The exercise of handicapping the NBA Over/Under season wins market is an important part of evaluating my priors that will be used in game-by-game betting as we start the season. This article lays out the 10 teams my numbers disagree the most on relative to the market, with some discussion as to why there may be a misfit and other considerations for betting the win totals market.
Atlanta Hawks Under 35.5
This is the biggest discrepancy between my numbers and the market. I make the fair total for the Hawks 26.5, and I am struggling to understand what the market sees in this team that warrants such a significant upgrade from 2019-20. The Hawks managed only 20 wins in their 67 games, a winning percentage that would extrapolate to about 22 wins in a 72-game season. In terms of Pythagorean win expectation, the Hawks actually were overachievers and should have managed only 16 wins based on their scoring differential. Their big free-agency moves included signing Bogdan Bogdanovic and Rajon Rondo, neither of which addresses the team’s key weakness: defense.