The sports world often pays lip service to winning while secretly worshiping individual accomplishments and superstars. There was good proof of this recently. Warriors coach Steve Kerr was asked why people clamor for superstars to take the last shot, even when a lesser player is more open. Kerr’s reply? “Because people are idiots.” Yup. And MVP trophies in team sports don’t really make much sense either–they’re counter-intuitive, actually. But people love ’em.
Yet despite the secret preference for individual stars, and thanks to a few injuries, the NBA All-Star Game is going to look more like it should this weekend. Because now it will have four Atlanta Hawks on the roster, with late replacement Kyle Korver stepping in for injured Dwyane Wade. Korver joins teammates Al Horford, Paul Millsap and Jeff Teague on the All-Star team. The fans–the “idiots” as Steve Kerr so succinctly put it–voted for none of them as starters. They’ll all come off the bench. But the Hawks personify winning with the best record in the league at 43-10. And if the All-Star game is meant to showcase what’s great about the NBA, watching the Hawks in action is a whole lot more representative than watching Carmelo Anthony jacking up jumpers for a loser in New York.
