<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'></p> Nature abhors a vacuum, and our pro sports scene is approaching vacuum status. “The Falcons used to be the team with Michael Vick, but he’s gone and they’re struggling,” Josh Smith says. “The Braves haven’t made the playoffs the last two years, and the Thrashers are off to a slow start.”</p> That leaves Smith’s team, and we’ve been conditioned to laugh hard and long whenever that forlorn franchise is mentioned. We should stop laughing. The Hawks are now our best hope.</p> Yes, the Hawks.</p> Yes, really.</p> The marketplace is wide open, and the Hawks finally seem to have something worth buying. “No question about it,” says Dominique Wilkins, who’s the club’s vice president and who was, 22 years ago, part of a team that rose up and made Atlanta take notice. “This is a prime opportunity for us.”</p> For the first time this century, a warm little buzz has attached itself to the franchise that has endured a long nuclear winter. The Hawks are seen as having had, miracle of miracles, a very good draft. There’s a growing belief that the process of rebuilding, which has moved at a glacial pace, is nearing its blessed end.</div></p> The Atlanta Journal-Constitution</p>
