The West is looking at the Oklahoma City Thunder with little to no idea about how to make a dent. Go across to the East, and they see this as the best chance to make a Pacers-like run in the coming season. Orlando Magic sensed the pattern and picked up Desmond Bane. However, with Tyrese Haliburton suffering a heartbreaking Achilles injury in the Finals along with the Celtics’ fall from the top of the food chain, Zach Lowe feels the East needs to be awake.

With Tatum and Haliburton both out for the majority of next season, the Magic became one of the title favorites for next season. One move, that’s all, a few teams in the East need to make in order to enter those talks. According to Simmons, franchises such as the Atlanta Hawks could look at the debris of the Kevin Durant trade and look to reinforce themselves for this presented opportunity.

“Well, this is one of my subplots I that I talked about last week is like and it’s even more relevant now. Is there another Bane style move coming for like a random team? Not that Orlando was a random team. I thought Orlando would have been a 50- win team this year had they stayed healthy. So, they’re above that. But like, are the Hawks going to be like, “Hey, you know what? How many picks we got? Like, can we go can we go get I don’t even know who it would be. Can we go get this guy, that guy?” Lowe said on the Bill Simmons Show.

The Hawks ended the last season as the 9 seed in the East. But injuries derailed their season significantly. Now, not only do they have Jalen Johnson returning next to Trae Young, but also the draft capital to make another major move and give themselves the best chance to come out of the East.

And Simmons didn’t just stop at encouraging them to move. He even put together a trade for them that could give them a difference maker in return.

The Hawks will fly in to help the Celtics

The East, susceptible to a shake-up in the coming years, has fast-forwarded some teams’ progress. The Hawks, for example, don’t need to keep the future as their priority. They have a dynamic tandem in the building. If they can build around it quickly enough to benefit next season, there’s a good chance of Young having another ECF run. However, it will require some help from the Shamrocks.

The Celtics are all for accepting business this summer. They have a massive $500 million bill to avoid. The top target for the same looks to be Jrue Holiday. So while Simmons was working on the trade machine, he found a way for his team to offload the two-time champion’s contract. But that’s contingent to the Hawks’ willingness to answer to the urgency.

“The only reason I know about that trade exception is I was looking at three-way deals with Jrue going to Phoenix and Dillon Brooks going to Atlanta, and the Celtics getting Royce O’Neal and saving like $23 million. I did. I just I gave it a test drive on the trade machine. I’m not saying it’s a trade that could happen, but I was trying to figure out some,” Simmons added.

Brooks isn’t the most liked personality around the league. However, his winning tangibles can’t be ignored. The enforcer plays with grit and could help lead the defensive unit for the Hawks. Besides a cerebral creator like Young, his offensive responsibility won’t be as high as they were with the Houston Rockets. But most importantly, it makes sense for all teams.

The Suns need a defensive guard to bring some stability. The Celtics have to lose wages to avoid a historic luxury tax, and the Hawks need to act in order to make the most of this upcoming window. We saw how one year could make a legacy, as the Thunder team did this year. For any of the teams that feel they are close in the East, the time to be greedy is now.