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[Laimbeer40]

Southeast Division Preview

Atlanta

Outlook: Thanks to Covid, the Hawks are still your defending champ! This team has topped 60 wins the past three seasons. That will be pretty hard to do with only 64 games this season. This team is deep and has star power with five Top 40-ish players. The playoffs are a certainty. The only question is if they will be the top seed.

Projected Record: 55-9
Current Record: 43-8-1 (Cavs holding out Drummond has set me back. Apparently he is a key to my success... guess I should have extended him)
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Charlotte

Outlook: With the exception of 2018 this team has hovered around .500 for most of their existence. They don't make a lot of splashy moves as a lot of their gains have been from hitting on their 2nd round picks at a high rate. How soon will Kemba return from injury? How well will Oladipo return to form? Gotta love all the glue guys they have like RoCo and Tucker. There is enough risk here to project another near miss at making the playoffs.

Projected Record: 29-35
Current Record: 20-30-2 (Been sort of a nightmare season but at least they saw Boucher increase his value)
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Miami

Outlook: True to real life the Heat are always going to try to compete. It was looking like they were in a good tank situation and then kpolman opened up the pocket book in a rare strong free agent class. He spent $29m per season on Love & Whiteside. This team likely goes as far as those guys are able to take them. They could use a PG though.

Projected Record: 35-29
Current Record: 8-42-2 (Turns out Love & Whiteside were subpar signings. MIA geared toward next year and I can't say I blame them)
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Orlando

Outlook: This was probably the best orphaned team in quite some time with Curry and a war chest of draft picks. Honestly the new ownership group just had to heat and serve. Steph sticks out like a sore thumb on this roster. They have a lot of post-hype type players in Lonzo, Aaron Gordon, Josh Richardson and Kevin Knox. I'm not sure that is a winning group but the potential is still there. Hard to believe this was a 61 win team just a couple years ago.

Projected Record: 27-37
Current Record: 23-28-1 (Feel like I was pretty accurate on this one. Not many of the young guys took the leap that was needed)
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Washington

Outlook: Klay Thompson and a 1st to SAC for Jrue paid down this year... who says no? There's a lot of risk here. How much does Kawhi sit? Does Will Barton have a pulse again? Was Christian Wood a flash in the pan? Why are the Hawks letting John Collins go to RFA? These Wizards are going to need some strong magic to make some noise. Might be time to tank.

Projected Record: 24-40

Current Record: 31-19-2 (The Wiz have gotten even better than expected returns from Wood and a revelation in Moses)