When one thinks of Atlanta Sports, until recently you’d often only hear reference to the spectacular 14 straight division titles the Braves won in the 90’s to mid-2000’s. Now you hear about 28-3, and the epic collapses all Atlanta teams, not just the Falcons, seem to suffer. But if there’s one team seemingly immune to this curse of sudden greatness only to be slapped down, the Atlanta Hawks would fit that bill squarely.

For 10 years now, the Hawks have made the playoffs. For 10 years now, they haven’t won a championship. Heck, they haven’t even made it to one yet. The solid run they’ve had is almost comical for a number of reasons. Players like Joe Johnson, Al Hortford, Jeff Teague, Kyle Korver, and Josh Smith are all names that have come and gone for this team, and they’ve even had two coaching changes in that time, going from Mike Woodson to Larry Drew, and then finishing with the current coach, Mike Budenholzer.

With all of these changes, one would assume the team would stumble. Perhaps they even get lucky one year and win it all. (Looking at you, 2015 Kansas City Royals.) The point is, no team should be able to make the playoffs 10 times in a row and not win a championship. Even the Braves received that memo, as underwhelming as it was (Only one, but it counts). The city of Atlanta is regularly known as a futile ground when it comes to sports, and while the Braves (still) look like they’ll rebuilding and the Falcons poise themselves for another Super Bowl run, the Hawks can only wonder how much longer they can get lucky.

It is odd. This is a team that, similar to the Cubs, should be able to finally push and get over that proverbial hump that leads to the Promised Land. And unlike the cubs before you, they don’t have to wait for playoff appearances. The Hawks make the playoff appearances so wearily often now even LeBron James would roll his eyes. “Either go big or go home”, he’d probably say.

Despite this, our tenth year in the playoffs is in jeopardy already. Down 3-2 to the Washington Wizards, the Hawks will attempt to bring the series to game seven tonight at 7:30. Let’s hope this team can prove us all wrong and bring home the gold this year.