Hawks 2016-17 Schedule: Top Games, Championship Odds and Record Predictions

After winning 108 games over the last two seasons, the Atlanta Hawks enter a new era in 2016-17 with Dwight Howard coming back home to try resurrecting his career. 

Full Schedule: NBA.com

The Hawks made major changes to their roster, replacing Al Horford with Howard and sending Jeff Teague to Indiana. They still have Paul Millsap, Kent Bazemore and Kyle Korver to form a good nucleus in the Eastern Conference.

This team has made the playoffs in nine straight seasons, the longest active streak in the Eastern Conference and second only to the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA. They have won at least one playoff series each of the last two years, so this is a team that is not to be taken lightly. 

2016-17 Season Details

Season Opener: Thursday, October 27 vs. Washington Wizards (7:30 p.m. ET)

Championship Odds: 75-1 (via Odds Shark)

Top Matchups

Charlotte Hornets

First Home Matchup: Saturday, December 17 at 7:30 p.m. ET

The NBA can be exciting when two marquee teams are on the court at the same time, but a dirty little secret that doesn’t get brought up enough is how terribly imbalanced the sport is.

It’s become more apparent in recent years with superteams in Miami—before LeBron James went back to Cleveland—and now Golden State how little parity there is in the NBA entering the 2016-17 season. 

The only division race last year decided by fewer than eight games was in the Southeast Division, with the Hawks, Miami Heat and Charlotte Hornets all finishing with identical 48-34 records. The Heat took home the division title by virtue of having a better head-to-head record against the two teams. 

The Hawks did go 3-1 in four matchups against the Hornets, which was enough to earn them the No. 4 seed in the postseason. Atlanta knocked off the Boston Celtics in the first round before getting swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers. 

It’s easy to sense that losing once again to the Cavaliers finally started to change the mindset of Atlanta’s decision-makers, as Thomas Jenkins of Peachtree Hoops noted:

These moves suggest that Budenholzer is altering his approach to roster-building. Moving Teague allowed the Hawks to …

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