Is there nowhere to go but down for the Hawks?

There can only be one champion in a given year, and the Atlanta Hawks found themselves in a position 26 other teams would have traded for by advancing to their first Conference Final since 1970.

But in celebrating a surprisingly successful campaign, the Hawks must also confront their failures, and the sobering reality that there may be nowhere to go but down for one of the darlings of the 2014-15 season.

If you buy the Hawks as a legitimate 60-win team that simply ran into bad luck come May - they went 4-of-30 on uncontested threes in Game 4 and shot 23 percent from deep in the East Final after shooting 38 percent during the regular season - then it's easy to see them in contention again next spring, provided they keep their core together in free agency.

But there were troubling signs indicating that's not the case.

Atlanta's franchise-record 60-win season was largely predicated on an unbelievable two-month run from late November through late January that saw them win 33 of 35 games, including 19 straight at one point.

Following that run, which brought their record to a league-best 40-8, the Hawks finished the season with a solid yet unspectacular 20-14 mark, which included a 7-8 finish over their final 15 games.

If you include the postseason, the Hawks won only nine of their final 22 games against winning teams, even looking vulnerable in a first-round matchup with the depressing Brooklyn Nets.

Assuming the Hawks bring back largely the same roster come October, they'll enter the season as a surefire playoff team with the ability to repeat as Southeast Division champions, but expecting them to replicate their 2014-15 success, which relied upon a completely unsustainable half-season stretch, is fool's gold.

Then again, so may be simply expecting them to bring back the same team, as two-fifths of their stellar starting lineup will hit unrestricted free agency, including their All-Star power forward and their premier wing stopper.

Given the massive boom coming in the salary cap in 2016 and 2017, teams could spend wildly this summer without the same long-term concerns as in previous years, and that bodes well for Paul Millsap and DeMarre Carroll, who could very well command a max contract and a $12-million-plus annual deal, respectively.

The Hawks' breakout success this season puts them in fine position to retain at least one of them, but there are no guarantees, and Atlanta has rarely been a destination of choice for top-tier free agents.

Between uncharacteristically cold shooting and untimely injuries to Thabo Sefolosha and Kyle Korver - one of which shockingly came at the hands of the NYPD - the Hawks certainly ran into their fair share of bad breaks. But the Eastern Conference champion Cavaliers entered the East Final with a hobbled Kyrie Irving and without Kevin Love, the Washington Wizards lost John Wall for three of six second-round contests, and the loaded Bulls, one of the preseason favorites, could never get healthy.

Bad breaks come with the game, and all things considered, the Hawks were probably on the luckier side of the ledger in a rare season when the Eastern Conference - and a finals berth - seemed prime for the taking.

They're a good team that's well-coached and suddenly seems well-run, but they've yet to prove they're consistently great, and depending on how free agency shakes out, they may never get the chance to.

In the immediate aftermath of a breakthrough season, it's often tempting to imagine that it's only the beginning of a great run for an up-and-coming team. But the Hawks may very well have peaked over the last six months.

As noted earlier this season in discussing the injury-plagued Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers, sometimes a team's first shot at glory is also its last.

The Hawks may be the latest team to find that out the hard way.