#246: Will Dejounte Murray Turnaround the Atlanta Hawks

This week on The Atlantic Files:

This week on The Atlantic Files, we preview the Southeast Division where Dejounte Murray looks to help the Atlanta Hawks get back to deep playoff runs, Blake Griffin signs with the Boston Celtics, the NBA Preseason is underway, Oklahoma City and Houston traded a bunch of players, the Toronto Raptors are monitoring Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s situation, and we take a look at the annual GM survey from the NBA!

A lot of depressing rosters have made their home in the Southeast division over recent years. The only team that really was a championship threat was the Miami Heat. This time around, there are still a few depressing rosters, but both the Heat and the Atlanta Hawks look like they could make some noise! Dejounte Murray found himself move from a tanking situation to a contender, so can he help Atlanta get back to the Conference Finals?

Blake Griffin is officially staying in the Atlantic Division! After playing with the Brooklyn Nets last season and then not getting another offer, he found his home in Boston. The cleanup crew just got even better for the Celtics. Griffin is bringing his charge drawing abilities on top of his high effort in all of his bench minutes. Yet another sneaky good addition from Brad Stevens and company.

The NBA Preseason is officially underway! We’ve seen the Phoenix Suns lose to an NBL team, the Philadelphia 76ers blowout the Nets without most of their starters, and so much more. We gave our top observations and takeaways from the games that have been played so far.

In trade news, the Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets swapped a bunch of bench players so that the Thunder could get under the tax line. A couple pieces of the trade have already been waived, so this really has no effect on the day-to-day talent of each team.

Rumors are now swirling that the Toronto Raptors and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are starting to form a link. The Raptors are reportedly keeping tabs on the situation in Oklahoma City just in case Gilgeous-Alexander doesn’t want to wait for this tank job to finally end.

Finally, we take a look at the survey that’s done by all of the NBA’s General Managers. They answered a ton of questions about the current state of the league and even some predictions for how the season is going to turn out. We gave our thoughts to the best and worst answers.

Timecodes:
00:00:00 Intro & Dennis’s dungeon
00:07:09 2022-23 NBA Southeast Division Preview
00:39:03 Observations from the NBA Preseason
00:54:32 Blake Griffin signs with the Boston Celtics
00:56:08 Toronto Raptors are monitoring Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
01:03:23 Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets trade
01:04:58 Reactions and thoughts on annual NBA GM Survey
01:28:12 Outro

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