The Atlanta Hawks are tipping their season off on Wednesday night vs the Brooklyn Nets, but they are going to be doing so without second-year guard Kobe Bufkin. On Monday, the team announced that Bufkin was going to miss the season opener vs the Nets due to sustaining a right shoulder injury during practice on Saturday. The team said that they will update his health as appropriate.
Hopefull for Bufkin and the Hawks, this is not something that keeps him out long term. Bufkin was out for all of Summer League with a right shoulder subluxation and he also missed time during his rookie season with injuries. During the preseason, Bufkin was the main backup point guard for the Hawks.
It will be interesting to see how Hawks head coach Quin Snyder handles the minutes when Trae Young is off the floor. This is one of the biggest questions for the Hawks coming into the season and without Bufkin, it becomes even more of a question. While not a true point guard, it could be that Bogdan Bogdanovic handles the offense with Young off the floor. Vit Krejci and Dyson Daniels are also candidates to handle things with Young off the floor.
Bufkin had a solid, though far from perfect, preseason. He finished very well in the last game, scoring 31 points and hitting seven three’s. Bufkin played in all four games this preseason and averaged 15 points on 37% shooting from the floor and 35% from three. He also averaged 4.3 APG and 3.0 RPG in 26 minutes per game.
After the first preseason game, Snyder had this to say about Bufkin’s performance:
“You know, there was a few possessions You know where we really moved the ball and he was part of Initiating the possession and getting us an advantage and then we kept playing kept playing you know and that that was good to see. I mean, it’s, for us, when we have different guys, we can get a critical mass of guys on the floor that are passing the ball and spacing and continuing to play, the probability that everybody does it goes up. And as soon as we get, you know, two, three guys that aren’t doing that, it becomes very difficult for the rest of the group to do that. So, when Kobe comes in and he’s passing the ball ahead and doing some of those things offensively, you know, he really can’t access. And maybe the best thing that I thought he did tonight was he defended, you know, to see him get up and get up to court. That’s something that’s gonna be, you know, we’ll be able to see that some on film tomorrow where we just, we had breakdowns. They put a lot of pressure on you. You have to guard your man in space a lot of times. But the times that you are able to help, you need to be there. You need to be there, and we weren’t always there, but I thought Kobe’s ball pressure in particular really gave us a lift.”
