The Atlanta Hawks leaned all the way into their identity for one of the NBA’s most creative schedule releases of the year.
To unveil their 2026-27 regular-season schedule, Atlanta recruited Samuel Henderson, the young bird-call specialist who went viral for his remarkable ability to imitate dozens of different species.
The video opens with Henderson introducing himself before explaining that, with Atlanta’s schedule now released, he would represent the Hawks’ opponents through bird calls. From there, the concept turns a routine list of NBA games into a rapid sequence of impressions, jokes and visual references tied to the teams Atlanta will face throughout the season.
The schedule is (bird) calling 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/FEItKvFPFr
— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) August 13, 2026
It is an unusually natural partnership.
Henderson became a viral sensation after footage of him performing bird impressions at a school talent show spread online. The Oklahoma youngster is able to imitate roughly 50 different birds, from blue jays and robins to more difficult calls such as the barn swallow.
That made him an almost tailor-made choice for the Hawks.
Schedule-release day has increasingly become its own competition around the league. Teams now invest heavily in elaborate videos, parody films, animation and pop-culture concepts rather than simply publishing 82 dates on a graphic.
Chicago approached its 2026-27 announcement with a GTA-inspired mission starring Benny the Bull. Atlanta took a completely different route and found its hook in something much simpler: a kid who happens to sound remarkably like the animal on the front of the Hawks’ jersey.
The result feels less like an advertisement and more like an internet moment the Hawks happened to build an NBA schedule around.
