Address:
Atlanta Hawks
Centennial Tower
101 Marietta St. NW, Suite 1900
Atlanta, GA 30303
Reference Sites:
ESPN.com | NBA.com | DatabaseBasketball.com
Wiki Entry
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). The Hawks are coached by Mike Woodson, who is in his fifth season at the helm.
The franchise was formed in 1946 as the National Basketball League's Buffalo Bisons. The Bisons featured center Don Otten and coach Nat Hickey, but on December 27, 1946�only thirteen games into their inaugural season�owner Ben Kerner moved the team to Moline, Illinois (See Buffalo Memorial Auditorium). (At that time, the area was known as the "Tri-Cities" (Moline, Rock Island, Illinois, and Davenport, Iowa.[1]), though today it is called the Quad Cities). Kerner renamed the team the Tri-Cities Blackhawks; the Blackhawks were named after the Black Hawk War that was mostly fought in Illinois. The Blackhawks became one of the National Basketball Association's 17 original teams after a merger in 1949 of the 12-year-old NBL and the four-year-old Basketball Association of America. The Blackhawks reached the playoffs in the NBA's inaugural year, under the leadership of coach Red Auerbach. However, the following season, after the team drafted Bob Cousy and made the blunder of trading his rights to the Chicago Stags (who would later surrender him in a dispersal draft to the Boston Celtics after they folded), they failed to qualify for the postseason. In 1951, the franchise relocated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and became the Milwaukee Hawks. In 1953, the Hawks drafted Bob Pettit, a future NBA MVP. Despite this, the Hawks were one of the league's worst teams, and in 1955 the Hawks moved yet again, this time to St. Louis, Missouri.
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