ATLANTA — The Hawks have played 14 games in January. Onyeka Okongwu is the only regular to play in all of them. They’ve had their full starting lineup available for only one of those games. The Hawks started G League call-up Keaton Wallace and fringe veteran David Roddy at Minnesota on Monday. Mouhamed Gueye made his first career start Tuesday against the Houston Rockets.

This is the current state of the Hawks. They’ve had a lot of injuries and, relatedly, a lot of inconsistent play. Now comes the most damaging injury of them all. Forward Jalen Johnson, their most important player, is set to undergo season-ending shoulder surgery. The news came a day after the Hawks’ loss to Houston at State Farm Arena to extend their season-long losing skid to six games.

The Hawks were injured and inconsistent earlier in the season, too. In between, they looked like a pretty good team with room for growth. The loss of Johnson pretty much ends any chance that this team will do anything in the postseason. That’s assuming the Hawks (22-25) make it.

After losing to the Rockets, they stood ninth in the Eastern Conference with 47 games to play, just three games above the cut-off line for the play-in tournament. Johnson’s season-ending injury means it’s time for the Hawks to focus more on building for the future than fortifying for this season. That was the case before his injury, too, but now the scale tips even more to the side of forward-thinking.

General manager Landry Fields has a tough challenge before the Feb. 6 deadline. He must evaluate a roster that hasn’t been whole for more than a few games at a time while deciding what moves to make (or not).

Some of his decisions should be easy. Fields must try to get something of value — first-round draft picks or promising young players — in exchange for Bogdan Bogdanovic (unlikely) and Clint Capela (probable). Other decisions will be tougher for Fields.

To wit: Should the Hawks try to trade De’Andre Hunter now that he’s found his niche as a shooter off the bench when they need all the shot-makers they can get? I think the Hawks should sell high on Hunter if they can, but I’d understand if they decided to keep him as part of the next phase of roster building.

I hate to sound wishy-washy, but that’s the kind of analysis the Hawks inspire. They’ve been stuck in the middle for three-plus years. They’ve taken that to new extremes this season.

The Hawks are 4-1 against the East’s top two teams, Cleveland and Boston. They are 2-5 against the terrible trio of Toronto, Washington and Portland. Before the six-game win steak, the Hawks won three games in a row, with victories over playoff contenders Boston and Phoenix. They’ve finally built a solid defensive team, only to see the offense fall off.

Maybe the Hawks can break free from their middling pattern if their current core group could stay healthy. Johnson hasn’t been able to do it.

Wrist and ankle injuries limited Johnson to 52 games last season. He didn’t play when the Hawks lost a play-in game at Chicago to end their season. Now Johnson is done after 36 games this season. The Hawks need Johnson because of everything he does at 6-foot-9 with a 6-11 wingspan: dribble, pass, score efficiently, defend and run the floor.

The Hawks will have to find a way to get out of their spin without Johnson.

“We’ve had an unusual amount of (adversity), frankly, with some guys that are pretty important for how we play,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said before the loss to the Rockets. “I think you have to block it out. It doesn’t take very long for people to forget that you are banged up. You lose a couple games in a row, and you are on a slide, and you used to be pretty good, and now you’re not.

“There’s a lot of psychological stuff that comes into play. And that’s what it is. You’ve got to continue to push through that stuff.”

The Hawks usually play with edge. They aren’t good enough to win when they don’t, especially since they struggle to make shots. Per NBA tracking data, the Hawks generate “wide open” shots (no defender within six feet) more frequently than all but nine teams. They make a lower percentage of those shots than just three teams.

The Hawks can improve their offense with better shooters and scorers. They can improve the defense with more size and rim protection at center and power forward. Fields will have to pick a direction for this team and then be creative in making transactions to move them that way. He’s got something to build on with Young, Johnson, Dyson Daniels and Zaccharie Risacher.

Bogdanovic will be hard to move now. His production and durability have declined, and he’s owed $16 million next season. He was listed as out for “personal reasons” Tuesday after he dressed but didn’t play Monday. Capela no longer is in the starting lineup. He’ll be a free agent this summer and should draw interest from contending teams looking for a solid big man.

Hunter once seemed to be a no-brainer to send away, too, but now he’s averaging 19 points per game while shooting better than 40% on 3-pointers. Still, Hunter doesn’t do much of anything else on offense, doesn’t help with rebounding and is just an OK wing defender. He also has a long injury history and two years and $51 million left on his contract after this season.

Hunter would be valuable for a contending team with a high payroll that just needs a good shooter. That’s not the Hawks. One-dimensional shooters can be had for cheaper than his salary of $20 million-plus. The Hawks can hope that Risacher will find his jump shot. The rookie still is only 19.

Per Cleaning the Glass, the Hawks rank 20th in offensive efficiency and 14th in defensive efficiency. If that’s how they finish, then it would be their worst offense and best defense since they stopped tanking starting in 2020-21. The chances are high that they’ll decline at both ends of the floor without Johnson.

Over the next few days, Fields can make moves that improve the long-term outlook. In the meantime, the Hawks just need better health.

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