NEW YORK — The media crowd surrounding the tables of LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony would struggle to fit comfortably inside a New York City subway car at rush hour.
The crowd hovering around various members of the Atlanta Hawks during Friday’s availability for All-Star weekend would not encounter the same problem.
The Hawks are the best team in the East at 43-11 but among the main storylines for this weekend were Carmelo Anthony’s knee and anything LeBron James had to say.
That’s star power for you.
On paper, the Hawks do not quite have that star power. In reality they have players combining to form a team that shines on the court, evidenced by an unbeaten January that led to the entire starting five being named Eastern Conference players of the month.
The Hawks are what unfolds when players back up talk of sacrificing by their actions on the court.
“The reason why you got four guys in the All-Star game is because of that team concept,” said former Hawk Dominque Wilkins, who is a color analyst on the team’s telecasts. “They know that they rely on each other if they’re going to be successful (and) that one or the other can’t do it by themselves. They rely on a committee to get it done and they’ve done it better than anybody in the league this year.”
The last Hawk team to finish with the top seed in the East was the 1994 edition that won 57 games and traded Wilkins to the Los Angeles Clippers for Danny Manning. That team was knocked out in the second round by the Indiana Pacers.
This year’s team is also coming off a postseason series loss to the Pacers. Last year the Hawks edged the Knicks for the final spot by one game and the 38-win team pushed the Pacers into two elimination games before bowing out in Game 7.
That edition of the Hawks might have been different had Al Horford not been limited to 29 games — all in the regular season.
“We didn’t have all our pieces last year, so last year was a tough year for us,” forward Paul Millsap said. “We still managed to find a way to make it to the playoffs and make it to Game 7 and had an opportunity to win a game. So this year we have everybody back, everybody’s healthy. Al’s definitely a big part of that and when we have these people that’s when things started to click.”
Atlanta coach Mike Budenholzer said, “I think it’s the players we have. I think we’ve been able to put together a group of high character guys that it’s kind of in their hearts, in their guts. They play unselfishly, they care about each other. They do all of the things that go into having good chemistry and it’s just a credit to the players that we have.”
This year the Hawks have a fully healthy Horford to go along with effective performances by point guard Jeff Teague and Millsap. And if none of those options are available, there’s always Kyle Korver, who makes more than half his shots from anywhere and is virtually automatic at the free-throw line.
None of this would be possible without chemistry, which often gets overlooked in a league dictated by star power and so-called super teams at times.
“I think chemistry is something that is overlooked, especially in today’s age where everything broken down and analytics is so big,” Korver said. “It’s hard to analyze chemistry. I think it’s hard to break that down and I think our chemistry is really good and we play a style of basketball where every single time on the court we all matter.
“We might not shoot the ball, we might be the guy who scores but we’re going to set at least one screen, we’re going to make a pass and we’re going to do something where we feel like we’re involved in what’s happening and just doing that it keeps your energy levels up and I think as a team we play hard every night and that’s a big part of how you win and how you go on winning streaks in the NBA is getting guys to buy in and play hard for each other every night.”
The importance of cohesion shows up in many possessions where all five players touch the ball.
A sample possession might include the following: Teague drives through the paint, kicks it out to Korver on the perimeter. Korver swings the ball inside to Horford, who may pass to forward DeMarre Carroll on one of the wings and before you know it the ball reaches Millsap and then returns to Horford for an easy basket.
“It matters a ton,” Korver said. “If we had a knucklehead on our team he would stand out. If we had one guy who was playing selfishly he would stand out and no one wants to stand out in that way. We all get along and we’re all pulling for each other. It’s a really good setup.”
It’s also turning into a really good setup for the city. Atlanta has not been known as a hotbed for the NBA and although it ranks 20th in average attendance, through the end of January attendance had increased by 20 percent over last year with more crowds coming as the Hawks keeps winning.
Last year the Hawks had four sellouts and entering this season were dealing with a potential public relations issue due to racial comments from owner Bruce Levenson and general manager Danny Ferry. Instead, even as the team is in the process of looking for new ownership, the Hawks have connected with fans through their play on the court and getting creative with the environment in the arena.
Creativity aside, the system that has led to success is how the Hawks reached this point.
“I’ve never been in a system that there’s this much balance,” Millsap said. “It’s not just predicated around one or two guys, if you’re open you shoot it. If you got to drive the lane, drive it.
“There’s a lot (of attention paid to decision-making) but you’ve got to have smart guys, good decision makers and we work on it a lot in situational stuff. You still got to have situational guys out there, guys who are smart enough to make the right plays.”
That’s how the Hawks win when Teague is their leading scorer at 17 points, a figure that ranks 31st in the league. It’s not necessarily a new thing as the Spurs won two of their five championships without having a player average 20 points as did the 2008 Boston Celtics and 2004 Detroit Pistons.
Instead of individuals, the Hawks have all five starters shooting over 45 percent, resulting in the league’s third-best shooting team (47.1), the league’s sixth-best offense at 103.4 points and the league’s top passing team at 25.7 assists per game. Atlanta also is fourth in scoring defense at 96.8 points.
“We have 10 guys who can shoot the ball and we play defense on the ball, which is not a lot of teams that say they extend the defense on the wing and guard on the ball and none of our big guys get in trouble,” Wilkins said.