Atlanta Hawks

The Atlanta Hawks are an American professional basketball team based in Atlanta, Georgia. They are part of the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association (NBA). They play their home games at Phillips Arena in downtown Atlanta.

They were established in 1946 as the Buffalo Bisons and were a member of the National Basketball League. After 13 games into their inaugural season, the team moved to Moline, Illinois and became the Tri-City Blackhawks. In 1949, they joined the NBA as part of the National Basketball League and the Basketball Association of America merger. In 1951, The team moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin where they changed their name to the Hawks. The team moved again in 1955 to St. Louis, Missouri, where they won their only NBA Championship title in 1958. The Hawks moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 1968, where they have been ever since.

The Hawks currently own the 2nd longest run (behind the Sacramento Kings) of not winning an NBA title (54 years). All of the franchise's NBA Finals appearances and lone NBA Championship took place when the team resided in St. Louis. Meanwhile, they have yet to advance beyond the second round of any playoff format in their entire Atlanta existence, which now spans 44 seasons. Much of the failure they've experienced in the postseason can be traced back to their poor history in the NBA Draft. Since 1980, the Hawks have drafted a grand total of three players who have ever been chosen to play in an All-Star game (Doc Rivers, Kevin Willis, and Al Horford; Dominique Wilkins was actually selected by the Utah Jazz and traded to the Hawks a few months after the draft). In fact, Horford is the only All-Star Hawk to have been drafted since Willis was selected in 1984, and is also the only first-rounder the Hawks selected in their nine-year playoff drought to play in an All-Star game.