Will the Hawks Win 60 Games in 2015-16?
60 win seasons are rare in the Eastern Conference. Doing it twice is something of a phenomenon, particularly in this era of iconic talents, smothering defenders and explosive playmakers.
The Boston Celtics won 66 games one year and 62 games the next. They got one NBA Finals appearance out of it and one ring in 2008.
The Cleveland Cavaliers won 66 games and then 61 games in back to back years, 2008-10. They lost in the conference finals and in the conference semi-finals and pushed LeBron James out the door.
The Chicago Bulls won 62 games and then 50 games the following year. That 50 win season was in the lockout year with a reduced schedule. Had a 82 game schedule been played, the Bulls would have won 62 games. The Bulls lost in the Eastern Conference Finals in 2011. The following year they lost in the first round due to a Derrick Rose injury.
May 13, 2015; Atlanta, GA, USA; Atlanta Hawks forward DeMarre Carroll (5) celebrates their win over the Washington Wizards in game five of the second round of the NBA Playoffs at Philips Arena. The Hawks won 82-81. Mandatory Credit: Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports
The Atlanta Hawks, winner of 60 games in 2014-15, loser in the Conference Finals, hope to duplicate their regular season 60 win mark. But this is what they are facing. The Celtics pulled it off with Kevin Garnett, a MVP on their roster. The Cavaliers pulled it off with LeBron James, a multiple MVP on their roster. The Bulls pulled it off with Derrick Rose, a MVP on their roster. Those teams were able to win 73% of their games in back to back years, partly because of their once-in-a-generation players.
Can the Hawks have that same kind of sustained excellence minus a league MVP?
It’s a fair question to ask. How much of what happened this year can be duplicated and how much of it was a perfect storm where everything-everything fell the right way. Was it a year for the ages, for history? Or were particular building blocks put in place so foundationally the Hawks can fit pieces into a winning structure and expect extraordinary results.
For the non-dreamers of the world, the likelihood of a team not winning 60 games is closer to the NBA standard than the other way around. To put it another way, in the last 15 years, 94% of Eastern Conference playoff teams have failed to win 60 games.
It’s hard to do. You have to be consistent and you have to have injury luck and you have to do a lot of things well. The things you don’t do well, those vulnerabilities have to be hidden from view by exceptionalism in other areas that are so blinding it goes without notice that there are vital weaknesses, like offensive rebounding.
Last year, the Hawks won 73% of their games against the Western Conference. They won 73% of their games against the Eastern Conference. They won 80% of their games before the All-Star break but only 57% of their games after the All-Star break, including the playoffs.
They swept 11 teams: Brooklyn, Dallas, Houston, Indiana, Clippers, Miami, Minnesota, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento and Utah. They were 24-0 against those teams.
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They struggled against three teams: Charlotte, San Antonio and Toronto. They were 3-7 against them.
Looking towards next year, if this current Hawks team remains intact, if they re-sign both Paul Millsap and DeMarre Carroll, or if they replace one and keep the other and bring in a quality replacement for the defector, and then add in a healed Thabo Sefolosha and a healed Kyle Korver, if they dump Pero Antic and find a big who can do more than one thing, the team that won 60 games will be expected, in a lesser talented conference, to come close to their 60 win mark, if injuries do not plague them.
Each year is different in the NBA. Motivations change. Some players are in contract years and are playing for money. Other players are finally stress free after having gotten paid. Teams in the Finals are exhausted. Teams out of the Finals are pissed. Lottery teams are trying to win. Young players are desperate for playing time. Veterans want to not get hurt and get in the playoffs.
The experience of winning early and losing late was a Hawks teaching moment, particularly about the limelight of the NBA post-season when the scrutiny is intense and you are either a hero or a bum, a choker or a God, a dog or a courageous man. It taught the Hawks what it is like to be one of those rare NBA teams labeled a contender.
But the quest is not to be a one year contender, a one year miracle story talked about ten years from now. The challenge is to be a yearly contender, a name that is synonymous with winning.
The Hawks last NBA title was in 1958 when they were in St. Louis. Very few remember that title or that Bob Petit scored 50 points in the final game. Most remember this past year of 60 wins and 19 wins in a row and a humiliating sweep to the Cavaliers. It’s natural to want to go back in time, to repeat the same results, to be happy now as we were back then, to expect spectacular even if it means being lucky.