Atlanta Hawks Make Key Free Agent Decision With Forward Vit Krejci

Today was an important deadline for the Atlanta Hawks for several reasons. One of them concerned emerging forward Vit Krejci and whether or not to give him a two-way qualifying offer. The Hawks made the easy decision to extend a two-way qualifying offer to Krejci according to Lauren Williams at the AJC, making him a restricted free agent now. Atlanta can now match any offer that another team puts in front of Krejci.

This was a pretty easy decision for the Hawks to make considering how well Krejci played toward the end of the season. Because of the injuries that the Hawks had to the entire team, Krejci was forced to play a lot down the stretch, including starting a few games. He played in 22 games last season, starting 14 of them and averaged 6.1 PPG, 2.4 RPG, and 2.5 APG. He shot 49% from the field, including 41% from three. At 6’8 195 LBS, Krejci became a wing player with size and shooting that the Hawks were lacking. His best performance came in the Hawks huge comeback against the Boston Celtics, a game in which he scored 16 points, including 13 points in one quarter. He was 4-7 from three that night.

What could Krejci’s role be on this team? The Hawks have gotten bigger and better on the wing and at the point of attack through the early parts of this offseason. They drafted Zaccharie Risacher with the No. 1 overall pick and just acquired Dyson Daniels in the Dejounte Murray trade. De’Andre Hunter is still on the team as well. Krejci is young and showed he has potential last season, but it was also in a very small sample size. There is not a clear pathway for him to play a ton of minutes this season, but that could change. I think the Hawks made the right move today by extending him the offer.

The Hawks have been making key decisions today with their free agents. They did not extend a qualifying offer to Saddiq Bey, making him an unrestricted free agent and they picked up the $2.2 million dollar team option for Garrison Matthews, bringing him back for another season. Krejci