Nickeil Alexander-Walker rises to new heights to help Hawks dream in East

Atlanta Hawks coach Quin Snyder envisioned a job for Nickeil Alexander-Walker that Alexander-Walker hadn’t thought of.

“He saw a ceiling higher for myself than I did,” Alexander-Walker instructed NBA.com in a telephone interview. “And that was really cool for me because I felt like in my career I’ve never had that before.”

What did Snyder see? A participant who might common 20 factors, contribute extra as a playmaker and nonetheless present robust protection.

What has Alexander-Walker achieved? After becoming a member of the Hawks in free company last summerAlexander-Walker is having the perfect season of his profession. He has helped the Hawks to a 42-33 file, makes a compelling case for 2025-26 Kia Most Improved Player and is likely one of the most impactful free brokers from the summer of 2025.

Alexander-Walker, who is a cousin of Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, has doubled his scoring from 9.4 factors per recreation with the Minnesota Timberwolves final season to 20.4 ppg this season in simply eight extra minutes per recreation.

With elevated offensive duty, Alexander-Walker has maintained his taking pictures stats (45% from the sector, 39.1% on 3-pointers), doubled his 3s made per recreation (from 1.7 to 3.1), boosted his free-throw taking pictures proportion (90.1%) and doubled his steals (1.3 spg).

“He sees me as a person who can do more than what I was doing,” Alexander-Walker stated. “And that’s something that was very important to me: Could they see the potential through what I was only able to show them through my role?”

Drafted No. 17 by the New Orleans Pelicans in the 2019 NBA DraftAlexander-Walker was traded to the Portland Trail Blazers and Utah Jazz on the 2022 trade deadline and spent a short time with Snyder in Utah, which is a part of the story.

Growing his recreation in Minnesota

The Timberwolves acquired Alexander-Walker from Utah at the 2023 trade deadlinehowever he was the undercard on a three-team deal that despatched Mike Conley to Minnesota, D’Angelo Russell to the Los Angeles Lakers and three second-round picks to the Timberwolves.

Listed as a guard at 6-foot-5, Alexander-Walker settled into his function as a 3-and-D wing and blossomed. He was very important to Minnesota’s run to the Western Conference Finals in 2024 and 2025. But on Timberwolves squads that included Anthony Edwards and both Julius Randle or Karl-Anthony Towns, Minnesota did not want him to rating 20 factors typically.

There have been video games for the Timberwolves when his offense was crucial, and he confirmed he might do it, scoring 23 factors on 9-for-15 taking pictures in opposition to the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 4 of the West Finals.

As Alexander-Walker describes it, his function was “corner 3, get to the paint, eyes out, defend.” That’s not a criticism. It’s actuality, and Alexander-Walker thrived, making him a precedence for a number of groups in free company final summer season.

Although Snyder and Alexander-Walker spent simply two-plus months along with the Jazz in 2021-22, Snyder adopted Alexander-Walker’s profession. Snyder stated he believed that with the appropriate participant improvement program, Alexander-Walker may very well be that scorer recurrently.

“He said these are things we’ll need you to do,” Alexander-Walker stated. “And these issues weren’t issues that I used to be requested to do my earlier years. Just the flexibility to take contested pictures. He was like, ‘Hey, there would possibly come a time all through the sport we’d want you to take a contested shot.’ ”

‘Decision-maker’ arrives in Atlanta

It was a lightbulb second.

“A contested shot can be deemed a bad shot, but not really because you know a lot of great players, a lot of good players in this league, very rarely are they getting uncontested looks,” Alexander-Walker stated.

A sluggish begin – 2-for-15 on 3s in the primary two video games of 2025-26 – obscured the Hawks’ imaginative and prescient for Alexander-Walker. The message from Snyder did not change: Stay aggressive. Keep taking pictures.

“Because our hearts are in the right place, they often align with how we think and act,” Alexander-Walker stated. “And that makes it easier for him and I to work together to find my spots and settle into being a decision-maker.”

In his sixth recreation, he scored 21 factors, beginning a stretch of no less than 20 factors in 15 of his subsequent 22 video games, together with 38 in opposition to the San Antonio Spurs on Nov. 20.

He had a career-high 41 factors in a 124-112 victory in opposition to the Orlando Magic on March 16. In that recreation, he was 12-for-21 total, 9-for-14 on 3-pointers, 8-for-9 on free throws whereas additionally logging seven rebounds, 5 assists and two steals.

That started a month in which the Hawks went 12-2, shifting from ninth to sixth place in the East. In 15 video games in March, Alexander-Walker averaged a team-best 22.7 ppg and three.9 apg on taking pictures splits of 52.8%/46.8%/94.2%. His true taking pictures proportion (70.3%) is finest amongst all guards who performed no less than 10 video games and greater than 20 minutes per recreation in March.

“The thing that we’ve tried to impress upon him from the outset is that we need his aggressiveness (and) for him to understand that that’s not tied to whether or not the shot goes in,” Snyder stated. “If you are not discovering effectivity in a few of these conditions, let us take a look at them. Let’s work on them.

“He’s got such a tremendous work ethic, it’s logical that he’s going to improve as the season goes on. The game’s slowing down for him a little bit. He’s so aggressive that as he’s found his tempo in more and more of those situations, he’s gotten more efficient.”

‘The most enjoyable I’ve had taking part in basketball’

Alexander-Walker is full with gratitude. He does not take his scenario or career as a right, and that emerges in his solutions. He takes time to think about the query and ship a response that conveys what he means.

He stated this season is “probably the most enjoyable I’ve had taking part in basketball. I get to go by myself journey with all that I’ve realized, and I’ve tried not to take into consideration averaging X-amount of factors or doing X-amount of issues with extra utilization. My mindset is ‘simply get higher.’

“I’ve worked so hard for something like this. Nourish it. Treat it correctly. Honor it. Value it. That’s my focus.”

At the tip of the dialog, Alexander-Walker was requested if he had anything he needed to share. He named individuals who have been by his facet: his spouse, Sara; They are, Paris; mother, Nicole; Snyder; private basketball coach, Nem; Nate; Cali; Jalen; Shandon; Vince; Ashton; James; Kendall; and B. Bailey.

“Everyone named was part of my village from the summer to this year,” he stated, “and they’ve been tremendous.”

And so you’ve got Alexander-Walker.

* * *

Jeff Zillgitt has lined the NBA since 2008. You can e mail him at jzillgitt@nba.comdiscover his archive here and follow him on.