Atlanta Hawks Retired Numbers
The Atlanta Hawks have retired 3 numbers. Each one below records who wore it, the seasons they wore it, and what earned it a place in the rafters.
Back to Atlanta HawksBob Pettit
1954-1965
The Atlanta Hawks retired Bob Pettit's #9 because of everything that number represents — including the only NBA title in the history of a franchise that has played since 1946 in three cities. On April 12, 1958, at Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis, Pettit scored 50 points in Game 6 to beat the defending-champion Boston Celtics 110-109 and deliver the city its first and only basketball title. Pettit's story began with rejection: cut from his Baton Rouge High School team as a freshman, he built a basket in his backyard and worked relentlessly.
Why #9 was retiredDominique Wilkins
1982-1994
May 22, 1988. Boston Garden. Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals, and for one impossible fourth quarter Dominique Wilkins and Larry Bird stopped guarding anyone and simply took turns. Wilkins finished with 47 points on 19-of-33 shooting; Bird answered with 34, twenty of them in that final period, and the Celtics survived 118–116.
Why #21 was retiredLou Hudson
1966-1977
Lou Hudson earned his nickname the honest way. Sweet Lou was not a marketing invention or a media construction — it was the basketball world's attempt to describe what it looked like when Hudson caught the ball and went to work. Fluid where others were mechanical. Effortless where others strained. A scorer who made the extraordinary seem inevitable, possession after possession, season after season, for eleven years in the St. Louis and Atlanta Hawks organization.
Why #23 was retired