Basketball (And Other Things) Read online

  NO. 28 PICK: Jamal Jefferies, Juwanna Mann

  HEIGHT: 6'1" WEIGHT: approximately 175 pounds POSITION: shooting guard

  MOST MEMORABLE ON-COURT MOMENT: Dunking it with such ferocity that (s)he shatters a backboard.

  Jamal gets kicked out of the UBA (this particular movie’s version of the NBA) and, because he wants to keep playing basketball, decides to dress up as a woman and play in the women’s professional league. That sort of (misguided) dedication is enough to work his way into being the 28th selection, which is impressive, for sure, but maybe less so than it sounds when you see that the 27th pick isn’t even a human.

  NO. 27 PICK: Buddy, Air Bud

  HEIGHT: approximately 22" WEIGHT: approximately 70 pounds POSITION: dog

  MOST MEMORABLE ON-COURT MOMENT: Literally any time he did anything close to playing basketball because he’s a goddamn dog.

  Let me just mention two things here:

  1. As I’m writing this, the opening line on the Air Bud Wikipedia page is, “The film opens with an abusive, alcoholic clown . . .” and I’ll take just a second to remind you that Air Bud is a Disney movie about a dog who plays basketball alongside children.

  2. Buddy is4 a dog, so maybe you’re wondering how he gets drafted above three actual people here. To that I would just remind you that he’s likely the most athletically gifted animal of all time, which is no small feat. He dominates in basketball (Air Bud), football (Air Bud: Golden Receiver), soccer (Air Bud: World Pup), baseball (Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch5), and volleyball (Air Bud: Spikes Back). He’s the fucking Bo Jackson of the animal kingdom.

  NO. 26 PICK: Jim Halpert, The Office

  HEIGHT: 6'3" WEIGHT: approximately 190 pounds POSITION: small forward

  MOST MEMORABLE ON-COURT MOMENT: Giving a Michael Jordan shrug to another man’s fiancée after scoring a basket.

  There’s only six minutes of footage of Jim Halpert playing basketball in all nine seasons of The Office, but look at how he stuffed that tiny amount of time with ample evidence that he is better at basketball than a nazi, a drug addict, a man pretending to be a woman, and a dog. He:

  • Starts the game by offering to guard Roy, rumored to be the opposing team’s best player (and, not coincidentally, fiancé to Pam, whom Jim is secretly in love with).

  • Dives out of bounds to save a loose ball; what’s more, he shows the wherewithal to knock it ahead to a teammate (Michael Scott) for a layup (he misses it).

  • Performs a behind-the-back evasive dribble maneuver so mesmerizing that Pam forgets she is engaged to Roy and reflexively cheers for Jim.

  • Sets an off-the-ball pick hearty enough to get Dwight a wide-open jumper, and let’s be sure and point out here that Jim spent no small amount of his nonbasketball life needling Dwight, so the fact that he’d actively work to get him an easy bucket isn’t just a testament to his basketball IQ but also to his dedication to winning.

  • Demands to guard Roy again after Michael proves himself incapable of doing it.

  • Gets his nose busted open by Roy while playing defense, then immediately retaliates on offense by taking Roy down low, banging on him a bit, then dropping a fadeaway jumper over him.

  • Steals the ball from Roy in the open court then drives it in for a layup.

  • Takes Roy in the paint again on offense, this time planting a very firm elbow into Roy’s chest, one he delivers with such poetic fury that it knocks Roy to the ground.

  So in that six-minute stretch we see Jim display fearlessness, tenacity, intelligence, savvy, a firm allegiance to team, assertiveness, toughness, and a willingness to obliterate a man in front of the woman that man’s supposed to marry. Jim Halpert is a winner.

  NO. 25 PICK: Mifundo, The Air Up There

  HEIGHT: 6'9" WEIGHT: approximately 220 pounds POSITION: power forward

  MOST MEMORABLE ON-COURT MOMENT: Nearly winning an intertribal championship that could’ve topsy-turvied the African mining ecosystem.

  I imagine you figured if anyone was going to be drafted from The Air Up There, it was going to be Saleh, basketball star of the movie, prince of the Winabi tribe, and the future of St. Joe’s basketball. And that makes sense because the most exhilarating moment of TAUT is when Saleh hits Mifundo, his towering archrival, with the Jimmy Dolan Shake and Bake move6 and then mega slam dunks it at the buzzer to win THE BIG GAME. But what gets forgotten is that Mifundo was basically wrecking all of Saleh’s shit all before then. (His team carried a double-digit lead for almost all of the contest, and they were even up seven with just under two minutes left before Saleh’s brother checked in and saved everything.) Mifundo was legit a bigger, stronger, more polished version7 of what Saleh was supposed to be. He gobbles up Saleh’s spot here, just like he gobbled up Saleh in the low post.8

  NO. 24 PICK: John Tucker, John Tucker Must Die

  HEIGHT: 5'10" WEIGHT: approximately 180 pounds POSITION: point guard

  MOST MEMORABLE ON-COURT MOMENT: Flip dunk in a thong.

  He literally did a flip dunk during practice just because he felt like showing off. That’s incredible. I mean, we’re talking about unprecedented athleticism here. Not just in basketball, but in all of history. You have to have something like a 75-inch vertical to flip dunk if you’re 5'10". In comparison, Jason Richardson, one of the greatest modern-day leapers in the NBA, has a recorded vertical of just over 46 inches. That alone makes Tucker a steal at the 24th pick. Factor in the fact that he was also such a charming and effervescent leader that he convinced all the other players on his high school basketball team to wear thongs, and all of a sudden maybe we should be talking about how he should’ve landed way, way, way higher up.

  1. He weighs nearly 400 pounds, he’s very clearly not any good at basketball, etc.

  2. Nazis fucking love two-handed set shots, I would guess.

  3. The Bulls drafted Jimmy Butler with the 30th pick in 2011. His and Derek’s games are comparable, really.

  4. “Was” is a better word here. Buddy died in 1998. A thing that’ll somehow make you feel even worse: He was the same dog who was in Full House. Michelle Tanner’s dog is dead.

  5. This is a perfect movie title.

  6. The Jimmy Dolan Shake and Bake move is an overly complicated string of instructions that ends with the offensive player tossing the ball between the defender’s legs. It takes nearly 30 seconds start to finish. That’s six seconds longer than the length of the shot clock in the NBA.

  7. Some of the blame here has to fall to his coach, Jimmy Dolan, played by Kevin Bacon. His most inspired bit of coaching during the championship game was to clap his hands very aggressively and shout, “Guard him, guard him, guard him!”

  8. Mifundo is played by Ilo Mutombo, Dikembe Mutombo’s older brother. Ilo played four years at the University of Southern Indiana. By the end of his playing career there he was the school’s all-time leading rebounder and their second leading scorer.

  WHAT’S THE ORDER OF THE FIRST ROUND OF THE FICTIONAL BASKETBALL PLAYER DRAFT?

  PART 2

  NO. 23 PICK: Jimmy Chitwood, Hoosiers

  HEIGHT: approximately 6'0" WEIGHT: approximately 160 pounds POSITION: guard

  MOST MEMORABLE ON-COURT MOMENT: Hitting a shot at the buzzer to win the 1952 Indiana State Championship.

  Before writing each one of the blurbs for these Fictional Basketball Player Draft chapters, I rewatched the movie (or shows) that featured the player I was going to write about. Mostly, I was watching trying to scout the player, and that’s what I’d intended to do here, too. But you know what I ended up wondering about when I sat through Hoosiers again? Do you think Jimmy Chitwood, the mysterious but charming hero,1 was a racist? I don’t ask that because of anything that happens in the movie; nothing overt ever happens that would lead me to believe so. I just ask because of the context. The movie’s set from 1951 to 1952, and also mostly everything takes place in rural Indiana. In 1950, Indiana was 95.5 percent white. And it was in 1949 that the Indiana School Desegregation Act
was passed. It just seems pretty impossible that Chitwood could’ve been raised as a progressive, you know what I’m saying?

  NO. 22 PICK: Monica Wright, Love & Basketball (or Quincy McCall, Love & Basketball)

  HEIGHT: 5'7" (or 5'10") WEIGHT: approximately 130 pounds (or approximately 175 pounds) POSITION: point guard

  MOST MEMORABLE ON-COURT MOMENT: Winning a one-on-one matchup against Quincy McCall in college (or winning a one-on-one matchup against Monica Wright after college).

  Do you remember the scene where Monica and Quincy were in college and deeply in love and it was great and beautiful and they played that game of one-on-one in his dorm room and each time someone scored a point the other person would have to take a piece of clothing off? Okay, there was a part during the game where Monica was trying to stop Quincy from scoring, and to do so she simply grabbed him by the penis. He dropped the ball, she picked it up, then she scored. If in the universe this draft exists in you’re allowed to grab people in the junk, then Monica gets picked in this draft spot. That’s just a super strong defensive move.2 My best hope is that each time after she does it, she wags her finger in front of the person’s genitals like how Dikembe Mutombo would wag his finger in a guy’s face after he blocked his shot.

  If that’s not the case, though, then give me Quincy McCall in this spot. (Note: It has to be the Quincy McCall from before he found out his dad cheated on his mom, though. That’s when he was still happy playing basketball. After he found out about the infidelity, his whole essence turned jagged and pointy.)

  NO. 21 PICK: Dr. Christopher Turk, Scrubs

  HEIGHT: 6'0" WEIGHT: approximately 195 pounds POSITION: shooting guard

  MOST MEMORABLE ON-COURT MOMENT: It was actually an off-the-court moment. Turk found some face paint and he was supposed to throw it away but instead he painted his head like a basketball and then J.D. dribbled him.

  Good size, good strength, good agility. Plus, he was so in love with basketball he was willing to play pickup games in the front parking lot and drop-off area of Sacred Heart Hospital. Double plus, he was such a devoted teammate that one time he laid down in the middle of a busy street with J.D. after J.D. knocked himself unconscious during shootaround because he didn’t want any of the other players to know J.D. had knocked himself out.

  NO. 20 PICK: Danny Valdessecchi, Blind Dating

  HEIGHT: 6'0" WEIGHT: approximately 175 pounds POSITION: point guard

  MOST MEMORABLE ON-COURT MOMENT: Winning a game of H-O-R-S-E for $$$ against some people hoping to take advantage of his being blind.

  This one is a very risky gamble. On the one hand, Danny’s blind, and being blind makes it just about impossible to be a professional basketball player. In fact, the one scene we see of Danny isn’t even of an actual game: It’s him playing H-O-R-S-E against a guy. He makes every shot he takes during the competition, sure, but again, it’s H-O-R-S-E. There’s no defense, there’s no crowd, there’s no anything. He basically just gets to stand there, sonar in on where the goal is, and then chuck a shot up there.

  On the other hand, we find out early in the movie that Danny is about to start going to law school, which means in a few years he’ll be a blind lawyer, which means there’s a tiny, tiny, tiny chance he’s the new Daredevil, and fuck you if you think I’m missing out on a chance to draft Daredevil.3 (More Daredevil evidence: There’s a part in the movie where Danny slides down a two-story-high stair rail and then when he lands, his buddy catches him to slow his momentum down, and when he catches Danny he says, “That’s it. I am convinced. You are the Batman.” That’s the sort of fore-shadowing that accompanies lots of superhero stories.)

  NO. 19 PICK: Lewis Scott, Celtic Pride

  HEIGHT: 6'2" WEIGHT: approximately 190 pounds POSITION: shooting guard

  MOST MEMORABLE ON-COURT MOMENT: Winning an NBA Finals Game 7 on the road in Boston.

  Lewis Scott is the star of a team playing in the NBA Finals here, which means that this isn’t an especially daring pick. But, I mean, a blind guy just got drafted. I need a safe bet.

  NO. 18 PICK: Calvin Cambridge, Like Mike

  HEIGHT: approximately 4'6" WEIGHT: approximately 85 pounds POSITION: point guard

  MOST MEMORABLE ON-COURT MOMENT: Throwing an alley-oop to himself off the backboard and dunking it from the free throw line.

  An orphan finds a pair of shoes that possibly belonged to Michael Jordan. He gets shocked by electricity. Then he averages 25 points per game in the NBA. Sign me the fuck up.

  NO. 17 PICK: Clarence Withers, Semi-Pro

  HEIGHT: 5'10" WEIGHT: approximately 160 pounds POSITION: guard

  MOST MEMORABLE ON-COURT MOMENT: Executing the first-ever alley-oop.

  Mostly because of André 3000’s verse on 2007’s “Walk It Out (Remix),” which is still absolutely perfect and pristine.4

  NO. 16 PICK: David 8, Prometheus

  HEIGHT: 6'0" WEIGHT: approximately 174 pounds POSITION: robot

  MOST MEMORABLE ON-COURT MOMENT: Swishing a 29-foot hook shot while riding a bicycle.

  David is a robot that looks like a human and talks like a psycho.5 Granted, we have very little footage of him actually playing basketball. Really, the closest we get is a scene where we see him alone on a dark court shooting a hook shot from several feet beyond the three-point line while riding a bicycle.6 I would argue that that’s plenty reason to draft him, though. I mean, granted, he won’t be allowed on a bicycle during the game, but I figure riding a bike and shooting a hook shot from 29 feet away isn’t any more difficult than running and shooting a hook shot from 29 feet away. If anything, doing it without a bike makes it easier. You pair him up with someone who sets good screens and that shit is a wrap, homie. He’s averaging 30 a game, easy. So he could get drafted at the 16th spot off the strength of that prospect alone.

  Here’s the thing, though. I suspect he’s going to be just a very good all-around player, too. As evidence, I’ll point you toward the promo commercial that was running on the Internet when Prometheus was in theaters. It was this pretend commercial advertising David 8 as a purchasable thing for people and the whole commercial was basically just a narrator asking David four separate questions and David answering them.

  Q1: What can you do, David?

  David: I can do almost anything that could possibly be asked of me. I can assist your employees. I can make your organization more efficient. I can carry out directives that my human counterparts might find . . . distressing or unethical. I can blend in with your work-force effortlessly.

  [This is exactly what I’d want a guy to say to me if I was interviewing him to be on my team, because it sounds a lot like he’s interested only in the betterment of the team, but it also sounds a lot like he wouldn’t mind cracking someone in the back of the head with a pipe if I asked him to.]

  Q2: David, what do you think about?

  David: I think about anything. Children playing. Angels. The universe. Robots.

  [I can’t say for certain, but this would be my guess for the answer Tim Duncan gave when Gregg Popovich asked him this question after the Spurs drafted him in 1997.]

  Q3: David, what makes you sad?

  David: War. Poverty. Cruelty. Unnecessary violence. I understand human emotions, although I do not feel them myself. This allows me to be more efficient and capable.

  [Perfect.]

  Q4: Is there anything you would like to say, David?

  David: I would like to express gratitude to those who created me.

  [Bang.]

  NO. 15 PICK: Steve Urkel, Family Matters

  HEIGHT: 5'10" WEIGHT: approximately 150 pounds POSITION: guard

  MOST MEMORABLE ON-COURT MOMENT: Being allowed to play.

  The hapless, helpless, hopeless Steve Urkel was the water boy for his high school basketball team, the lowly Vanderbilt Muskrats. In a game where they were down by 22 points with seven minutes left in the fourth quarter and the coach was left with no other options,7 he subbed Steve in. And then he sat and watched in awe
as Urkel fucking DESTROYED the other team.

  It was like if someone put a pair of suspenders on Chris Paul. His most impressive stretch came in the last minute of the game, which makes sense because that’s always the time when champions reserve their seats in Valhalla. The Muskrats were down five and on defense. Steve stole the ball, charged down the court, then threw a perfect alley-oop pass off the backboard to the trailing big man. On the very next play, he helped force another steal, then dropped off a behind-the-back pass for a wide-open layup. With six or so seconds left and his team down one—and make no mistake, by this point they were absolutely “Steve Urkel’s team”—he executed a devastating step back move to free space up between him and his defender, then he raised up and let fly a gorgeous 20-footer. There was never a doubt. The ball never even considered touching the rim. It barely considered touching the net. The buzzer went off as the ball swished through, giving the Muskrats a one-point win. Then he went home and didn’t have sex with Laura Winslow.

  NO. 14 PICK: Lucas Scott, One Tree Hill

  HEIGHT: 6'0" WEIGHT: approximately 165

  pounds POSITION: guard

  MOST MEMORABLE ON-COURT MOMENT: Defeating his estranged half brother, Nathan, in a high-stakes game of one-on-one.

  Nathan, Lucas’s half brother, had what was for sure the more successful basketball career (he actually ended up making it into the league proper, while Lucas’s career was derailed because of heart complications). But he gets bumped here for Lucas for two reasons, one of which is obvious and the second of which is (possibly) less so:

  1. NATHAN LOST TO LUCAS WHEN THEY PLAYED ONE-ON-ONE. This is the obvious one. They played each other. Lucas won. Lucas was the better player. And since we’re allowing draftees to keep their magic powers or whatever when they have them, I’m gonna go ahead and allow Lucas to keep the good version of his heart. So there you go. That solves that.