{"id":13680,"date":"2022-02-01T09:02:41","date_gmt":"2022-02-01T09:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/2022\/02\/01\/atlanta-hawks-onyeka-okongwu-thinks-he-should-get-a-rising-stars-nod\/"},"modified":"2022-02-01T09:02:42","modified_gmt":"2022-02-01T09:02:42","slug":"atlanta-hawks-onyeka-okongwu-thinks-he-should-get-a-rising-stars-nod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/atlanta-hawks-onyeka-okongwu-thinks-he-should-get-a-rising-stars-nod\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlanta Hawks&#8217; Onyeka Okongwu Thinks He &#8216;Should Get A Rising Stars Nod&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"ad-disqus\">\n<p>In his second season, Onyeka Okongwu<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>has shown the potential the Atlanta Hawks envisioned by increasing the minutes of the sixth overall in the 2020 NBA draft. During the final quarter of the Hawks\u2019 129-121 comeback win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday, Okongwu decided to put on a slam dunk exhibition in the fourth quarter.  <\/p>\n<p>Okongwu<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>finished with 16 points, five rebounds, and one steal. <\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">ARE YOU SERIOUS \ud83e\udd2f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Of17M37SMh\">pic.twitter.com\/Of17M37SMh<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ATLHawks\/status\/1487882360519421953?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 30, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Okongwu<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>recently stated in an interview with Hoopshype that he believes he should be invited to the Rising Stars Challenge on All-Star Weekend in Cleveland.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverybody can see what I do out there on the court. I think my play really speaks for itself, especially defensively with what I\u2019ve been able to do, guarding on the ball and helping. Offensively, I\u2019ve got my confidence back. I\u2019ve doubled my points scoring to almost 10. At the end of the day, we\u2019re on a six-game winning streak playing good basketball, and I\u2019m part of the mix, which is always a blessing. I\u2019m thankful to be able to be on the Hawks, and we\u2019re playing good basketball. I think, all things considered, I should get a Rising Stars nod\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The Hawks\u2019 backup center has been a major contributor to the team\u2019s success this season, as his skill and athleticism work well alongside Trae Young and John Collins in their small-ball lineups.<\/p>\n<p>Okongwu<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>is one of only three players (Rudy Gobert and Robert Williams the others) to average nine or more points (9.7) six or more rebounds (6.0) while shooting over 70 percent from the field (74.4 percent).<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"http:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script>\n\t! function(f, b, e, v, n, t, s) {\n\t\tif (f.fbq) return;\n\t\tn = f.fbq = function() {\n\t\t\tn.callMethod ?\n\t\t\t\tn.callMethod.apply(n, arguments) : n.queue.push(arguments)\n\t\t};\n\t\tif (!f._fbq) f._fbq = n;\n\t\tn.push = n;\n\t\tn.loaded = !0;\n\t\tn.version = '2.0';\n\t\tn.queue = [];\n\t\tt = b.createElement(e);\n\t\tt.async = !0;\n\t\tt.src = v;\n\t\ts = b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n\t\ts.parentNode.insertBefore(t, s)\n\t}(window, document, 'script',\n\t\t'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n\tfbq('init', '166515104100547');\n\tfbq('track', 'PageView');\n\t<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In his second season, Onyeka Okongwu\u00a0has shown the potential the Atlanta Hawks envisioned by increasing the minutes of the sixth overall in the 2020 NBA draft. During the final quarter of the Hawks\u2019 129-121 comeback win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday, Okongwu decided to put on a slam dunk exhibition in the fourth<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[1013,763,2486,2485,1276,261,1642],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13680"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13682,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13680\/revisions\/13682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}