Biggest Atlanta Hawks overreactions from 2025 NBA Summer League

The Hawks have had one heck of an offseason thus far, and it looks like they landed a huge win with their draft-night maneuvering that had them ending up with Asa Newell, the athletic power forward out of Georgia.

Newell’s best game came in the Hawks’ second of their three wins thus far in Vegas, a dominant 98-80 victory over the Phoenix Suns. During that contest, Newell flashed what made him such a major steal candidate for someone picked up in the middle of the first round of this year’s draft.

He was everywhere on the court and he looked like a man amongst boys, towering even over bigger defenders and scoring with ease in the paint. Newell put up 18 points on 9-11 shooting from the field during that game, and he even made four of his five three-point attempts on the night. Moreover, he cleaned up on the glass with 11 boards, and he was looking like a Jalen Johnson clone out there on the hardwood.

Newell flashed some ballhandling and slashing skills, and he even brought out a post move — a dropstep — to score on his defender in the paint. The ability to be a force near the rim, carry the ball, be an emphatic force on the glass, and even shoot some open threes at the forward spot — with Newell even listed at 6’11” (two inches taller than Johnson) — screams Jalen Johnson so much.

Alas, Newell is not as explosive of a finisher above the rim as Johnson is, as he was preferring to get around defenders instead of finishing over them. He also doesn’t appear to have the same bounce that Johnson does. He’s 7-18 from the field in Summer League outside of that incredible game against the Suns, and he fouled six times in their latest win, a 111-108 victory over the Houston Rockets.

However, Johnson was also a late-bloomer for the Hawks. He averaged 2.4 points in his rookie campaign and played in just 22 games. But the Hawks allowed him to develop at his own pace, and now, Johnson is a two-way force and a key cog to the Hawks’ contending hopes.

And it looks as though they have another player waiting to bloom like Johnson did in Newell.

Kobe Bufkin’s days with the Hawks may be numbered

There were high hopes for Kobe Bufkin when the Hawks selected him with the 15th overall pick of the 2023 NBA Draft. But two years have passed and Bufkin is yet to make an impact for the Hawks, and it looks rather unlikely that he ever will.

It’s not too often that a former first-round pick is still playing Summer League in his third season in the NBA, but that’s where Bufkin is. And one would expect that Bufkin would dominate the opposition since he’s been receiving NBA-level training over the past two seasons.

But that isn’t the case at all. In fact, it looks as though this is Bufkin’s usual level, which doesn’t bode well for his staying power in Atlanta. In Game 1 of Summer League, Bufkin did score 29 points thanks to a perfect 15-15 showing from the charity stripe. But he did go 6-16 from the field and 2-9 from deep. He won’t have the ball in his hands much in the NBA, and he’ll have to be more efficient with his scoring opportunities if he wants to crack the rotation.

But then in the second game against the Suns, Bufkin shot 3-17 from the field, and it’s this sort of brickfest that will prevent head coach Quin Snyder from ever trusting him to run the second unit. And while he finally had a relatively efficient scoring outing in Game 3 against the Rockets, shooting 8-15 from the field, he did turn the ball over nine times — which is simply unacceptable in any level of competition.

It’s simply not looking good for the former first-rounder. He has to be on high alert, as his spot on the roster may soon be up for grabs if he doesn’t string together a consistent run of good, mistake-free games.

Is Atlanta on to something with Nikola Djurisic?

It’s going to take a lot for Djurisic to crack the rotation in his rookie season for the Hawks. Atlanta’s guard rotation is crowded after all. Nevertheless, he did display some good feel for the game and has a lot of Vit Krejci in his game in that he simply keeps the ball moving, doesn’t try to do too much, and plays within himself. Djurisic rarely forces anything on offense, and he’s even pulled off some incredible pocket passes to roll men.

However, Djurisic’s defense needs a lot of work. He gets too handsy at times and oftentimes gets caught in no man’s land, positioning-wise. But still, the Hawks dedicated a roster spot to him for a reason, and thus far, he has been very productive for the Hawks in Vegas.