When I Forgot How to Shoot

I once forgot how to shoot a free throw….in front of a sold out arena.

I’m being dead ass serious. The same thing I’ve done hundreds of thousands of times, decided to completely fuck off. My brain, which is normally useless during a free throw, picked this moment to show up and start asking questions. Like an update was downloaded in my brain giving me complete awareness of every situation…which broke the coding of just relying on repetition and shutting my brain off.

It was Cairns, Australia, 2006. First round of the NBL playoffs, second playoff game in franchise history, whole town rocking. I was the American import brought in to carry this thing. The South Dragons had done their homework, knew my free throws needed a firmware update, so every time I got a step toward the rim they just fouled the shit out of me. “Earn it from the line ya dickhead.”

I went 1 for 8, with the one make banked in…on purpose, obviously.

I’d played in big games. Sectional finals in high school, the NEC Championship, the NCAA Tournament against Duke. Every one of them I was the underdog, which is easier mentally. No expectations…just go be a problem. Cairns changed all that. We were the favorites and I was the hero who was supposed to win it for them…which, for somebody who spent his whole life being doubted…being believed in was genuinely horrifying.

Third miss, I’m talking to myself. Fourth miss, I’m standing in a packed arena seriously wondering if I’d ever shot a basketball before in my life or just dreamed it. The fans got into it too, those slow pity cheers that swell up before each attempt and then deflate into a groan when it fucks off the rim. Real nice of them. Everyone had a cure…”Hold your follow through.” “Picture it going in.” “Clear your mind. Just breathe.” You stack up all the advice I got that month and it felt like a Tony Robbins show.

What finally worked, and I honestly, couldn’t tell you why, was just accepting it before it happened. I stopped fighting and told myself the outcome was going to be whatever everyone already assumed, so relax and shoot the shot I’d taken a billion times. Didn’t fix it overnight as that fear hung around for years, like turbulence you know is coming back when you see lightening striking around the plane.

What I didn’t realize until after I retired…the same brain that got me through Kosovo and Korea and a decade of absolute nonsense, was fully capable of unplugging the easiest shit I did on a court…which is insane. But if it could take something from me, it could hand me something back. I just had to aim it.

Next Sunday, the one that still sits on my chest some mornings…The NBA call that never came.

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