 5.2 rebounds on 43.8-percent shooting while knocking down 40.5-percent of his three-point attempts. That was the second consecutive season Gallo has hit North of 40-percent of his three’s and now gets to play with elite passers in Trae Young and Rajon Rondo . He took a career-high 7.1 3PA last year, so if you’re looking for someone who can contribute in points and three-point makes, Gallo is your guy. He’s the third option on this Hawks team offensively, but is a nice late-round addition to most fantasy rosters.
Now, circling back to his 18.7 PPG from last year, we shouldn’t fully expect that again. Gallinari will be dealing with Trae Young who posted a usage rate of 34.9-percent last year as well as John Collins sitting at 22.7-percent. Two guys soaking up nearly 60-percent of any team's usage makes it hard for others to be extremely productive. If you look back to Gallinari’s numbers on the 2012-’13 Nuggets, that’s where I could see them sitting. That team was loaded with talent and we saw the usual 18-20 PPG drop to 16 or so.
Moving along to both Dunn and Rondo, neither are extremely valuable in fantasy because you’re going to be hard pressed to find many games where it isn’t Trae Young dominating the usage unless he’s off the floor for his usual 12 minutes. Rondo can obviously still stuff a box score and should play a decent role, but not nearly as much as he once did, probably not even as much as he did during his one campaign with the Lakers. Dunn is someone the Hawks will turn to more on the defensive side of the ball, but he can provide fantasy owners with a lot of steals.
The problem with owning either of these guys in fantasy, unlike Gallinari before them, is the amount of depth Atlanta has in the back-court. They’re going to be battling with each other first, but also the likes of Kevin Huerter , Cam Reddish , and obviously Trae Young for playing time. We obviously hold Rondo in higher regard for fantasy value due to his ability to contribute in multiple categories than we do for Dunn, at least that’s the case a month before the season begins.