One More Reason Why We Love Hoop

Tracy McGrady is, according to his Wikipedia page, a husband and father of three, and 28 years old. He's scored over 16,000 points in his NBA career, been to the playoffs 7 out of 10 years, and made almost $100 million in salary to date. By the numbers, he's an even money or better choice to make the Hall of Fame, and his season averages of 22, 6 and 5 go up in the playoffs to 28, 7 and 6. When healthy, he's no worse than one of the 20 best players in the world.

And yet, as you can plainly see from the photograph, he's one of the more tragic figures in the Association. And this, in a nutshell, is one of the reasons I love hoop.

People talk about the body language of quarterbacks, or starting pitchers, or relief pitchers. Heck, one of the best pieces in sports writing history is all about Ted Williams' last at bat, which is all about body language. And in terms of team sports, they are all crushed by hoop.

I can, to this day, close my eyes and see Andrew Toney's jump shot -- 25 years after his best days with the Sixers. Visualizing Charles Barkley assaulting the rim, his body just jumping and jumping like he had springs in his legs, is easy. When you cup your hand to your ear to the crowd, and I know he stole this from Hulk Hogan, that's Allen Iverson.

We know this because in basketball, we are on top of the players, and they don't wear pads or hats. The very best of them know what kind of public performance they bring to the table; they know the importance of performing. They're emotional by nature, and the ones that aren't (I'm thinking about Tim Duncan here) even count, since the moments where they do show emotion stand out.

We see -- and in the case of T-Mac above, *feel* -- everything they are feeling. And since the game is so physically exhausting, it all comes out of them, especially in the playoffs.

I'm sure that T-Mac goes home to his mansion and has no real strong issues about the way his career has gone. But for the moment when it all unravels, for the seventh straight time, for the tenth straight year, it's easy to forget that, and just be in his moment.

(For the only taste I could find of Andrew, here's your link. No embedding on it, but well worth the click.)