Veesaar is done for the year before camp even opens

Henri Veesaar tore the ACL in his right knee during a workout last week. He's a rookie 7-footer the Hawks were counting on to back up Onyeka Okongwu, and now he's out for the season.

That's the whole transaction. It's a bad one. Atlanta spent the summer trying to address a bench that fell apart in the first round, and the injury list has been eating into that work since July. Gueye's foot, Gilbert and Dennis in various states of day-to-day — and now the one young big who might have grown into something behind Okongwu is gone before he played a minute.

The Veesaar loss is less about this season's rotation and more about what it costs the organization developmentally. A 7-footer with some versatility is worth keeping around even if he's not ready. Now he sits a full year, and Atlanta goes into camp with Okongwu as the only reliable center on the depth chart.