It is time to move on from Dennis Schröder

Dennis Schröder was given the best chance to prove he was a long term solution at point guard/floor leader for the Hawks this season, his last as a Hawk under Mike Budenholzer, and he failed. It is time for the Hawks to get the most they can for Dennis as the team goes into a new season and a new birth with a new coach.

WHY?

Dennis was given the most usage and control he had ever had and posted slightly above average advanced stats and proved he was a super capable offensive player, but super lousy defensively and was just another guy on the floor as the leader of this team, not someone who made teammates better.

He likely maxed out on his counting stats, a.k.a. market value for a large portion of teams in the NBA, so moving him now is the best time to do so in that regard. The team will have a new coach, new players and will likely get younger if Dewayne Dedmon opts to move on, as it is likely he will. This will mean even less offensive efficiency as a whole for the Hawks, and Dennis will look like he took a step back, statistically, lowering his greatest trade value right now: his stats. Schröder looks good in some statistical areas and will still bring a good return, especially considering one of his best numbers, his age. At 24, teams can (and will) still gamble that Schröder has more ceiling to reach.

Because of this, the Hawks can, potentially, get the most for Dennis now, even with off the court issues. Acquiring more picks and continuing to build the future of this team is a good thing, especially if you have concluded, as I have, that Dennis is what he is at this point: An elite driving scoring point guard that needs to have the ball in his hands to be productive, and little else positive after that. Defensively and as a leader, he has not developed nor taken the public initiative to be more than he is, even with the excellent player development of Mike Budenholzer and the staff at his back for all these years. 

It is also a good time to part ways with Dennis because of the position he plays on this team. He is a high usage player, so if you keep him on this team, it will, by role, keep the other players who have a longer term future of this team from stepping into more production because Dennis will be doing his 27-30% raw usage thing out there. If the Hawks end up taking Luka Doncic in the draft, this is a slam dunk, given the desire to get Doncic in front of this team and make it his own. Even in the absence of that, however, players like Prince, Collins and whoever the Hawks take at the top will need room to develop, and the usage that goes with that.

The Hawks did the right thing by trading Jeff Teague away to Indiana when it was clear they had reached their peak with him, even if a season too late. They needed to know if Dennis Schröder could take them further and if the young point guard could develop into a all-star level point guard and future leader of the Hawks. Now we have seen this is not the case, and it is time to move him on and acquire another player to lead this new iteration of the Hawks in the 20's.

Disagree? Agree? Let me know in the Comments Area or on the Twitter Area @JasonWalkerNBA.