Kevin Hart, who has for one reason or another, become an unofficial representative of the NBA, won his fourth All-Star Celebrity Game MVP award on Friday — maybe that’s part of the reason. Regardless, the diminutive actor has cast a shadow under which other basketball-loving celebrities exist, one of whom’s passion has been well documented for the better part of this decade.
Win Butler, lead singer of Canadian indie rock group Arcade Fire, is the best basketball fan in music.
This weekend, he was one of the most productive performers in the All-Star Celebrity Game, the forward who stands at 6-foot-4 scoring eight points and pulling down 12 rebounds as he led his team to a 59-51 win. His game was prime no-frills basketball: he made cuts in good spots, crashed the boards and even avoided confrontation when Hart embellished contact to get an over-the-back foul call. Butler’s not there to make a scene: his characteristically low-key and sarcastic personality doesn’t really allow it — or maybe not.
He played varsity in high school, but found less and less time to devote to his sport as Arcade Fire began to take off in the early 2000s, but managed to steal the basketball of some poor guy named Chris H. in 2007, who wrote a blog post titled “Win Butler needs to give my basketball back,” about Butler’s angry reaction to being asked to vacate a court that ended with Butler leaving the facility with Chris H.’s ball in tow.
Butler later came up with a way to indulge his passion for a more virtuous cause: since 2011, Butler has hosted the annual “Pop vs. Jock,” a charity basketball game that features other indie rockers and even professionals, like Matt Bonner of the San Antonio Spurs, with whom Butler has become friendly.
During halftime of the 2011 “Pop vs. Jock,” he got Bonner, a passionate fan of indie music, to sing a rendition of “I’m a Little Teapot” with Butler’s wife and Arcade Fire member Régine Chassagne accompanying on organ. Around that time, Butler and Bonner faced off in a three-point contest, and the musician actually emerged victorious.
“I’m demoralized,” Bonner said with more than a hint of sarcasm. “I’m seriously contemplating giving up the game.”
Butler’s mean streak continued to flare in early 2014. He was down in Australia for Big Day Out, one of the country’s biggest music festivals. He rolled up to some public basketball courts for some pick-up ball, and as told to Australian radio station Triple J by Sherif Hassan, who played with Butler that day, the Arcade Fire frontman was all competition.
“All I heard was Win going off about how the rules are rubbish down here, and throwing balls around and chucking a bit of a hissy fit,” Hassan said.
He also said that Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament was present and actually broke Hassan’s nose, but made up for it by getting everybody backstage passes to the festival. But, as Grantland writer Amos Barshad pointed out, “Ament did his part! He made, um, amends! But where was Win, the guy whose (dare I say) violent distaste for Australian-rules basketball — throwing balls! chucking hissy fits! — was quite clearly directly responsible for creating the dangerously out-of-control environment that led to poor Sherif’s nose being smashed in? […] Probably off stealing Sherif’s basketball.”
Fast-forward to this past weekend, and Butler seems more composed under the brighter spotlight. Maybe he’s campaigning for the title of indie rock’s ambassador to basketball, in which case, there’s no room for ball thievery and hissy fits. Leave the rock and roll on stage and keep pulling down rebounds, big fella.