The Atlanta Hawks Seek To Meld Championship Cultures

Atlanta Hawks GM Travis Schlenk made no secret of his intention to borrow cultural and organizational elements from the Golden State Warriors — his former employer — while speaking to media at Philips Arena Friday morning. The spirit of collaboration he brings from Golden State shares similarities with the San Antonio-inspired spirit of his immediate front office predecessors. Another similarity is to specifically target high-character players who will always strive to reach their full potential, and Schlenk said he’s not concerned if his group overachieves and sacrifices draft position.

“We drafted Draymond Green while I was in Golden State at 35,” said Schlenk. “You can get franchise-type players and very solid players all over the draft. We’re going to be competitive. When you look at the guys we signed this year in free agency, those are guys that show up and play hard every single night. So we’re laying the foundation for the future of the Atlanta Hawks.”

Character is a recurring theme for Schlenk, who noted the Warriors as a team that was able to assemble a high-character roster without sacrificing talent.

“All the guys that we sign or look to acquire moving forward, they’re going to be high character guys as we start to build a culture here,” said Schlenk. “When you look back when I was involved with Golden State, that’s a conscious decision we made. You look at the guys that are on that roster now and they are all high-character guys, and that’s what we’re going to mimic here in Atlanta as well.”

Another element Schlenk brings from Golden State is a spirit of collaboration among members of the front office and coaching staff to develop consensus on important decisions. While Schlenk has made some additions to the basketball operations staff, it hasn’t been a complete overhaul. Some of the key voices remain from coach Mike Budenholzer’s previous front office regime, providing Atlanta with some continuity.

“I’m very fortunate [that] when I got here, there was a great staff already in place,” said Schlenk. “Those guys are still with us and — going through the draft process with them — their organization was really, really strong. Going through free agency we were extremely prepared. That group is Jeff Peterson, who is our assistant GM; John Treloar, our director of player personnel; obviously coach Budenholzer; and Mike McNeive, our director of basketball operations. Those are kind of our senior management crew and then we have younger guys that are also involved in the process.”

One of the additions Schlenk made was to bring on Rod Higgins, who was the GM in Golden State early in his career and later GM of the Hornets, as a college scout.

“He was the GM there when I was a back-row assistant coach,” said Schlenk. “I’m very comfortable with the staff we have here but I thought bringing in somebody with a little more experience could be useful for us. It’s important to have a group and it’s important that you get everyone’s opinions and they’re different opinions. You don’t want a group of people that are all going to give you the same mind unless it’s the right decision.”

While some have wondered how enthusiastic Budenholzer is to oversee a developing roster since he hasn’t missed the playoffs since his first season as an assistant in San Antonio (the season before the Spurs drafted Tim Duncan), Schlenk was very comfortable with his buy-in.

“Coach Bud, when I first got here we spent a ton of time together, getting to know each other [and] getting to know each other’s philosophies,” said Schlenk. “He’s completely on board with what our plan was this summer. He’s excited about the upcoming season. He and his staff have proven that the one thing they have done very well since he’s been here is develop young talent. And so they’re excited about this venture that we have where they’re going to have a great opportunity to develop a lot of — hopefully — great players that we’re going to draft over the next few years.”

Schlenk provided some insight on one of the moves that set the Hawks up to have additional draft assets in the future, the trade that sent Dwight Howard to the Charlotte Hornets and returned Miles Plumlee and Marco Belinelli. Although the trade cost Atlanta 10 spots in the second round, Schlenk insisted that it set the team up for flexibility in the future.

“The way the process goes when you start having conversations with other teams, you start building out all the other things that would be involved with making the trade,” said Schlenk. “When it got down with Charlotte, there were other players that were going to be in the deal that both teams decided wouldn’t be in there. Obviously, the 31st pick was important to them.

“When we look at our roster moving forward, with the nine draft picks we have in the next few years, it wasn’t as important to us to be able to add that young player this year because we have so many opportunities with three first-round draft picks next year. And we really only slid back ten spots to 41. Obviously, we would have loved to have the 31st pick, but to be able to get that financial flexibility that we wanted for the future, it made it worth it to slide back 10 spots in the second round.”

Schlenk added that not nearly enough time has passed to evaluate the trade’s impact on Atlanta.

“Well, we haven’t played a game yet so it’s hard to say,” said Schlenk. “We did that trade for the financial flexibility. We were able to use that flexibility this summer to acquire a first-round draft pick in next year’s draft from the Clippers in the Jamal Crawford trade. So it played out well for us.”

While the Hawks will be building the product on the court from the ground up, Schlenk appears to have made the transition to new leadership in the front office as seamless as possible. While Schlenk is the final decision maker on front office matters, he strives to build consensus. In that way, the collaborative spirit he brings from Golden State is similar to the Spurs-inspired culture that already existed in Atlanta. However, with the Hawks looking at a lengthy development project, it will be a long time before we see if the melding of championship cultures can produce results similar to those achieved by the organizations of origin.