<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Sinking slowly through mediocrity and lower, a Hawks team that was a division champion in 1970 was, in time, ruined, becoming a middling club with Maravich and one in retreat without him. A 12-year string of playoff appearances quickly snapped. The front office, which soon was turning over almost yearly, operated by fire drill. Playing in the long-awaited Omni, the Hawks began drawing a league-low 5,000 a night, barely half the NBA average. When downtown real estate went flat, Cousins dumped the team, and only Ted Turner stepped up to keep it in Atlanta, spending a mere $1.5 million and some serious debt assumption in 1976. The team posted winning seasons twice during an eight-year stretch when Maravich was trying to drive the franchise. So think about that Tuesday, when commissioner David Stern first calls the Hawks' name in Madison Square Garden. "It just didn't work out," Blake said, the resignation still coating his words 35 years later. "I've always felt bad for Tom. He couldn't have been nicer to me." Quiet deal pulled off The Maravich selection happened because of a trading deadline deal so insignificant the league office didn't even bother to announce it. Huddled at Cousins' north Atlanta home on Jan. 29, 1970, as the midnight deadline approached, Blake arranged to deal the rights for Zelmo Beaty, who had jumped to the ABA the previous summer, to San Francisco in exchange for the Warriors' pick in the next draft. "Well," Blake said after hanging up the phone, "we got Maravich, if you want him." The standings didn't suggest it because the Warriors were in the middle of the Western Conference standings. But Blake had studied the schedule and noted the Warriors played 10 of their last 16 games on the road. The Warriors went along with the script in a swooning 6-21 finish, leaving them with a 30-52 record and what would be the third pick in the draft. Cousins was thrilled. The owner had targeted Maravich, the floppy-socked wonder from LSU, from the day he bought the team in 1968. Maravich, college player of the year as a senior, averaged more than 44 points a game and still holds the NCAA career scoring record of 3,667 points in three years. Cousins was a team owner almost by default. He wanted an arena to anchor his Omni development, and only then went searching for teams to play in it. He believed Maravich would link Atlanta to professional basketball, still a curiosity here because the Hawks were two years removed from St. Louis. </div> Source
