Atlanta Hawks sweep highlights difficulty of no-stars approach

Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

Phrase it however you want. “It’s a players’ league.” “Superstars win championships.” “You can’t win without a star to build around!” All of these get to the heart of the most popular belief in building an NBA contender: you must have stars to have a real shot at the crown.

Proponents of this theory are out in full force, crowing that the Hawks running into a LeBron-sized buzzsaw proves you can’t compete for a title without top-level stars. There is certainly merit in that belief, and the 2004 Pistons stand out as a rare exception to the rule. Take a gander at a list of NBA champions since 2000, and you’ll see a shortlist of alpha dogs and former MVPs that pushed their teams to titles. From Shaq to Tim Duncan, from Dirk to LeBron, there is no substitute for transcendent talent.

Given the sophistication of modern NBA defenses and their ability to neutralize individual pieces, spreading the offense through a cavalcade of weapons is ideal in theory. Total dismissal of the Hawks success due to roster construction takes the superstar thesis too far.

That said, it’s entirely possible to admire what Atlanta achieved this season and appreciate their brand of basketball while considering the viability of a share-the-rock, talent-spread ethos. If we’re to evaluate player performance and judge their roles in a team’s success or failure, systemic assembly and philosophy are absolutely in play. Let’s settle on a refined idea: no-star contention is achievable, but the degree of difficulty and frailty of the project escalate dramatically.

Injuries have been at the center of evaluating the Hawks from a grand scheme perspective. Defenders point to the loss of Kyle Korver, dings to Paul Millsap and Al Horford, and the glaring hole left by Thabo Sefolosha’s beating at the hands of the NYPD. These are fair points, at least until you consider the injuries afflicting the Cavaliers. They are without Kevin Love, dealing with a gimpy Kyrie Irving and have long been without center Anderson Varejao, the assumed starter in the position since filled by Timofey Mozgov. Out west, the Rockets made it to the Conference Finals despite losing their starting point guard and power forward late in the season.

Point being: almost everyone is dealing with injuries by the time the postseason rolls around.

The focus is on the guys missing from action, but the bumps, bruises and strains for guys still standing are at least as important. If we’re to assume that no one is 100 percent by the time May and June rolls around, would you rather roll with 80 percent of LeBron James or combine the 80 percents of 4-5 different, lesser-talented players?

That’s not an either/or proposition, of course. Losing rotation players and the subsequent shortening of your bench can eat up teams with star-studded cores, too. Look no further than the Clippers, whose clown car of a bench cost a pair of top-10 players a chance to play in a conference final.

If we imagine general managers as degenerate gamblers at a roulette table, Danny Ferry would be spreading small bets among a large group of numbers, while

David Griffin

LeBron James was all in on one or two numbers. Ultimately there’s no difference if they lose — goodbye, money and success — but hitting on larger bets with a more concentrated “investment” reaps larger rewards. There are hordes of people who walk into casinos and win a little spending money by nickle-and-diming their way to a modest chip stack, but few people have the capital to walk in and challenge the house with high-stakes bets.

It might be more appropriate to picture LeBron’s Cavs and similarly built teams as the house. They can absorb losses to the nickle-and-dimers — Love’s injury akin to a payout in this scenario — because the value of players like Stephen Curry so far outstrips their challengers that it takes unprecedented, nearly-perfect scenarios to take them down completely. You can dent them and strive as hard as you can to make an earnest challenge, but the odds are not in your favor.

If you fed them truth serum, I imagine Hawks management would cop to the current form of their team not being the ideal version of what they wanted to build. They’ve made overtures in free agency for power players like Dwight Howard and Chris Paul, they threw big money at then under-recognized Joe Johnson, and I imagine they selected Al Horford at No. 3 overall thinking he might one day lead them to the promised land.

To Atlanta’s credit, they haven’t let imperfect results and circumstances drown them, nor have they turned to desperate strip-downs to reset the project. Unfortunately, the NBA asks 30 franchises to make five-star food with a shortage of quality ingredients; not everyone has access to beachfront property, franchise prestige or hometown overtures to lure game-changers to come play for them. Fewer still will be lucky enough to be bad (or build to be bad intentionally) at a time when a landscape-shifting talent is available in the draft lottery.

The unceremonious demise of the Hawks serves as a reminder that there is another avenue out besides resetting for teams stuck in the middle. Up against the house, however, cross your fingers and just hope it breaks your way.