That
morning, I felt a kind of isolated calm lying in the hostel bed with my curtain
drawn. It’s a bit strange being in a foreign country and at the same time
continuing to read news from back home. It changes the meaning of say, local
news reports explaining the current drought when the lack of rain is 6,000
miles away. I was catching up on the NBA playoffs, watching clips on Youtube.
It was probably then I solidified my loyalty to my local basketball team.
Watching a
great shooter(like Steph Curry) is like witnessing poetry in motion. If you watch it in slow
motion, the feet set and the knees bend slightly. He adjusts his finger to find
an accurate grip on the ball. The other hand rests on the side of the ball like
it’s brushing a cheek. The ball dips with his hands, and his body sways like a
vertical wave. The elbow comes through and up and at the release, you might be
able to see the wrist cock and flick forward with great extension. You see most
of this with all great shooters but it’s only accessible when the video is
slowed down. Every movement is deliberate—calculated, but not overly so. Most
times, in a game, it simply seems like a reenactment of an unconscious routine.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Of course,
the ball goes in only half of the time, even that if you’re lucky. But what’s
interesting about the makes is how inevitable it seems. Because a ball that’s
going in has a finality about it as its trajectory is marked through the air.
But how—that’s the most compelling part. Does it swish the net? Does it rattle
the sides of the rim? Does it hit the back of the rim, bouncing up while its
spin carries it through? How much does the net move? These are small
observations, of course. But anything carries meaning when the same thing
happens, more or less.
Why is it
so engrossing to watch human bodies move? One suspects it has to do with our
evolutionary past where our eyes had to make sense of the blur—to capture
motion. But I think it is more than a simple physiological or physical impulse
when we admire the hang-time of a Michael Jordan or the lunge of a goalie
saving a point for his team.
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