Thanks to Instagram pictures from Kent Bazemore, it was fairly well-known that a group of Atlanta Hawks players had found a non-traditional card game to play on team flights as a form of entertainment. While there were a few quotes and pictures about the games of Uno on the Hawks flights, there was nothing in-depth about the strange NBA tradition until Tuesday, when Scott Cacciola of the New York Times wrote a fantastic article detailing the history of the games.
While the entire thing is well worth your time, perhaps the best part of the entire story is how seriously the Hawks take the games.
"The games almost always continue from takeoff to landing, and each player is expected to be a full participant, with no excused absences. Guard Tim Hardaway Jr., who was a part of the group earlier this season, learned that lesson. After a couple of weeks spent honing his Uno expertise, teammates said, he wanted to take a break, if only for one flight.“He said he was tired and wanted to rest,” Schroder said. “So we had to kick him out.”Hardaway has not been invited back."
That is right the Hawks decided that Tim Hardaway Jr was not worthy of playing Uno anymore because he wanted to rest one night.
The story also mentions that Bazemore is in the process of ordering a championship belt for the group to pass around, which is amazing. Hopefully the belt is able to be customized to have a replica Draw 2 card in it or something.
The only thing left for the Hawks to do now is Periscope a game one night so that fans can really get an inside look at how Uno is supposed to be played, though the intensity of the games may make that impossible.
"In a twist, four teammates — guard Shelvin Mack and forwards Paul Millsap, Thabo Sefolosha and Mike Scott — play a regular game of Spades on the Hawks’ flights. But it is a low-key affair. They sound as if they are at a yoga retreat compared with the Uno players.“The Uno guys are screaming and cheering,” the assistant coach Darvin Ham said. “It’s every emotion possible.”"