The Atlanta Hawks are among several teams that are showing interest in Maccabi Haifa point guard Gal Mekel according to a report by ESPN.com's Marc Stein. Other teams that have a registered interest include Milwaukee, Dallas, Toronto, Indiana and Memphis. Utah tried to bring Mekel into training camp last season but visa issues prompted his return overseas.
Mekel is a 6-4 point guard that helped lead Maccabi Haifa to an upset over Maccabi Electra Tel-Aviv in the Israeli championship. He is described as a pure point guard with the ability to run a team and had a strong showing in Milwaukee's free agent mini camp earlier this month. He played at Wichita State from 2006-2008 before heading back overseas. He is likely to latch on to someone's team for Summer League in hopes of landing a training camp invite in October.
The success of Pablo Prigioni at 35 years of age is helping Mekel's cause and some evaluators are rating him as an immediate rotational piece in the NBA.
Currently the Hawks have questions at the point guard position with Jeff Teague headed for restricted free agency and Shelvin Mack signed to a non-guaranteed deal. Mack is expected to play for Atlanta's summer league team in Las Vegas.