NBA Over/Under Regular Season Wins 

Atlanta Hawks - 42.5 wins

October 22, 2023

The Case for the Over

The Hawks have had successful offenses in the Trae Young era, finishing top-10 each of the last three seasons. The Jazz also had really good offenses under Quin Snyder, finishing in the top three both of his last two seasons in Utah. After joining Atlanta mid-way through last season, Snyder will now have a full off-season and training camp to implement his concepts. The Jazz generally were a very good regular season team under Snyder. Those Jazz offenses were built around spread pick-and-roll with a dynamic guard and rim-running center, and surrounding that with shooters. The Hawks don’t have the high-level shooters that the Jazz had, but I think they could apply similar concepts with just enough shooting to make it work. I would be surprised if this isn’t a top-10 offense, and think there’s a good chance they could be top-5. If they are, all they would need is a decent defense to hit the over here. 

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We could see growth from young players like Onyeka Okongwu, Saddiq Bey, AJ Griffin and Jalen Johnson. There aren’t many players you expect to be regression candidates, although Clint Capela (29) and Bogdan Bogdanovic (31) are slight possibilities for this. 

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The Case for the Under

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They won just 41 games last year, and had a similar point differential. From a talent perspective, losing John Collins and not adding anyone significant is technically a downgrade, so you’re banking on internal improvement and better coaching. 

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As noted above, they still don’t have a lot of shooting, especially if Patty Mills doesn’t have much left in the tank at age 35 and Garrison Mathews doesn’t defend well enough to stay on the court. Does surrounding a Young/Capela pick-and-roll with Bogdanovic, De’Andre Hunter, and Bey work as well as surrounding a Donovan Mitchell/Rudy Gobert pick-and-roll with Mike Conley, Joe Ingles, and Bojan Bogdanovic? Young is a worlds better passer than Mitchell, but how much does that help if the shooting threats aren’t the same?

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The Hawks aren’t that deep. If they deal with some injuries and guys like Johnson, Mills, Mathews, Wesley Matthews, Kobe Bufkin, and Bruno Fernando aren’t good enough to keep them afloat, they could struggle. They still have financial issues in the future that could cause them to dump more players like they did with Collins, although it’s unlikely they would do anything that hurts them too much in the short-term. 

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Conclusion

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This might be my favorite over on the board. I think this team just has enough talent and should be potent enough offensively to win a good number of games. I’m not sure how well it will translate to playoff success, but in the regular season I think they will be successful.