In the 1997 movie Waiting for Guffman, Dr. Allan Pearl (Eugene Levy) says he is somebody who "loves to make people laugh." He elaborates:
"....I've been doing it since, you know, school. People ask me, 'You must have been the class clown!' and I tell them 'No, I wasn't.' But I sat beside the class clown, and I studied him. And I picked some things up. And I have to say that at parties and family functions I love breaking people up."
On Sunday, I was Dr. Pearl. On Sunday I was given a gift, an opportunity to learn at close hand from an expert. Allow me to elaborate.
The cold snap we experienced last week featured the lowest Central Texas temperatures since 1976 (17 degrees on Friday night), but two days later, by 10:30am, conditions were bball-friendly once again. The air was still harsh on hands, and breaths were evident, but the cloudless January skies promised a midwinter beauty. Gil, Randy, and I were there to enjoy it.
The only problem was, nobody else had shown up. We kept our sweats on, warmed up, stretched out, got shots in. And waited. Finally, at 11:30, we decided to play 21. It was a good hard game, we all shot well. I tried to remember "Defense!", got some steals, and won on a three. It had been a while, and it felt good.
As we were finishing, a fourth guy shows up, loping up out of the woods towards us to say What's Up! 'Twas none other than White Kobe, ball in hand, ready to take people down. And at that moment I knew I had been given a gift. An opportunity to go mano a mano with the best of the Sunday players. With no guys waiting, this was a chance to study him up close, intensely experience his strengths, and discern his weaknesses. This is an effortless winner, a 26 year-old 6'4 guy whose layups are always at the rim. A killer shooter.
Two-on-two would give everybody lots of ball-time, and lots of room to operate. Somebody's always on the attack, and there's less time to catch your breath. Every rebound's a scramble.
Randy and I against Gil and the K-meister. We start, Randy inbounds to me, left wing. Kobe in my face like a windshield. This is the real deal. Alright, summon up all your powers, you're gonna need every backyard move from summer '86 to the present to pull this off. Let's start with this one: Ball fake left, jab right, go left, go hard, HARD! layup! That's what I'm talking about. Make-it-take-it, we get it again, but I miss a 3 (going for stun here), Gil rebounds now White Kobe's got it outside the arc, jumps...swish. Now he's got it at the elbow, turns around, leap to get a piece!, no....swish. Rinse and repeat.
Randy and I lost three in a row to Gil and White Kobe. I was playing as hard and as well as I could hope to play. I'm talking about the full repertoire of left hand scoops, up-and-unders, three pointers, foul-line jumpers, full-speed drives. And on rebounds and defense I was working at late-July-of-'08-level, or even harder, as I figured I couldn't black out in the winter. Randy has a steady 12 foot set-shot about which somebody once said, "Randy, that's why we pay you the big bucks!" and he was indeed draining it when I found him open. (Just as the Eagle does not swim, Randy does not create.) (And, I believe this is why I chose him for my teammate: so that I might run the offense.) (Does it also provide an excuse for a loss, choosing to be the obvious underdog? Might it be a way to avoid the pressure and responsibility to win? I shudder to think so.) (My friend August says No. He says you do it for the challenge, for the enhanced triumph of that victory, and to avoid the hollow pride of winning with the more talented team.) (But then I posit: that is vainglorious, desiring the greater prestige accruing to the underdog winner. There's greater honor in choosing the most even teams, and admit, "Kobe's better than me, Gil's better than Randy; I'll play with Gil.") (But August might say: screw that, let one feel no compunction about winning, and if it feels better when you're the underdog, bring it on.) (Then I say: if you win, then are you really the underdog? What does it mean to be the less talented team yet win?) (Feel free to weigh in on this hot debate. All I know for certain is that I thought Randy and I could do it, and it was going to be excellent when we did.)
But I had no answer to Kobe's skill-set. Downtown 3 pointers: bam. Catch-and-shoot 15 footers: bam. Turnaround fadeaway from 10 feet: bam bam bam. Gil hit a few patented corner 3s, and required his usual considerable amount of attention and concern, but White Kobe was scoring most of their points, and they won all three games 11-5, 11-7, 11-9.
We switched teams at this point, and Gil and I played together. We won. I blocked a White Kobe shot, and actually burned him to the hole twice. Gil drained from outside. God it felt good. But it was short-lived, as White Kobe was soon saying, "Okay let's do this" while his twinkling eyes and amused expression communicated I'm Not Used to Losing, and I Hope You're Enjoying it Because it's Over. He proceeded to rip turnarounds on me and he and Randy won 11-7. Aberration dealt with, order restored. We three sat on the bench catching our breath as he continued to shoot.
Twenty minutes later I was inhaling a delicious double cheeseburger at a burger stand near our house. The day was gorgeous. The fries were prodigiously greasy. I just had my lunch handed to me, so to speak, but I was feeling on top of the world. In this ruminant moment, I had several thoughts:
1) The name of the game is put the ball in the hole. This is what he does. He's not a spinning driving dervish. He just puts the ball in the hole. That's how he wins.
2) This guy can be beaten off the dribble. No mistake about it. He can be Adrian Dantley'd into submission, I think.
3) He makes the shots he practices. I've seen him working on his turnaround (for instance, as we three left the court.) He does it over and over and over, headphones on. It's not rocket science, but I hadn't thought about working on, say, two specific shots over and over again. I might choose: baseline and elbow. Over and over.
4) He's at least 6'4, with considerable reach. The way to stop him is through quickness and leaps. Timing, getting as high as you can to get a piece. All the more reason to keep running sprints and jumping rope.
And if it can't be done, then so be it. But something tells me it can be. In Guffman, Eugene Levy's character ends up getting a headlining job at a senior retirement center in Florida, and he experiences fulfillment. Similarly, by watching Kobe carefully, and taking notes, I think I can eke out some more W's each Sunday.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Comments