Atlanta Hawks

The Atlanta Hawks are a professional basketball team from Atlanta, Georgia, playing in the NBA's Eastern Conference as part of the Southeast Division. Their home court is State Farm Arena.

The franchise began as the Buffalo Bisons in 1946, part of the National Basketball League (NBL) and owned by Ben Kerner and Leo Ferris. After just 38 days in Buffalo, the team moved to Moline, Illinois, and became the Tri-Cities Blackhawks. In 1949, the NBL merged with the Basketball Association of America, and the Blackhawks joined the new NBA, briefly coached by Red Auerbach. The team moved to Milwaukee in 1951, becoming the Milwaukee Hawks, and then to St. Louis in 1955. As the St. Louis Hawks, they won their only NBA championship in 1958 and reached the Finals in 1957, 1960, and 1961—all four times facing the Boston Celtics. The franchise relocated to Atlanta on May 3, 1968, after Kerner sold it to Thomas Cousins and former Georgia governor Carl Sanders. Current ownership includes billionaire James Cox Chambers.

The Hawks hold the second-longest active championship drought in the NBA (67 seasons), behind the Sacramento Kings. Their lone title and all four Finals appearances came while based in St. Louis. The team went 48 years without advancing past the second round of the playoffs until finally doing so in 2015. They are one of only four NBA teams to make the playoffs in ten consecutive seasons during the 21st century, a streak that ran from 2008 to 2017.

In the 2024 NBA draft, the Hawks selected Zaccharie Risacher with the first overall pick—their first top pick since 1975.