I will say this again for everyone, if you didn’t read the first part go this series, go read it. Yes, it’s about Luke Kennard. No, I do not care that you just want to read about Kristaps Porzingis. The key essential parts of part 1 that links to here is the opening few paragraphs before I fully switch into breaking down the game of Luke Kennard. There’s basically an intro to the whole series within that part thats pretty vital to understand how I classify players and my belief and I think it matters the most what I said in that for this. This is because I think of both Kennard and Porzingis as Ceiling raisers. So yes please read the first part, this is a series it is a chronological order of players and it is like that for a reason so please respect that. I put equal time and effort into breaking down each of these 4 guys and planning and prepping each post so I believe they should receive similar attention no matter how big the name is. Little less yapping now.
So Ceiling Raisers, as I mentioned in the last part is something the Hawks have had a lack of for a pretty log time and the people they use to be that player tend to be lower quality, your LeVert who is alright and then Niang who you don’t particularly want to be the team ceiling raiser. Jalen Johnson tended to be that guy but I do think his skillset can be utilised better to keep the team going as a motor alongside Trae Young as an effective Floor raiser on the team. So the Hawks came into the year really missing that elite ceiling raiser or high quality ceiling raisers within the team. Luke Kennard was someone I believe to be one of those Ceiling Raisers, not of a high quality but a good one and a proven one with his generals high 3pt% and shooting ability. I also noted how he was more versatile and potentially could be used as a connector if used correctly in his tams system. If you want to know more and believe me I break it down a lot more, go read the damn part. Well now we get to my quality Ceiling Raiser I’ve begged for, Kristaps Porzingis is a wrecker of defences and yet inconsistent and best when supplied for.
Kristaps Porzingis:
So what exact abilities have we seen from Kristaps Porzingis that makes him a ceiling raiser, let’s start offensively. Porzingis is a true wrecker of zone defence. It is extremely difficult to play a zonal defence as a team when you’re going against a 7’2 Deep shooter. That brings us to our first skill and his most interesting and useful is him being a super efficient shooter and being able to stretch that floor way out from the NBA 3pt line. This is what makes him a zone wrecker where he can be used in a pick and pop to fins himself isolated open the perimeter with the center in the paint playing zone. So it means the center has to stretch out and if the smaller players are instead coming out to stop him, Porzingis is a quick thinker and makes fast decisions, he either makes a pass to an open man for a better look or he can just take the shot right over you with his insane length. Now we know Porzingis is a Zone Breaker and disruptor and created clean looks in situations where a big is in drop and that he himself is a high percentage maker of these looks we can then discuss how useful this is to the modern NBA game and the Hawks. The NBA does generally see quite a lot more man defence in recent time, one of the big themes and taking points for me from the 2025 playoffs was the usage of zonal defence in these situations by teams to meet different teams. This makes a lot of sense since teams begin to organise their defences to matchup on specific teams rather than a whole year. So generally, no it doesn’t mean too much in general since teams will likely not try to run a zone defence or play in drop when Porzingis is on the court. What it does allow the Hawks to have is no shocks in the general defensive schemes they see since they will likely see similar schemes all season and can prepare a lot easier in general. And then with their offensive schemes, Porzingis allows the Hawks to run some more interesting pick and pop opportunities the Hawks rarely run due to them not having pick and pop centers, Trae Young is a great passer and will fins Porzingis in any space off the pop for good efficient looks and thats all useful to the team.
Taking a closer look at the Hawks specific scheme currently I have one question of Porzingis I can’t find too much information. I do see Porzingis as a pretty good connector and he has a good handle and is great as a post up player but one thing the Hawks utilised to their advantage was how NBA defences had worked to prevent handoffs due to how teams utilised them like the Kings with Sabonis. The Hawks used Onyeka Okongwu, who is a good passing center, as their primary creator while Jalen Johnson was out using Okongwu with fake handoffs mixed with high volume backdoor cuts (Something the Hawks used a lot this year) to create easy baskets at the rim. Defences would focus on preventing the handoff leaving a lot of space backdoor and an open efficient look. Now this isn’t a common strategy currently so I did not expect to see Porzingis be utilised in a similar scheme but there is little volume or film on him being able to operate in a similar role as Okongwu or as a cutter which I highly doubted, he cant set screens in this so it means you effectively can’t use this when he is on the court. Trae worked off these handoffs by actually taking the handoffs to create space for him to actually use his ball handling and to get the ball due to him being heavily denied the ball, I don’t see why this could not work with Porzingis in some way but it would need adjusting and some developing to fit the rest of the system in with him as the central player for this role.
However, what the Hawks can benefit from is his pure spacing aspects. In Trae Youngs most efficient season 21/22, where he had 46/38/90 splits and was paired with a spacing big in Danilo Gallinari, the hawks ranked 3rd in 3pt%. Meanwhile since then the Hawks have been average at best. To maximise Trae Youngs play and efficiency you need to surround Trae with spacers and thats what Porzingis does. Him being such a strong pick and pop threat allows Trae more space to work with with less blitzes and traps off screens and pull bigs away from the paint so he can get efficient looks at the rim he has to got recently causing his 2pt% to plummet. So a mix of Porzingis and Kennard on the team as well as NAW will cause a likely increase in the teams spacing and 3pt% and hopefully we see a much more efficient Trae that we saw in that season.
Another element of Porzingis’s game is his ability to attack mismatches in the post. The Hawks haven’t had a player like Porzingis has been comfortable to attack mismatches, his great length and comfortability with his handle as well as good touch at the rim and in the mid range allows him to have an extremely versatile post game paired with his length. Porzingis just has such a versatile offensive game with his spacing, ability to attack a closeout from taller players, ability to just shoot over most players, ability to make smart reads and skip passes to find open men with his gravity, ability to attack a mismatch and draw them off screens and his movement and that is a lot of abilities and there’s more elements of his game which maybe aren’t the strongest but are good. One element Trae Young will tap into and Porzingis is great at doing is rolling off screens and that allows him to be a lob threat, he is just such a fun player and it allows you to run so many interesting plays and the Hawks are one of the best players for him to do that with Trae Young’s passing, how you can pair Jalen Johnson and Onyeka Okongwu with him in a front court to increase mismatch volume and rim pressure as well as having 3 big comfortable ball handlers with some playmaking upside, Kennard NAW and Risacher add 3pt shooting Porzingis can tap into with a skip pass and his paint gravity so you just create such an unstoppable offensive force with his talent and we haven’t had someone like that in Trae Youngs Hawks tenure.
And thats all just offence, Porzingis is still an extremely strong rim protector and shot blocker. That is quite an expected thing from him with his general length and it is the main reason for why he is so good at it. Porzingis is such a great rim protector because simply he doesn’t have a lot of room he generally has to cover with his long arms to get a block and it also allows him to recover really well. Porzingis is not the fastest although he is pretty fluid so he does get beat a lot off switches but he does recover so well with his arms. This allows him to be a lot more useful in pick and roll situations as he can recover so well when someone drives on him. He does also do somewhat of a good job against maybe more agile and faster players because he is able to keep his body in front and square with his man to a decent level and that allows him to maybe not always block but affect shots in the mid range off screens and cause misses. This kind of adds to the overarching theme of the last points which is his pure pick and roll defence. Porzingis is able to be a key disruptor of pick and roll defences when he is sat in the paint and can sit off a little, when being attacked by offensive players in the paint off drives or entering the mid range he can be an effective defender on them but Porzingis is not an ideal perimeter defence. He is very lanky and it does hold him back in general on the perimeter so you should try to avoid situations where he gets switched on to strong movement 3pt shooters where he can be attacked or by quick twitch guys with speed to beat him out one the perimeter. So although Porzingis is great in the paint and at a decent level at sticking to his man in the mid range and off drives he is very exploitable on the perimeter. So how can the Hawks solve this?
The Hawks have 3 players I see as viable partners for Porzingis to allow him to be a better defender, Okongwu, Johnson and Newell. All three have a level of defensive versatility which will be useful for the Hawks roster, Newell is a rookie so I don’t expect too much but he does have the size agility and mobility to stick around as a power forward partner who can be an effective tall perimeter defender off switches. The most interesting and proven is going to be Onyeka Okongwu. Okongwu is such a great versatile defender, he has great athleticism and mobility and he’s shown he can do that at a starting level in the NBA with real good highlight defending isolation plays as a perimeter defender in the NBA. Jalen Johnson is slightly shorter and less of a center but he is a versatile defender with elite athleticism who can be effective at the rim and plays bigger than he is and can be interesting as a pairing who can handle some NBA centers.
However, this brings me to my key reasoning of why Porzingis is a clear Ceiling Raiser and that is he just isn’t built to play defensively against every team. Porzingis ideally needs to be playing against teams with a clear non perimeter threat or someone who lacks perimeter creation who he can stay with. Taller players who are mobile on the perimeter like your Wembanyamas and your Chet Holmgren’s I also don’t worry about but mobile bigs who are faster and can put the ball on the floor or if a team can aggressively attack switches onto Porzingis with shorter high level perimeter shot makers and creators. So to combat this the Hawks have to pick their matches where they start Okongwu or Porzingis based off what they can use more in the game wether thats maybe more perimeter creation and they want to utilise their fake handoff system and prefer versatile perimeter defenders and that is needed then they will have to play Okongwu more and in those matchups. However, the Hawks will prefer to ave Porzingis where he can be a viable option since he just has way more upside as an offensive player and as someone who matches up well with the taller longer centers we see enter the NBA in recent years.
Porzingis is also a very injury prone player, he pretty recently went down with a unknown illness that no one seems to now what it was, seems like doctors are still puzzled but he seems to be fine now and has recovered. He generally just is an injury prone player and that is pretty common with taller players and that does mean you are going to be unable to play him as consistently on the team as you may wish.
I think this is all Hawks fans really need to know about Porzingis, although he is a talented player he does need a lot of integration. Simply he doesn’t have a track record of fitting within the current offensive schemes we run but Quinn Snyder will tweak them to use his best skills as a player and their are a lot of really valuable roles and new schemes you can play which will really benefit the team so I hope you guys enjoyed this final part before a decently long Hiatus of my account. Hopefully I have a trade to grade before I take my break but I do hope you enjoyed this post, it takes a lot of time to write and prepare for and I love making them!