Atlanta Hawks O/U 47.5
The Hawks rolled into the playoffs with a 27-11 closing record and nearly qualified for the Finals. Can they maintain their momentum into this season?
What happened last season?
It was an easy narrative to push. The Hawks were significantly underachieving against the promise – perhaps an ownership mandate – of making the playoffs. The past three seasons ended with less than 30 wins and at 14-20 midway through the season, the Hawks were on pace fall short of 30 wins again. Head coach Lloyd Pierce was relieved of his duty and replaced by Nate McMillan. Immediately, Atlanta strung together a 7-game win streak in route to a 27-11 blitz to end the season. More impressively, the McMillan-led Hawks comfortably dismissed the New York Knicks in the first round, toppled a title contender in Game 7 on the road, and were maybe an ankle turn away from making the Finals.
There’s a more nuanced story here. The Hawks’ promise was founded on the expected development of their young, lottery-worthy talent being buttressed by solid (and expensive) veterans. The youthful core uniformly delivered – Collins, Huerter, Hunter, Reddish, and of course, Trae Young – all improved upon the previous year’s campaign.
In sharp contrast, the veterans fell way short of expectations in Pierce’s reign. Gallinari was mired in a shooting slump and missed an obligatory 12 games early in the season. Rondo failed to fit in at all. Kris Dunn was unavailable with injury. Most crucially, Bogdanovic missed seven weeks. McMillan’s first game as head coach just so happened to coincide with Bogdanovic’s return.
Trae Young finally had a backcourt partner in Bogdanovic to relieve him from the constant burden of creating shots and found even more relief when the Hawks swapped the reluctant-to-shoot Rondo for the antonym-for-reluctant-to-shoot Lou Williams. Trae went on a mini-tear to end the season, topping 30 points in six of his last 11 regular season games, two of which were shortened stints as the Hawks rolled past tanking teams to finish the season and clinch the division title.
Trae benefited even more from his pick-and-roll partner, Clint Capela. Capela was acquired via trade during the 2019-2020 season but never got to don a Hawks jersey until this past season. Young’s equally frightening threats of pulling up for jumpers or utilizing the most reliable floater since Tony Parker’s resulted in alley-oop finishes for Capela all season long. Capela finished the season with the most paint touches in the league, but you would have to ask the Hawks’ video assistant to put in overtime to find a clip of Capela posting up. Trae Young was critical to maximizing Capela’s use on offense. Capela also was a plus rim defender who was first center out in All-Defense Team voting.
While Trae was heating up, Hunter and Reddish were lost to lengthy injuries. Hunter had emerged as a solid two-way player after exhibiting almost nothing positive on offense in his rookie season. Reddish was making modest improvements and had earned just shy of 29 minutes per game. However, their injuries ensured heavier minutes for John Collins and Kevin Huerter who are better players at this stage. Collins had vented some frustration with Young’s heavy share of shots but found more to eat as the season progressed. He was also a capable pick-and-roll partner with Young and had honed a jumper all the way out to the three-point line. Huerter showed even more of his playmaking ability he had flashed in earlier seasons, including running the second most pick-and-rolls for the team.
Trae wouldn’t cool off from his late season rush until a 5-for-23 shooting performance in Game 7 against the Philadelphia 76ers in the second round. He mitigated his game-long shooting struggles by making a 30-foot bomb that doubled Atlanta’s lead late in the fourth. In the conference finals, he poured on 48 in a win and 35 in a loss to the Milwaukee Bucks before his ankle injury knocked him out of Games 4 and 5 and clearly compromised him in Game 6. Trae’s playoff debut and Atlanta’s turnaround were only surpassed by their potential Finals opponent of Devin Booker and the Suns.
What happened in the offseason?
Atlanta’s chips went in the middle last offseason, so this offseason finds them mostly standing pat, mostly satisfied with the incredible progress made in one year. Of their top 12 leaders in minutes from last season, only Tony Snell – who would have led the league in 3-pt percentage had he qualified – departs the team. Delon Wright will take his spot in the backcourt rotation. Wright doesn’t quite have the steady hand of Rondo or the lockdown defense of the also departed Kris Dunn, but he’s reasonable blend of the two. Lou Williams was retained to play the role of Bench Trae Young.
Gorgui Dieng is a solid minimum contract signing who will soak up backup center minutes until Okongwu returns from injury. The Hawks added 19-year-old forward Jalen Johnson to its young roster with the 20th pick in the draft. Jalen would likely only see playing time with a lengthy injury to one of the more established wings. Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot is the last player to make the roster. He too is likely stuck behind the incumbents despite logging nearly 2,000 minutes with the Nets over the last two seasons.
What will happen this season?
Was the 2020-2021 outcome a massive rung up the ladder to even greater future successes or was it mooning with a regression to come? Atlanta has five major contributors under age 25 plus Clint Capela and Bogdanovic in their primes, all of whom demonstrated ascendancy in last season’s campaign. The group obviously had more success in the second half the year, perhaps in part due to gaining cohesion between the returning young core and incoming veterans. The Hawks will return the second most minutes in the league, which should give them a head-start that they didn’t have last season. It’s also reasonable to expect that Hunter, Bogdanovic, and Reddish won’t be sidelined with substantial injuries.
Progress, however, is often not linear. Hunter showed incredible progress from Year 1 to 2, but that was done in less minutes and some regression is expected. We should expect progress from the other four of the core, but one that is more modest than the progress they made last year.
Expectations are high due to their playoff success and some recency bias. 27-11 with Nate McMillian should not be automatically prorated to an 82-game season – the 14-20 matters too. Trae Young set the world on fire in the playoffs, but his regular season start get him a spot on the All-Star team, unfairly or not. And despite bad injury luck last season, Okongwu is already on the shelf at least through 2021. Gallinari should be expected to miss 25% of the season per usual. Solomon Hill will be a rotation player as a result, and he’s a player barely worthy of one-year minimum contracts at this stage. The same is true for Lou Williams who is steadily losing scoring efficiency and remains an easy target for opposing offenses.
One of the early season curiosities of the season will be the NBA’s official’s change in calling certain offensive foul calls, particularly for shooters who bait defenders into the air and leap into them. Trae Young didn’t invent move but he’s embraced the unaesthetically pleasing practice. Young started last season with four straight games with at least 14 free throw attempts and then had a cluster of 7 games in 8 with double digit free throw attempts in January. Outcries ensued from coaches across the league. Referees adjusted in February; Young’s attempts dropped to less than 7 per game and Young generally struggled. Despite the February dip, Trae finished the season fourth in free throw attempts per game with 8.7. It’s reasonable to expect Trae will fall short of those marks with this new point of emphasis.
The projection
The Hawks jumped from multiple seasons between 29%- and 35%-win percentages to 57% including a doubling of wins between the last two seasons. Their win percentage improvement of 27% is the 23rd highest of all time.
The teams that sustained their success were the ones that added a superstar or superstars – Garnett and Allen, Duncan and Robinson, Nash, Kareem. The ones that didn’t – the 2005 Bulls, 2014 Suns, 2015 Bucks – all came back to Earth a bit and failed to exceed the win percentage from the leap year. The win total established by the bookies (47) asks for a win percentage (57.3%) that tops the Hawks’ 2020-2021 rate.
The Hawks are a safe bet to make the playoffs and 50 wins is a realistic outcome with an All-NBA 1st or 2nd All-NBA Team season from Trae Young. However, I expect a slight step back in the regular season before becoming a threat to pull off a playoff upset for a second straight year.