Hawks boss Travis Schlenk has started the rebuild that his front-office predecessors (and his current owner) botched . The roster is pretty much full, the early reviews are in and, predictably, they are not good.
The betting markets set the over/under win total for the Hawks at 34.5 (with extra juice for the over). That's a higher total than seven teams: the Nets (20.5), Bulls (28.5), Pacers (31.5), Lakers (32.5), Knicks (32.5), Suns (25.5) and Kings (30.5). (Note that four of those teams play in the East, a sign of how the Hawks will have stiff competition in their race to the bottom of the standings and the top of the lottery odds.)
Matt Moore of CBSSports.com takes an even dimmer view of the Hawks than the betting markets: He has them dead last in his power rankings. That was back on July 10, before the Hawks added Dewayne Dedmon and Ersan Ilyasova, but those signings actually lowered the over/under total on the betting market. And SportsLine's computer model has the Hawks winning 33.2 games, good for 11th in the East with a 10.3 percent chance of making the playoffs.
It’s hard to disagree that the Hawks won’t be a good team. But I think they will be a competitive team because, as currently constructed, they have a chance to be a good defensive team.
Look at the CARMELO ratings at FiveThirtyEight.com, which project player performance by comparing their statistical profile to similar players throughout history. Those projections identify two current Hawks, forward Kent Bazemore and center Miles Plumlee, as "defensive specialists." CARMELO also gives high defensive marks to Dedmond and Taurean Prince, pretty good marks to Mike Muscala, and projects rookie John Collins as potentially a very good defender.
Certainly coach Mike Budenholzer is capable of molding this group into a good defensive team. He's already established a defensive culture: the Hawks have ranked sixth or better in defensive efficiency over his past three seasons. Even below-average defenders tend to be part of good defensive units under Budenholzer .
Scoring, not defense, has been the Hawks' problem under Budenholzer (except during that outlier 60-win season and, even then, the offense dried up during the playoffs). That's one big reason I thought it made no sense to sign Dwight Howard . To undo that mistake Schlenk had to take on Plumlee's onerous contract but at least he might help them defensively.
The Hawks won’t be every good but they should be able to depend on defense to keep them competitive until Schlenk can make moves to make them a better team overall.
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