SB Nation • 7 min read

25 in 25: No. 8 Clint Capela

This is a series that looks at the best Atlanta Hawks of the past 25 seasons dating back to the 2000-01 season. No. 9 John Collins can be found here.

No one knew what to expect when the Hawks traded a first-round

pick at the deadline for a player nursing a season-ending heel injury only for the team to finish 20-47.

Had Houston gotten the peak years of Clint Capela’s services and sold Atlanta a lemon? Add to that the decision to draft a center with the sixth overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, and now you had major questions about how Capela fit into the short and long-term plans.

Well, that gamble paid off just months after the start of the 2020-21 season with Capela and the team enjoying maybe his finest season of his career.

Despite an abrupt coaching change and a rotating cast of injury absences, Capela was one major constant that season. He averaged 15.2 points, 14.3 rebounds (!), and 2.0 blocks in 30.1 minutes per game. The rebounding figure is particularly eyepopping, with his 17.1 rebounds per 36 minutes that year second in the league to only former Hawk Dwight Howard.

He anchored a defense that, on paper, looked very porous — especially on the perimeter after Cam Reddish and De’Andre Hunter went down. But Capela almost single handedly made it a respectable 12th in the league during the second half of a season, something that correlated with a 27-11 record under Nate McMillan and a long playoff run. For this performance, Capela finished sixth in the Defensive Player of the Year regular season voting.

Yes, Capela is a very limited offensive player, but when paired with lob extraordinaire Trae Young, he becomes a real weapon with his screening and rolling — not to mention his hustle sprinting in transition for easy points. After an abbreviated final season with the Rockets plus a layoff for the pandemic, it quickly became clear that that time off let Capela regain his burst and explosiveness off the floor to finish dunks, contest shots at the rim, and snatch rebounds off the glass.

The next two seasons were similar levels of play for the Swiss big man, although like the team, they didn’t quite reach the heights from 2020-21. But through it all, Capela held off high lottery pick Onyeka Okongwu for the starting center spot.

2023-24 was the beginning of his true decline, with his touch for finishing shots around the rim rapidly evaporating and his mobility beginning to show signs of decline. There was no bigger statistical representation of this aging than losing eight percentage points on his field goal percentage (65% to 57%) compared to the season before.

After a hot start in 2024-25, there was a real debate to be had as to whether Capela was physically up to the challenge of leading a team as the defensive anchor. By midseason, Capela had ceded his starting spot to Okongwu, and the writing was on the figurative wall regarding his future with the organization.

But through it all, Clint Capela was a hardworking, consummate professional who provided energy, toughness, and plain tenacity to a team that made the playoffs in three straight seasons and the postseason in five.

He’s now back in the place where his NBA career started, Houston, and in a reserve center role that will fit him well. But Capela checks in as the eighth best Hawk in the past 25 seasons for his contributions towards revamping a previously bottom of the barrel defense.

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8. Clint Capela

9. John Collins

10. Jalen Johnson

11. Jason Terry

12. Bogdan Bogdanović