Atlanta Hawks

Hawks open with eighth-best odds to win title, trail two East teams

Published Jun. 18, 2015 12:36 p.m. ET

foxsports

The Atlanta Hawks will sneak up on no one next season. But that doesn't mean they're the favorites to win the Eastern Conference -- and probably won't be as long as LeBron James is around.

Almost as soon as the 2015 NBA Finals ended, online sports book Bovada had opening lines for next season's champion. The Hawks opened at 25-to-1, a pretty substantial step forward from last season, when Odds Shark had Atlanta as a 100-to-1 long shot to win the title less than a month prior to opening night.

Seven teams have better odds than the Hawks to win the championship: the Cleveland Cavaliers (3:1), Golden State Warriors (5:1), Oklahoma City Thunder (7:1), Chicago Bulls (10:1), Los Angeles Clippers (10:1), San Antonio Spurs (10:1) and Houston Rockets (18:1). That puts Atlanta a fairly distant third in the Eastern Conference, with a slight lead on the Miami Heat (33:1) in the Southeast Division.

(h/t NBA.com)

Photo Credit: David Goldman/AP