What the Atlanta Hawks Taught Me About Why Growing Businesses Stall at "Good"

I live in Atlanta. I've watched the Hawks for years, and no franchise makes this point better. Decades of good coaching, sold-out arenas, and real talent. Five straight 50-win seasons from 1985 to 1989. A 60-win season in 2014-15. And in fifty years, not one trip to a championship. Thirteen different teams have won it all in that stretch. Six of them more than once. The Hawks aren't one of them.

I see the same pattern in businesses all the time. Steady revenue. Loyal customers. A comfortable P&L. And a growth curve that flattened out years ago and never came back.

If that sounds familiar, you're not failing. You're a Hawk, not a Laker. Here's what separates the two.

Talent Was Never the Real Problem

Every business owner has heard "hire great people and you'll win." It's not wrong. It's incomplete. The Hawks have gone head-to-head with Jordan's Bulls, Bird's Celtics, Thomas's Pistons and held their own. They had talent. What they never built was an identity that outlasted any one player or coach.

The teams that win consistently — the Celtics under Red Auerbach, the Bulls and Lakers under Phil Jackson — aren't remembered for one great roster. They're remembered because the organization knew exactly who it was and what it stood for, year after year, coach after coach.

Talent is a commodity. Any business can hire people who are technically good at their jobs. Leadership analyst Alicia Bassuk has written about the NBA that a team's identity and culture are ultimately a reflection of its leader's core values, and those values only take root if they're consistently enforced. I've seen that hold true in every business I've worked with. What most businesses never build is a set of values that actually gets enforced, from everything to who gets hired, who gets coached, and who gets let go when the fit isn't right, no matter how talented they are.

Comfort Is the Trap, Not Failure

Here's the part that surprises owners: the Hawks were never bad enough to force a real rebuild, and never good enough to break through. For decades they've lived in the first or second round of the playoffs — a place that looks like success but isn't.

That's exactly what a revenue plateau looks like. You're not in trouble. You're comfortable. And comfortable is where growth goes to die.

I've sat across from owners who describe this exact feeling, they are steady and profitable, but quietly stuck. The same issues resurfaced over and over again, and the dream they started with always seemed just out of reach. They'd rationalized a flat few years into "this is just how it is now." Then a competitor gets more aggressive, and they can't remember how to fight for growth again.

Breaking a plateau takes strategic discomfort, the willingness to make a real bet, take a real risk, and accept some short-term pain for the business you actually want. It never happens by staying comfortable.

Leadership Continuity Beats Any Single Hire

Gregg Popovich coached the Spurs from 1996 to 2025. Five championships. One Finals loss in almost thirty years. San Antonio didn't win because of one great draft pick, they won because leadership had a clear culture, a long-term vision, and the patience to let it compound.

Compare that to the Hawks, who reset leadership and strategy every few years before anything had time to take root.

I hear a version of this from almost every owner I work with: the belief that one great hire, one brilliant salesperson or one strong operator, will fix what's actually a structural problem. A great player underperforms in a broken system. So does a great employee. The vision has to be clear, and it has to be consistently applied, before any hire can make the difference an owner is hoping for.

When the Bold Move Shows Up, Take It

The Celtics traded for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen in 2007 and went from mediocre to champions almost overnight. The Spurs won the draft lottery in 1987 and took David Robinson. They won it again in 1997 and took Tim Duncan. The Heat sold LeBron James on a vision, not a paycheck, in 2010.

Every business faces its own version of that moment, a new market, a client that isn't worth the misalignment, a technology bet before the competition makes it, a long-tenured employee who's become the obstacle instead of the asset. Those moments require confidence in your foundation and a real tolerance for uncertainty. The businesses that seize them break through. The ones that hedge look back on that fork in the road with regret.

Build the Business That Plays to Win

Real revenue growth strategies don't start with a new tactic. They start with getting honest about the gap between "good" and where you actually want to be.

The NBA draft lottery hands teams a chance. Changing markets hand your business the same kind of chance, new competitors, new technology, new customer expectations. What you do with it is entirely up to you.

Build a real identity. Get honest about that gap. And when the moment to make the bold move shows up, trust the foundation you've built and take it.