On the beauty of Basketball
'poetry in motion' - Jaylen Brown
It's Christmas Day, and I'm watching basketball. NBA basketball has been played on Christmas Day since 1947 when the New York Knicks played the Providence Steamrollers—a defunct team that folded in 1949.
To many, it seems a weird sport for a British person to watch. And frankly, it kind of is; growing up, I briefly played the sport but harboured no interest for it at the time.
Until one of my very close friends went to university in the States and became a fan of the Boston Celtics. In turn, he converted me to watching basketball and the Celtics.
All of last season, he and I watched every Celtics game we could—this, of course, means staying up till 2am most nights to watch a game. And this season, my interest has taken an even further leap as I have signed up to a Dynasty (5-year long) Basketball Fantasy league.
This is quite a commitment on my behalf as I had to buy in and spent quite a bit of time really learning basketball—But as many will know, I am nothing if not thorough. The result of which is I am winning by quite a bit (currently undefeated).
Of course, if I were one of the other 10 Americans involved, I would find this rather embarrassing. Something my European friend and I have rubbed in their faces on many occasions. I will, of course, send out a further article on the topic when I win the season undefeated in March.
But as with lots of things in life, I wish I had found the sport sooner. Basketball is a sport with fluidity and grace that, once you understand it, feels as though a new world has opened to you.
It can happen at any moment; you are watching a rather dull game in the 4th quarter down 20 points, and suddenly one play lights a spark. You now have back-to-back heat check 3’s—often from deep. The building is electric, the team is now clawing their way back into the game. And finally, they win in overtime. The rush of watching that live is something I have only ever experienced one other time—Abu Dhabi 2021.
Basketball is a game typically defined by genetic blessings; any person who is tall will obviously identify with the 'do you play basketball' comment. There are many NBA players who are genetic freaks. Players that are freakishly tall, like Victor Wembanyama—nicknamed ‘the Alien’— who is 7'4" with a wingspan of 8 feet, or Giannis Antetokounmpo, a player who can cover 40 feet in four steps due to his enormous stride length.
Yet basketball is not just a game of enormous freaks; players like Chris Paul, Steve Nash, Steph Curry, and the shortest player ever, Muggsy Bogues—5'3"—can dominate games with their other talents, whether that be their passing, their handle, and of course, their shooting. The game is designed in a way that allows those who aren't blessed with height to make their way in the game.
When you watch the best of the best play against each other, it’s like ‘poetry in motion’ - Jaylen Brown.
To watch someone like Luka Doncic—who looks like an overweight dad bod but is actually one of the greatest players in the game—play isolation against some of the most talented athletes in the world is truly beautiful. In a sport that is dominated by athleticism and speed, Luka plays almost in slow motion. Every move he makes is methodical and purposeful.
You watch as he approaches a play; he uses his elite footwork and balance to slowly push his defender into making a small mistake, at which point he now has them. That small error, something imperceptible to most, is enough for him to get his bucket.
This is, of course, not to say that basketball is the perfect game. Anyone who watches will have a list of things they wish they could do to the game. But truly, when you watch a game of basketball that is played well, it is beautiful, and there is nothing that has quite captured my attention like it.
What makes it even more beautiful is that basketball is a team game made up of 5 players who all have their different talents and jobs; the result of this is that when a team is working well, the sum is greater than its parts. To watch a game and see coordinated passes that unlock a defence, seeing a player with quick hands reach in to steal a ball leading to a stadium-shaking dunk, to see a player feeling themselves and launching a bomb from half court and making it—these small moments in the game are beautiful.
One of the moments of basketball beauty that sticks in my mind happened in the final game of the 2024 Olympics.
USA basketball in the 2023 FIBA World Cup were embarrassed; they came in fourth place—The greatest country at basketball came fourth?
This lit a fire under them. They assembled the best team to play at the Olympics since the Dream Team in the 1992 Olympics.
It featured some of the greatest players of all time: LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, Jayson Tatum, and—the man of this play—Steph Curry, the greatest shooter of all time.
In the final game of the Olympics, the Gold Medal match against the seemingly unstoppable French team with ‘the Alien’ Victor Wembanyama leading the charge. France and the USA have gone back and forth all game. Steph Curry has been having a quiet game; but suddenly in the 4th quarter he has made 4 3s in 2 and half minutes. He is feeling himself.
We are now down to the last 35 seconds of the game, the USA is up 6 points but the game is far from over.
In the dying moments of the game, Steph Curry is under pressure; he has 5 seconds left before the ball would be turned over, potentially giving France the chance to win. Steph needs to make something happen, but he has two defenders on him.
On his left are two of the greatest players in the history of basketball.
LeBron James, nicknamed 'The Chosen One' at 17, the greatest player of all time—with a career that defies logic. And Kevin Durant, 'The Slim Reaper', arguably one of the Top-15 players of all time and one of the greatest scorers the game has ever seen.
They are both wide open.
To most, being double-teamed by defenders would be a death sentence; a pass would be difficult, much less an impossible shot.
However, Steph Curry is not most.
In this dying moment of the game, with the medal on the line, Steph Curry takes an off-balance, deep, 3-point shot that arc’d so high it almost went off screen—no sane player would ever take that shot, it is almost guaranteed to miss—but it goes in.
