The start of the NBA season is just a few days away, and we’ve got you covered with how to bet every single team in the NBA. Here’s a guide to betting the Atlanta Hawks.
Atlanta Hawks
Win Total: 35.6 | Moore's Projection: 34.8
Bet/Lean/Pass: Lean Under, No Bet.
Handicap
The Hawks are going to be a sharp darling in preseason betting. There's too much talent on the roster in a soft division and an easy scapegoat to blame for the struggles the past few years. You're going to hear and read a lot about their division odds and make-playoff odds.
I'm not fading those ideas. The reasonings are sound, but I'm unswayed to bet them.
Let's talk about the talent.
Trae Young exists in a bizarre limbo. He is underrated by skill and talent, but overrated by his level of perceived responsibility for the team's struggles. I'll explain.
Young's one of the five or 10 best passers in the NBA. He can make any read from anywhere with whatever type of pass he needs. He can thread needles, reverse court and throw outlet dimes. He can hit the pocket, the weak-side corner, the flare. Whatever pass his team needs, he can make. He had a bad start to the season from 3-point range, but shot 42% from deep after the All-Star break. It was a blip, not a trend.
His defensive effort last year was also the highest of his career. He gave what should be asked of him on that end. He competed and tried to be disruptive. He's never going to be a net-neutral-or-better defender because of his size, but Young's problem last year wasn't an unwillingness to work.
But there is a problem where no one thrives next to him. The Hawks have a talented roster that has contributed to no playoff series wins since the 2021 run. They added a well-regarded coach in Quin Snyder last year and it didn't matter.
This was the worst team in the league against the spread last season, and the third-worst team since 2003, when we have data available. You'll see how that worked out for teams the next season down below.
Jalen Johnson is a Most Improved Candidate with size and skill. Clint Capela is still a very serviceable center, which is good since they haven't been able to trade him for three years. They added No.1 pick Zaccharie Risacher, who seems ready to play a steady non-star role and Bogdan Bogdanovic is a great replacement for Dejounte Murray. DeAndre Hunter is a good 3-and-D wing.
The Hawks added Dyson Daniel, who flashed great defensive ability and floor spacing last year. Larry Nance brings a veteran presence to the second unit and Onyeka Okongwu had a rough season but still has a great toolkit.
It's all there roster-wise.
But outside of Daniels and Dyson, all those players were around last year, and the year before. Why were they a sub-.500 team?
The analytics say it was Murray.
Murray had the worst on-court net rating of any player with at least 800 minutes on Atlanta. In fact, the Hawks lost his on-court minutes by 2.7 points per 100 possessions. His defense was categorically awful by both metrics and film. Atlanta's defense was seven-points worse with him on the floor, markedly worse than Young's 3.8.
Just take Murray out and things will be better, or at least that's the idea.
However, that doesn't make any sense with his career arc. Murray still had a better Defensive EPM than Young, which tracks. Last year was the worst defensive season by on-court defensive rating of his career, after his first season with Atlanta. One way to look at that is that he's getting worse and worse every season.
Another is that Murray was a good and helpful athletic defender until he showed up to Young's team, which has been bad every year of his career.
What's more likely … that Murray is the problem? Or that Murray was made worse by his situation?
And if Murray wasn't the problem, what does that mean for the Hawks? You can believe they got better with the additions of Nance and Dyson — two bench players with minimum impact statistically last season — and not think they're going to somehow be good enough to get over, either.
The entire thing falls apart if Murray wasn't the problem.
I thought the Hawks would be better last season because of Snyder. So, I'm left wondering what it means that Snyder couldn't make a dent in this team's woeful identity and lack of effort last season. They might not be salvageable.
Trends
Since 2011, not including the 2020 COVID-shortened season …
- Teams with a win total north of 35 who had an ATS percentage of 45% or worse the previous season are 18-12 to the under (60%).
- Drop the ATS percentage to 40% and it becomes 4-1 to the under.
- Bottom-five defenses with a win total the next season greater than 35 are 12-5-1 to the under (67%). I worried that was weighted too heavily by teams with high win totals, but bottom-10 defensive teams with a win total below 40 are 22-17 to the under (55%). Between 30 and 45 (not bad, not good teams), the under is 15-6-1 (68%) for bottom-10 defensive teams the following season.
How It Goes Over
Murray really was the problem. The team gels with a great offense around a bounce-back season from Young, Risacher hits either as a scorer or capable all-around wing and a third player steps up to be the other major weapon. Snyder gets the defense into being decent, maybe even good.
How It Goes Under
Murray is not the single worst impacting starter in the NBA. The Hawks are what they have been for most of Young's career, a good not elite offense driven by a ball-dominant undersized defensive liability and Atlanta has to face the fact that the Trae Young Era simply is not successful at this point.
Data provided by NBA.com/stats, Basketball-Reference.com, DunksAndThrees.com, and PositiveResidual.com.
