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SEPTEMBER 2012
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HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
the court, I will effortlessly roll
off a screen into a catch-and-shoot so
fundamentally sound it will bring tears
to the eyes of my foes. And when my rec
league teammates wonder how the guy
they’ve never seen make an off-hand
layup is now positively stroking the ball,
I’ll chuckle knowingly
.
For all the minor humiliations loom-
ing on the horizon, the process at first is
instantly gratifying. The at-home writing
job I’ve just started allows me to schedule
daily practice. I set aside one hour every
a ernoon to hustle to the public school
court down the street, shoot, then hustle
home, shower and be back on the com-
puter for work. And I focus on the one bit
of advice I’ve accrued so far—“Keep your
elbow in,” from my buddy Ben, a skilled
shooter—and I amwildly optimistic about
the meager results. I am a
piece of untouched marble,
carving myself into shape. All
I ever had to do was
try
!
And then, almost as quickly,
I abandon all hope.
When the shots do fall,
it’s meditative. Shoot shoot
shoot, let the mind wander,
let it shut off altogether.
When they drop , i t ’s a
simple, bl issful thing. But most of
the time I’m cursing myself and kicking
errant balls around the pockmarked
court. Progress stalls. I humble myself
and beg the sweetest-shooting friends
I have for help. Ray is polite and instruc-
tive and si lently dumbfounded by
my collection of hitches. Mike is less
elegant: He watches me brick J’s while he
sips a Dunkin’ Donuts latte and shouts
things like “Needs improvement!” and
“Verdict: Shot lackluster!”
Ira, a one-time basketball coach,
endeavors to break me down and build
me up again. He has me shoot with my
(dominant) left hand only, my off hand
tucked behind my back. He has me get
all the way underneath the ball, bending
my knees nearly to the ground. I practice
curling the ball off my fingertips—index
finger last, pointing forwardon the release,
the hand hanging high in the follow-
through. Every motion is exaggerated,
and it’s humiliating and exhausting. But
it’s also thrilling. I have a blueprint. Lying
back in bed with a ball, I curl, release and
catch, keeping inmind a vintage LarryBird
photo, mid-jump: his body taut, his leap at
its apex, his hand floating completely off a
perfectly cradled Spalding.
I wind up playing a lot of one-on-
one with half the third-graders in my
Brooklyn neighborhood, Crown Heights,
because telling an 8-year-old, “No, see,
I have to practice alone for a magazine
essay,” doesn’t quite wash with children.
One afternoon we play Utah, a rowdy
every-man-for-himself affair, and these
kids are so friendly and chummy that
any concerns I’ve had about the future
of humanity are put to rest. One chubby
youngster spouts off all manner of PG
trash talk—“I want my milk, I’m ’bout to
get
my milk”—which pleases me no end.
But then the kids realize I’m the only one
out here who brought a ball, and that if I
win I take it home. Suddenly I’m ge ing
hacked like crazy by their tiny hands, my
arms and shirt are ge ing yanked; a dozen
cackling children chase my dribble from
right to left like we’re playing out some
surrealist sneaker commercial. In the end,
I prevail (they
are
children), and high-five
them before heading home.
Later, the famedCrownHeightsHasidic
community pops up to present a new
problem. During the days around Rosh
Hashana, a string of pious believers pass
by the court to ask me if I’m a member
of the tribe, and if I’d want to take part
in a prayer with them. I am, and I’m not
into denying my ancestry, but we barely
even lit the Hanukkah candles grow-
ing up and I’m trying to shoot here, so I
worm out of it. The first time I pretend
I’mtoo out of breath to talk, and shakemy
head vaguely; by the end of the week I’m
loudly declaring myself a gentile before
they even approach. One youngman tacks
a “That’s going in!” onto his “Have a nice
day!” and I air-ball. I wonder how all this
is affecting my karma.
I take my ball with me wherever I go:
visiting college buddies in Ann Arbor,
on assignment to California, home to
my parents in Massachuse s, where the
gears on my old hoop have rusted into a
bu eryacquiescence. IbingeonYouTube—
Mike Miller ne ing an endless string of
practice three-pointers, Stephen Curry’s
compact form in gorgeous slow-motion—
and film myself to spot flaws. I pick up
tips constantly. Find a regular target,
front or back rim. Focus. Release.
You shoot, you try to get be er, youkeep
trying that forever. You shoot until it falls
into place. At the beginning I thought I
could put in work for three months and
birth a jump shot. And, rela-
tive to the abomination I was
working with before, some-
thing new and—to me, only
to me—
glorious
has entered
theworld. But if Iwant to keep
that up, I have to keep the rest
of it up. Ray Allen is the great-
est jump shooter alive and he
still comes out every day and
shoots, hundreds of times. I
don’t know if I have that kind of will.
Toward the end of my project, our
rec league starts up again. One evening
my team finds itself in a hotly contested
game, tiedwith 10 seconds to go, the other
teamwith the ball. They miss; I corral the
rebound and get fouled. As I trudge to
the free throw line, no one, least of all me,
thinks I’m making this. But I drop down,
remember my jump form. I take about
10 seconds to line up my shot—and I sink
it. Game over.
We jump around on the sideline, go out
and crush some celebratory cheeseburg-
ers, and a few hours later I get a text from
Ben, the guywho gavememy first piece of
jump shot advice, waybackwhen. “Ahhhh,”
he writes. “Shoooooterrr!!!”
Not quite. But maybe by next summer.
In case Larry Bird is reading:
AMOS BARSHAD,
staff writer for the online magazine Grantland,
is available for tutoring.
culture
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THE FAN
One friend watches me
brick J’s while he sips a la e
and shouts things like
“Needs improvement!” and
“Verdict: Shot lackluster!”