Hawks make concerning Onyeka Okongwu injury announcement

The Atlanta Hawks have been playing better basketball since the start of the season, and have moved up in the Eastern Conference standings. The Hawks recently made it to the elimination round of the NBA Cup, where they ended up falling to the eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks. The Hawks resume regular season play this week, but they’re going to be short-handed. Onyeka Okongwu will miss the Hawks’ next four games as he’s dealing with a knee injury, as per NBA insider Marc Stein.

The Hawks’ resume regular season play against the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday. Onyeka Okongwu isn’t the only player on the Hawks injury report. Second-year guard Kobe Bufkin will undergo season-ending surgery for a shoulder injury. In Okongwu’s case, he will be re-evaluated in one week.

The No. 6 overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, Okongwu spent one season of college basketball at USC before declaring for the NBA Draft. He’s considered one of the Hawks’ core players for the future and an important part of their frontcourt rotation.

Although Okongwu has come off the bench for the Hawks for the duration of his career, he’s been one of their most impactful players. He’s appeared in 25 games this season at a little over 23 minutes per game.

Okongwu has been averaging 11.3 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.4 assists with splits of 54.2 percent shooting from the field and 77.9 percent shooting from the free-throw line. His points per game is a career-high. That comes on the heels of his previous career-high last season of 10.2 points.

During his high school days, Okongwu played with the Ball brothers, Lonzo, LiAngelo and LaMelo at Chino Hills High School. He was a key part of the team that went 35-0 and won a California state championship. Okongwu also led Chino Hills to two more state titles in 2018 and 2019.

The Hawks currently sit at 14-13 and in in seventh place in the East standings. They have won seven of their last ten games.