History of the Milwaukee Hawks

The Atlanta Hawks are a professional basketball team based in Atlanta, Georgia. The Hawks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member team of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The Hawks play their home games at Philips Arena.

The team's origins can be traced to the establishment of the Tri-Cities Blackhawks in 1946, a member of the National Basketball League and owned by Ben Kerner & Leo Ferris. In 1949, they joined the National Basketball Association (NBA) as part of the National Basketball League and the Basketball Association of America merger, and had Red Auerbach as coach briefly. In 1951, Kerner moved the team moved to Milwaukee, where they changed their name to the Hawks. Kerner and the team moved again in 1955 to St. Louis, where they won their only NBA championship in 1958 and made the NBA Finals in 1957 and 1960. The Hawks played the Boston Celtics in all three of their trips to the NBA Finals. The St. Louis Hawks moved to Atlanta in 1968, when Kerner sold the franchise to Thomas Cousins and former Georgia Governor Carl Sanders.