Whaddya think about 52 wins?

[Hawksquawk]

Greetings, all-

Hope you are doing well. Got some links, one of which will lead me to a question.

First, a hoopsworld.com column touting big things from the Hawks next season.

“(T)he Hawks need to stay together for another year, when they’ll likely be atop the East and have a legitimate shot at the NBA championship.”

A must-read for any Hawks fan. Slam writer Lang Whitaker got virtually unlimited access to the Hawks on their road trip to Dallas in early December. There’s some great stuff in here.

Dime magazine says that Josh Smith is one of the top five athletes in the NBA.

The Arizona Republic’s Paul Coro weighs in on the Suns as they near the halfway point of the season.

Does this sound familiar?

“The only difference I can see is that we were hungrier at the start of the year,” Steve Nash said. “We left nothing to chance. We came out and played hard and were rewarded for it. I don’t feel like we’ve had the same attention to detail and hunger. We’ve got to get back to being a …

View the full article

[Admin]

52 is certainly an improvement over last season, but I think anything less than 55 will be a bit of a disappointment to me. Hollinger projects that we'll win 52 games but I think that would be a disappointment considering the losses that we've had to inferior opponents, losses that we must not allow in the 2nd half of the season.

[jerrywest]

The model also predicts Boston with 54 wins, Orlando with 53 wins.

All we need to get is 2 more wins to become the 2nd seed and then play the Celtics in the 2nd round.

I think if the Cleveland lose is reversed today, the model will predict we will win 54 wins anyway.

[Admin]

The model also predicts Boston with 54 wins, Orlando with 53 wins.

All we need to get is 2 more wins to become the 2nd seed and then play the Celtics in the 2nd round.

I think if the Cleveland lose is reversed today, the model will predict we will win 54 wins anyway.

Yep we're definitely right there in terms of having a shot at the 2nd seed, we've just got to clean up some of these bad losses that we've had. Luckily for us there has been quite a bit of that with the other top teams as well.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that the league will do the right thing and let us replay the end of that game!

[TheTruth]

I don't think we will get 52...we will probably wind up with right at 50. We needs to sustain some positive momentum and not have too many let downs against garbage teams. Plus we need to re-focus on rebounding. We are 19-3 when we outrebound our opponent...Do those things and we might see 50+

[jerrywest]

I don't think we will get 52...we will probably wind up with right at 50. We needs to sustain some positive momentum and not have too many let downs against garbage teams. Plus we need to re-focus on rebounding. We are 19-3 when we outrebound our opponent...Do those things and we might see 50+

Are you saying we'll go 25-19 rest of the way after we have gone 25-13 so far? You must be expecting major injuries.

[TheTruth]

Eh, we have been pretty injury free so far. Plus, we play so frenetically, it is hard for us to maintain consistent momentum. I will say yes, it wouldn't surprise me if we top out at 50 wins.

[RedDawg#8]

The way we seem to underachieve at the end of the season when seeding is pretty set I wouldnt be surprised if we settled in at 50 wins and the 4 seed, but I would be dissappointed as well.

Our goal should be to win between .650-.700 percent of our games (53-57 wins), imo to be "elite" you should win .700+

[exodus]

Not this "on pace" nonsense again. The on pace indicator was way off the last two years. It is about as reliable as Josh Smith's jumper.

[Admin]

Not this "on pace" nonsense again. The on pace indicator was way off the last two years. It is about as reliable as Josh Smith's jumper.

Oh yeah I knew that you would love that!

Here's an interesting item though looking at our winning percentage 2 months into the season where we ended up finishing the season. According to Exodus "Last year [2007-2008] after two months the Hawks were "on pace" to win 44 games and won 37." so if that's correct then we finished 7 games behind the pace we were on at this point in the season.

According to Dolfan23, at this point last year we were "on pace" to win 54 games and won 47. So again we finished 7 games behind the pace were were on at this point in the season.

If the trend continues to hold true and we continue to win .658 of our games we would win 29 of our remaining 44 games, which would put us at 54 - 28 for the season. Subtracting the 7 games that we finished behind the past 2 seasons we would again win 47 games this year.

Of course I think that if we hadn't suffered so many injuries last year we would have definitely done better than 47 wins, which makes this relatively healthy season seem a little more disappointing when we compare it to last year at this point when we did have key injuries.

I'd really like to see what Hollinger had as his projection for us at this point the past 2 years to see if his formula worked.

[MVP23]

I don't care if we get 37 wins again, as long as we get Boston in the 2nd, and avoid the Magic at all cost, we're in good shape..