"It's a fun way to play basketball. Whoever's on the court, you feel like you matter every single time. Even if you don't shoot the ball, you're going to make the pass, you're going to set the screen. What you do on that possession matters. When everyone matters like that, you actually play harder, you buy in a little bit easier. We don't have one guy shooting 20 shots a game. We're pretty balanced, so you know, 'I'm going to set the screen one time, and the next time someone is going to set the screen for me.' It's kind of a, 'I'll scratch your back and you'll scratch mine,' type thing." -- Kyle Korver
Maybe you've heard -- the Hawks don't have a Superstar. An Alpha Dog. The Guy who can manufacture points at will. In a league where athleticism reigns supreme, this is a risky practice. NBA defenses are long, strong, smart and prepared. Pass-happy, peach-basket stuff might play in college, but in the NBA, gimme a Russell Westbrook or James Harden any day.
The Hawks believe otherwise. They subscribe to the idea that the most dangerous feature of an NBA offense, the thing that can really paralyze an opposing defense, is choice. Because when you don't know where the shot is coming from and don't know how it will even materialize, it's nearly impossible to zero in on a single player -- superstar, alpha dog or otherwise.
For the Hawks, sharing the ball isn't just an exercise in unselfishness for its own sake. As Korver notes, sharing makes an offense stronger because everybody feels a sense of ownership. Every player on the floor is both an option and a decoy, a potential passer and shooter, screener and cutter.
"Hawk 4" is just one of many pages in Atlanta's playbook that employ these principles. As Korver says in his narration above, it's the kind of set a bunch of teams in the NBA run. But the Hawks seem to run the stuff more fluidly and with more patience that most everyone else.