It has been over a month now since the NBA suspended its season. We have been without live contests in any sport longer than any period in my lifetime, and it doesn't look like that will be changing soon.
I, personally, was looking forward to watching beloved rookie Rui Hachimura average 40 points a game to finish out the season, taking my dear Washington Wizards into the playoffs and stealing Rookie of the Year honors from Ja Morant or Zion Williamson. That was going to happen, and you can't tell me otherwise now.
Being robbed of basketball for so long now, the NBA tried to spice our lives up. Why not a H-O-R-S-E competition with current and former NBA and WNBA players? Sure, you might have said to yourself, that seems fun. Clearly the most athletic people in the world could pull out a whole host of impossible shots to challenge themselves with and entertain us, the needing masses.
I think I speak for everyone who watched the ensuing hours of content when I say that was the lamest thing I have ever seen on this green earth. Trae Young bricking a bunch of threes is really the best we can do? Really?
I don't know if you've ever played H-O-R-S-E before, and at this point I'm certain almost none of the participants had. But you know what's a real H-O-R-S-E shot? Pulling out some nonsense, like a running, one foot hook shot from 40 feet away. Or a turnaround bank shot that doesn't touch rim. I'd even take a shot where the ball has to bounce on top of the backboard three times before dropping into the basket.
THAT'S a game of H-O-R-S-E. One where the shots you take are so unlikely to go in that when they do by complete accident, victory is all the more thrilling.
"I haven’t seen a ton, but (Zach) LaVine was kinda nice with it," DTH colleague and renowned basketball commentator Chapel Fowler said to me over text. "Gotta get crazier than a buncha midrange jumpers tho. I don’t jump at the opportunity to watch a bunch of people imitate David West."
How right he is. There were a few highlights — LaVine using his athleticism to abuse a washed-up Paul Pierce was fun. But the only real rule was no dunking, and the best the two-time Slam Dunk Champion could do was to tap the backboard and lay it in? You're Zach LaVine! Go try and jump from the free throw line, throw the ball off the backboard and finger roll it in or something!
I appreciated Allie Quigley's callback to Pete Maravich with the sitting down shot, and Mike Conley making off-hand layups from behind the backboard was kind of fun, even if him being ambidextrous takes some of the fun out of it. But for the most part, it was just players taking safe shots they knew they could make.
