Mike Budenholzer comments on Hawks direction

The Atlanta Hawks have already made one trade and rumors persist that it won’t be the last one between now and the February trade deadline.

While it appears that the Hawks are considering pushing the reset button, Mike Budenholzer told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Chris Vivlamore on Saturday that no one should assume anything when it comes to the direction of the franchise.

“My answer to that is I don’t think there should be any assumptions made about anything,” said Budenholzer, who also serves as president of basketball operations. “Organizationally, we have to make hard decisions. I think it’s important that each one of them puts us in the best situation, the best place, to be a great organization. In this case, we made a trade that wasn’t easy. It was a hard decision. This is a good team that we have. This is a team that has shown an ability to compete at a high level. Keeping it together is something … I just wouldn’t make any assumptions going forward.”

It is hard to imagine Budenholzer saying anything else publicly but it remains to be seen what other moves Atlanta executes before the deadline. The team had won five straight games entering Saturday improving to 20-16 on the season while climbing to fourth in the Eastern Conference.

Trading Korver at this juncture signals a change in direction. It would be strange for a team that is short on shooting to trade their best shooter if they were not shifting their focus to the future.

Stay tuned.