FiveThirtyEight.com: The Hawks Will Be The Same, But Worse

[Jamaaliver]

Statistical projection of what to expect from ATL this season:

Note: The author worked for the Hawks as a statistical consultant during the 2013-14 season.

How do you build on what was arguably the best season in franchise history? That’s the question facing the Atlanta Hawks on the eve of the 2015-16 season. And what a campaign to have to surpass: 60 wins, the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference and a berth in the NBA’s Final Four (albeit a brief one, ending in a sweep). Aside from the loss of swingman DeMarre Carroll, Atlanta will bring back all of its key players from a year ago, but FiveThirtyEight’s...projection system thinks it will still be difficult for the Hawks to reach last season’s heights. Our projections call for declines from practically all of the players who powered Atlanta’s unexpected rise, particularly Paul Millsap and Kyle Korver. What’s left over after the fall should still be a solid-enough team. But [our system] projects Atlanta to go 45-37, which may not place the Hawks among the top half of Eastern Conference playoff teams, much less allow them to vie for the East’s best record again.

[nybluemeadow]

What was the prediction of FiveThirtyEight.com for the 2014-15 season???? ..... 60 wins???

Despite winning just 38 games, the Hawks once again made the playoffs last season — for the seventh straight season — and, once again, exited in the first round (the fourth time that’s happened during the current run). To their credit, the Hawks managed to squeak into the postseason despite the loss of star big man Al Horford to injury for most of the year.

For 2014-15, our model projects Atlanta to finish with 44 wins, sixth in the East.6 In continuing the team’s trajectory of modest success, head coach Mike Budenholzer will probably emphasize Spurs-y fundamentals: passing and long-range shooting.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2014-nba-preview-key-offseason-pickups-should-give-the-cavs-a-boost/

[Jamaaliver]

What was the prediction of FiveThirtyEight.com for the 2014-15 season???? ..... 60 wins???

Despite winning just 38 games, the Hawks once again made the playoffs last season — for the seventh straight season — and, once again, exited in the first round (the fourth time that’s happened during the current run). To their credit, the Hawks managed to squeak into the postseason despite the loss of star big man Al Horford to injury for most of the year.

For 2014-15, our model projects Atlanta to finish with 44 wins, sixth in the East.6 In continuing the team’s trajectory of modest success, head coach Mike Budenholzer will probably emphasize Spurs-y fundamentals: passing and long-range shooting.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2014-nba-preview-key-offseason-pickups-should-give-the-cavs-a-boost/

VERY good point.

It'll be fun seeing if we can exceed their predictions by a dozen games for the 2nd year in a row.

[PandaKidd]

I will set the over under at 52 Wins.

I will take the over, but not by much. I think they will be a 52/53 win team.

Through DEC 2nd i have them at 15-7. I could see them winning as many as 59 and as little as 43/45.

[Jamaaliver]

I will set the over under at 52 Wins.

I will take the over, but not by much. I think they will be a 52/53 win team.

Through DEC 2nd i have them at 15-7. I could see them winning as many as 59 and as little as 43/45.

All of this seems reasonable. It all comes down to health.

Tiago and AL's, mostly. But also the recovery time of Korver and Thabo.

[ATLHawksfan21]

Barring major injury, we win closer to 60 than 50 and have the southeast locked up with 2-3 weeks left in the season. We give a better performance against Cleveland in the ECFs and likely come up short.

[MaceCase]

Two different formulas and they come to the same conclusion in two different seasons? I wont claim a bias but I know at least with Hollinger's metrics he tweaked them to be representative of common perception rather than just letting the numbers tell their own story as in "the numbers need to reflect that Jordan was the best or it's back to the drawing board". Will give it a grain of salt until they either stick with a consistent metric or develop one that more accurately predicts a season's outcome because whiffing by ~15 games isn't exactly grounds to put much stock into something unless they then begin to claim that Bud is running the most anomalous team ever.

[Jamaaliver]

So, even though we failed to approach last season's win total...we at least exceeded this projection's prediction by three or four games.

Still, 49 wins is a sobering number of victories.

We have a great coach and a very good system...but we need an influx of talent.


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[ATLHawksfan21]

The loss of Pero combined with Splitter's complete uselessness cost us a handful of games this year. I think we would have won around 55 if we had a competent backup C for the full season.

My two biggest failures in predicting this season were underestimating the impact of Korver's offseason surgeries and overrating Splitter.

[jayu70]

Biggest reasons.
1. Teague and Al's slow start, I didn't expect that
2. I expected Korver to struggle coming off elbow and ankle surgery and no offseason training so I expected Teague n Al to elevate their play
3. Incorporating Bazemore into offense wasn't as seamless as I expected - he didn't have Carrolls feel for the game and didn't play of Al n Sap the way Carroll did.
4. Our defense took a while to get in sync
5. Some games it looked like the players thought just showing up in arena was enough.
6. Splitter was hurt since November so we never got what I expected.

[Geaux_Hawks]

So, even though we failed to approach last season's win total...we at least exceeded this projection's prediction by three or four games.

Still, 49 wins is a sobering number of victories.

We have a great coach and a very good system...but we need an influx of talent.


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Our team summed up perfectly. Simply don't have enough talent to do anything better than what we are doing. Sap and Teague are 2nd fiddle kind of guys, while Horford is a Swiss army knife capable of doing a lot of things, but not many great ones. Baze and Kyle should be on the bench, but we don't have better unless THJ turns a big corner over the summer.

On top of that. we don't have a bench strong enough to really make a huge impact. If we had better reserves capable of doing their job at a 6MOY level, then we might actually have more consistent production overall.

Boston comes to mind as a lite version of the Hawks, but with depth. Imagine if we had Sullinger, Olynyk, and Evan Turner coming off the bench with Dennis and Thabo. Would give us a lot less drop off than what we currently have to go through.

Definitely need to go after some better reserve guys this year in free agency, and maybe make a move for one in a trade. As you yourself point out a lot, blown draft picks have hurt us since we haven't gotten any value from them nor developed any of them into serviceable players.

At the end of the day, the current results is what we should expect from this kind of team.