The Hawks are the upstart team of this year’s conference finals, with Trae Young now eyeing a surprise run to the Finals way ahead of the franchise’s expected timeline. Yet as the Hawks enter Game 2 on Friday night in unfamiliar territory, the latter rounds of the playoffs aren’t so foreign to one of their most impactful players.
It wasn’t long ago that we saw Clint Capela in a different shade of red in the NBA’s Final Four. Capela’s growth as a young player coincided with the Rockets’ rise in the Western Conference, and before being traded in February 2020, Capela logged more than 1,300 playoff minutes.