The Atlanta Hawks are continuing to battle through the season to be the best in the Eastern Conference. Within the team, however, there’s another heated battle, and it’s one that few people would expect: Uno.
The Hawks invented their own ruthless version of ‘Uno’ and it’s tearing the team apart
The New York Times has a piece about how the Hawks are way into the card game Uno, which started when Jeff Teague brought the game on team trips last season. The game of Uno is relatively easy enough with a standalone deck, but Kent Bazemore and Dennis Schroder spiced it up by adding the “more notorious cards” no one wants to get:
It all started innocently enough when Jeff Teague, the team’s starting point guard, brought a deck of Uno cards on a trip last season. He gradually recruited several teammates — Bazemore, center Al Horford and guards Kyle Korver and Dennis Schroder — to start participating in a regular game.
The conventional objective — first player to get rid of all his cards wins — was enough to keep them interested, but they soon wanted to spice things up. So Bazemore and Schroder hatched the idea of adding some of the more notorious cards from at least two other decks — all the Draw 2s, Wild Draw 4s, Reverses and Skips. The players referred to the extra cards as “heat.” The game was born anew.
“I think everyone should play it that way, because it’s no-holds-barred,” Bazemore said. “It’s the WWE of Uno, man. It’s crazy.”
And when Uno happens, the Hawks get really into it, to the point where everyone’s “screaming and cheering.” As someone who, as a kid, has gotten upset many times during Uno, adding so many draw cards is a terrible and genius idea, and I’m afraid of playing with that modification:
As innocuous as Uno is, the whole reason the game’s become a huge staple for the team is because it’s ultimately a way for them to bond. As Al Horford explains to the Times, “You get all these long flights, and you can only watch so many movies. So it’s a good way for us to interact as a group.”
You can read more about the Hawks’ love for Uno, which includes a part about Tim Hardaway Jr. getting shunned from the group’s game for life, because he was “tired” -- apparently fatigue is not a good enough excuse for the Hawks to stop playing Uno.
