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After being projected to the Hawks in at least one mock draft, buzz surrounding 18-year-old big man Kristaps Porzingis began to build, especially in Atlanta. However, Porzingis has reportedly elected to withdraw from the 2014 NBA Draft in order to potentially improve his stock before re-entering the draft in 2015.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo was first to report the news, but this is a move that could potentially change the course of Danny Ferry and company. There was substantial groundswell that the Hawks could be zeroing in on Porzingis with their first round pick, and even if that was more chatter than anything else, it certainly seemed like a reasonable fit for Atlanta.
The Hawks have been linked to a number of other players, including Kentucky's James Young and, most recently, UCLA's Zach LaVine, and that number will likely grow in the next two weeks prior to the arrival of the draft. Danny Ferry and the Hawks front office are notoriously tight-lipped, so it is important to be somewhat skeptical of any "leaked" information, but there is one piece that is officially off the board in the form of Kristaps Porzingis.