Why It Sucks to Be An Atlanta Hawks Fan
It’s 1968 and you stand in the city getting it first taste of NBA basketball. The St. Louis Hawks, a proud franchise that won a championship in 1958, have just moved to Atlanta. You feel a huge surge of hope as this newborn Atlanta Hawks team takes flight. In their second season, the Hawks even captured a division title with a 48 and 34 record, hinting at an early promise. But reality sets in quickly. That spring, Atlanta is swept out of the playoffs by the Los Angeles Lakers. The Infant Hawks franchise, fresh in Atlanta, is baptized not in glory, but in defeat. The city’s introduction to pro basketball is a cruel one, a foreshadowing of heartbreak to come. The 1970s are a turbulent adolescence for the Hawks and their fans. You watch the team grasp for an identity, yearning for a hero to lead them. In 1970, Atlanta Hawks draft Pistol Peak Maverick, a flashy college phenom, hoping his showmanship would bring success. Maverick dazzled the crowd with behind the back passes and deep shots. But the wins are scarce. By 1974, the Atlanta Hawks trade away their young star, admitting that the marriage never produced the magic Atlanta dreamed of. As a fan, you endure these growing pains. Exciting players come and go, but the seasons end in frustration. Even a rare bright spot in the 1978 playoff appearance is fleeting. Hawks remain stuck in mediocrity, overshadowed by the NBA’s Titans, struggling to find footing, the youthful franchise is learning how hard it is to rise in a league dominated by Giants. By the early 1980s, the Hawks enter a kind of early adulthood as a franchise, more mature, more ambitious. They acquired Dominique Wilkins in 1982, and suddenly you have a bonafide superstar to believe in. Night after night, Dominique dunks with Verocity and scores in bunches, earning a nickname human highlight film. The team around him improves, too. By 1986 to the 1988 season, Atlanta is winning 50 plus games and looking like a contender. You finally dare to think this might be our time, but the basketball gods have other ideas. In 1988, the Hawks pushed Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics to game seven in the Eastern semifinals. And that’s where your heart is ripped out. Dominique drops 47 points in a legendary duel only for Bird to catch fire in the fourth quarter and lead Boston to a 118 to 116 victory, ending Atlanta season in heartbreak. It’s one of the greatest games ever, unless you’re a Hawks fan. Moments like these define the ceiling of the 80s. No matter how spectacular Wilkins is, Atlanta keeps crashing just shy of the conference final. Year after year, you run into titans like Bird and the Detroit Pistons, suffering playoff exit that range from merely disappointing to soul crushing. Hawks 1980s maturity yields excitement and respect. Also, the painful realization that spectacular dunks don’t equal championships. As the 90s arrive, you hope the Hawks mature phase will finally blossom into true success. team adds pieces around Dominique, the young Doc Rivers, Kevin Willis, later the defensive powerhouse Kimbe Matumbo. And for a moment, it seemed Atlanta might break through. In 1994, the Hawks soar to the top of the Eastern Conference standings, tied for the best record at mid-season. This, you think, could be the year. Then comes the betrayal. In February 1994, with Atlanta sitting in first place, the front office trades Dominique Wilkins away for Danny Manny, the franchise icon, the heart and soul of the team sent packing in the middle of a promising season. Fans are stunned and devastated what happened. The team falls in the playoffs shortly after eliminating the second round, and you’re left to wonder what might have been in the Jordanless year. Even before the infamous trade, the 90s had its share of torment courtesy of Michael Jordan. In 1993, Jordan’s Chicago Bulls swept the Hawks out of the first round. An unpleasant three-game spanking that confirmed Atlanta was nowhere near the Bulls level. By 1997, Jordan was back from retirement and once again stood in Atlanta’s path, dispatching the Hawks 4-1 in the semifinals on his way to yet another championship. Watch helplessly as Jordan dunks over Matumbo, even taunting him with Matumbbo’s own finger wag in route to ending Atlanta’s playoff run. The 1990s encapsulated the Hawks fans internal plight. Whenever hope appears, something or someone snatches it away. A tragic trade, his airness in his prime. The decade ends with Atlanta never having advanced past the second round. The franchise growth seemingly stunning at adolescent despite all your hope. The new millennium greets Hawks fans with a harsh descent. The team that were merely treading water in the late 90s now sinks to the bottom of the NBA. You suffer through the 2004 2005 season when Atlanta posted a franchise worst 1369 record. An agonizing slog of futility. The playoffs become a distant dream. In fact, from 1999 until 2008, Dogs missed the postseason entirely. Philips arena is often half empty and those die hards who do show up witness a revolving door of draft bust and forgettable lineups. 2005 NBA draft delivers a signature gut punch. Only in the number two pick, the Hawks infamously select Marvin Williams, a solid but unspectacular forward while passing on point guard Chris Paul who goes on to become a perennial all-star and one of the greatest point guards of his era. In hindsight, it’s a franchise altering mistake. One of the Hawks fans bemoone every time Paul’s Hall of Fame career is mentioned. Worse yet, the dysfunction isn’t confined to the court. It’s festering in the front office, too. In 2004, a group of owners called the Atlanta Spirit LLC buys the team, and almost immediately they begin feuding with each other. Lawsuits fly between co-owners, and times it feel like the owners are more interested in fighting each other than building a winning squad. Hawks become a poster child for organizational turmoil. By 2011, one of those disputes results in the sale of the NHL Thrashers. Then co with the Hawks and rumors swirl about whether the Hawks might be sold or moved next. Chaos reaches a grim peak in 2014. A scandal erupts when the Hawks GM Danny Farah makes a racially charged remark on a conference call. An internal email from owner Bruce Levenson comes to light. The embarrassment is national news. The outcome, Farah is effectively ousted. Livingston and the other owners agree to sell the team. An era of acrimony ends in disgrace. As a fan during the 2000s, you’re not just dealing with a bad team. You’re enduring a franchise in disarray. Your loyalty is tested by every headline and every lopsided loss. Incredibly, after the darkness that was the 2000s, the Hawks find a second win. Under new ownership and a savvy management, Atlanta rebuilds. By the late 2000s, a core of Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, and Al Horford brings the Hawks back to respectability. The Hawks rattle off 10 straight playoff appearances from 2008 2017. The high point arrives during the 2014 and 2015 season that feels almost magical. The Hawks now a welloiled team oriented machine under coach Mike Boozhoer, win 60 games, a franchise record, including a surreal 19game win streak. Four Hawks players make the All-Star team. For once, everything seems to click. It’s the best Hawks team since the franchise St. Louis days. They advanced to the Eastern Conference final in 2015, breaking that 48-year streak of never getting past the second round. At long last, the ceiling is shattered, only to reveal a new, higher ceiling made of unbreakable glass named LeBron James. LeBron Cavaliers stand between Atlanta in the NBA Finals. As a Hawks fan, you know LeBron has tormented your team for years. But you hold out hope. Maybe this team’s destiny can slay the king. Those hopes are swiftly crushed. Not only did the Hawks lose the series, they got swept 4-0. It turns out LeBron owns Dogs, literally never losing a playoff game against Atlanta in his career. In fact, LeBron amassed a perfect 12-0 postseason record against the Hawks in his Cleveland years. The 2015 East Final sweep is brutal. One Hawks player Tabo Sephalosha had already been lost after a freak incident with NY police when they broke his leg. Atlanta just can’t compete with star power James. The pattern repeats in 2016 when a root tooling Hawk squad meets Cleveland in the playoffs and get swept again. Even when the Hawks build something beautiful, selfless, joyful team, it runs into a generational great who turns it into ash. You can only watch in despair as Atlanta’s 2010 revival meets the same fate as prior errors being second best or worse to the NBA’s transcendent star. By 2017, that promising squad was dismantled. All stars leave one by one and coach Boonhoer departs. Another rebuild looms. Just as the memories of the 60 win fade, the 2010s gave you a taste of glory only to snatch it away in the most lopsided fashion possible. It’s a special kind of pain to have the best team ever still be nowhere near good enough. Every Hawks fan story is one of renewal amid heartbreak. And so it goes in the 2020s. The franchise drafts point guard Trey Young in 2018. A moment that itself became the drama. Trey arrived via draft night trade for Luca Donuch, meaning he’ll forever be compared to a European prodigy who became an MVP candidate. But Trey quickly embraces Atlanta. By 2021, he leads a Cinderella playoff run that revives their fate. As a fifth seed underdog, the Hawks upset the Knicks in New York and then shocked the top seated Philadelphia 76ers. Suddenly, Atlanta is back in the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since the LeBron beatdown. This time, it’s Giannis and the Koopos, Milwaukee Bucks, and Hawks Way. Yet, Atlanta jumps out and steals game one on the road, raising hopes that a finals appearance is truly within reach. State Farm Arena is rocking. Trey Young is the new hometown hero, shimmering after deep threes and embracing the villain role in opposing arenas. You’re alive with belief again. Then, as is written by a cruel script writer, Misfortune strikes in game three of the 2021 East Conference Final, Trey Young accidentally steps on the official’s foot, badly spraining his ankle. The timing could not be worse. The star is hobbled just as Dream is coming into focus. Trey misses the next two games and isn’t himself when he tries to return. The Hawks fight violently but fall in sixth games. Another season ends in almost and that’s one really stings. Hawks fans voted Trey’s injury as perhaps the scariest and most haunting moment in team history precisely because it felt like the universe is stepping in to dash Atlanta’s best chances in decades. In the aftermath, expectations skyrocketed. After all, a young team just went to the conference finals, but consistently proves elusive. The front office makes win now moves, trading multiple picks for DeJonte Murray in 2022 with the Hawks slide back into the middle of the pack. Off the court, Tormal bubbles up again. Reports of power struggles in management, the resignation of GM Travis Slink after disagreements with ownership, and the firing of coach Nate McMillan amid rumors of clashes with Trey Young. It starts to feel like the same old Hawks chaos brewing. On 2023 in Atlanta, General Constitution headline limits the Hawks are in Tormo again. As a fan, you caught between optimism for a talented young roster and pessimism for decades of front office drama. Team is now helmed by a new coach Quinn Snder and led by Trey and Murray, but their ceiling is uncertain. Other stars in the East seem to have more complete teams. Hawks are good, but are they great? History weighs on you, whispering that every high will be met with a fall. And so here you are today and a lot of Hawks fan standing on the precipice of a new season, the 2025 2026 season with hopes tempered by lifetime of hard lessons. The Hawks have talent and youth but also questions and ghost. Will Trey Young stay and cement himself as the franchise cornerstone? Will the whispers of discontent grow louder if the team stagnates? Can this front office finally deliver stability and savvy moves or turmoil rear its head yet again? You’ve seen the franchise entire life cycle. The birth in the new city, the awkward growing years, the thrilling highs of a superstar’s prime, the despair of collapse, and the cautious rebirth that follows. After all the decades of being Hawks fans, you carry a mix of pride and weariness. Pride in sticking with a team that despite it all has given you moments of genuine joy. Like the game where Dominique went toe-to-toe with Bird or the night Trey signs Madison Square Garden. And wearing this because you know that too well that hope often leads to heartbreak in the land. Why does it suck to be an Atlanta Hawks fan? It’s the weight of almost and not quite that sits on your shoulders every year. It’s watching other teams hoist trophies while your team rebuilds again. Is the front office blunders, the superstar opponents, the injuries at the worst times, all conspiring to keep the Hulks grounded just when they’re ready to sort. Yet, ironically, the very fact that it sucked so much is a statement and testament to your loyalty and love. You’ve endured what many fans could not. And as much as you’ve been scarred, you’re still here, scanning your horizon for that one season where everything changes. As the 202526 season approaches, you can’t help but feel that familiar flutter of optimism in your chest. Maybe this year will be different. Maybe the Hawks will finally break the cycle and reward all these years of faith. Maybe you’re setting yourself up for another chapter of heartbreak. It’s the uncertainty that keeps you up at night. This is the existential dilemma of being a Hawks fan. Caught between poetic grit of never giving up and the emotional realism that history has taught you. You laugh dryly at the absurdity of it all because sometimes humor is the only shield against sports pain. And you reflect a bit wiser now on why you still care. In the end, you know one thing, being Atlanta Hawks fan might suck, but it’s your team, your suck. And if that day ever comes when the Atlanta Hawks reach the mountaintop, you’ll know every step of the tumorous and torturous journey and say it was worth it. Until then, you wear the scars and keep the faith. Living the drama that Hawks fandom, a story of hope, misery, resilience, and unwavering belief that next year finally could be the year. Thank you for watching. Subscribe, leave a like if you want to, um, and check out my other videos.
Being an Atlanta Hawks fan is a special kind of emotional rollercoaster. From the team’s move to Atlanta in 1968 to the trials of the 2020s, Hawks fans have endured decades of hope, frustration, and gut-wrenching heartbreak. With over half a century of no NBA championship in Atlanta, this fan journey has been defined by passionate loyalty tested by crushing disappointment. (At times, you have to laugh just to keep from crying.) In this deep emotional retrospective, we relive the highest highs and the lowest lows of Hawks fandom. Heartbreaking moments like the shocking trade of Dominique Wilkins in 1994 and Trae Young’s devastating injury in the 2021 Eastern Conference Finals are recounted in vivid detail. Through drama, raw emotion, and a dash of dark humor, we explore why supporting the Hawks often feels like an exercise in pain. From buzzer-beater losses and playoff sweeps to the rare joyful upsets, every triumph and tragedy is part of the story. Whether you’re a long-suffering Atlanta Hawks fan or any sports fan who knows the sting of defeat, this video will strike a chord. Join us as we honor the unwavering spirit of Atlanta’s fans — the hope that rises after every heartbreak and the undying love for a team that always finds new ways to test our hearts. This is the miserable, unbreakable bond of Hawks fandom, a true love-hate relationship decades in the making.
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