As the trade deadline approached, the Hawks were rumored to be holding a fire-sale on all their veteran players. Basically everybody on the roster who had been in the league more than three years, except for Vince Carter, was up for grabs. Then, the deadline came and went, and the Hawks kept their roster mostly intact. In a small way, they did the reverse of what they were expected to do by trading Tyler Dorsey (young player) for Shelvin Mack (veteran player). I thought that Mack was being brought in to provide some mentorship to Trae Young that Dorsey couldn’t provide, but then Mack got waived. So that, apparently, was not the point of the trade.
I’m thinking that players like Bazemore and Dedmon were kept around simply because they’re good targets for Trae Young’s passes. Especially Dedmon. That guy is a magnet for Young’s assists. Also, Young is probably benefiting from the Hawks decently high-scoring offense. The Hawks are still in the bottom half of the league scoring-wise, but imagine how much worse they’d be if it was just the Young/Collins/Huerter show with no support from the veterans on the team?