Hawks to add notable sharpshooter on one-year contract

The Hawks are signing free agent wing Luke Kennard on a one-year, $11MM contract, ESPN’s Shams Charania tweets.

Quite a few teams were rumored to be interested in Kennard and he chose to go to the Hawks, who also agreed to a sign-and-trade on Monday to acquire another prominent wing, Nickeil Alexander-Walker.

The Hawks will use a majority of their mid-level exception to sign Kennard. The 29-year-old has long been regarded as one of the top 3-point shooters in the league. He’s knocked down 43.8 percent of his 3s during his 460-game career.

He appeared in 65 games with the Grizzlies this past season, the most action he’s seen since he played 70 games with the Clippers in 2021/22. Kennard averaged 8.9 points, 2.8 rebounds and 3.3 assists while making 43.3 percent of his long-range shots. He projects as Jalen Johnson‘s backup at small forward for a Hawks team that’s clearly looking to move up and what appears to be a wide-open Eastern Conference.

Give Trae Young an assist. He helped recruit Kennard to Atlanta, Charania adds in another tweet.