Atlanta Hawks: 3 biggest disappointments from the 2018-19 NBA season
1. Their 3-point shooting
Teams that win less than 30 games in a season tend to have many flaws that obstruct their pathway to success, so it would be shortsighted to blame the Hawks’ failures on any one thing. Everyone figured this team would struggle on defense and occasionally sputter against some of the better teams, but a team with this much shooting ranking only 16th in 3-point percentage has to be viewed as a letdown.
I touched on this in a previous piece, so here’s the CliffsNotes version: the Hawks’ offense generated many optimal 3-pointers, but ranked a less-than-ideal 23rd in open 3-point percentage and mediocre 17th in open 3-point rate.
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As the Oklahoma City Thunder showed, proficient shooting from behind the arc isn’t a necessity when building a playoff team (though they could’ve used it in their first round series against the Portland Trail Blazers). But for a Hawks team that ended the year with an offense rating 2.3 points lower than the league average and a defensive rating 3.5 points above the mean, a few more made 3s would’ve masked some of those blemishes.