The Beauty of the Bounce

At first a dribble thuds. In virgin care, the basketball is a foreign object that seems more square than it is round. But fingertips learn fast. A symbiotic relationship forms in the crouched rat-a-tat-tat of repetition where handlers recognize early, the give of supple leather separated by predictable seams. The ball teaches you how to bounce it, if you hang out with it enough.

And bouncing is a point guard’s forcing function. A player who can threaten with the dribble creates a kaleidoscope on the court. Narrow lanes turn into navigable passageways. Previously eclipsed sight lines clear. The ball has room to breathe.  Most any type of defense gets distorted when pushed and pulled by the dribble—the tightest lids are loosened when punctured by the bounce.

Boundaries get dismantled when the ball is an extension of the hand.

Kyrie Irving by Erik Drost

Kyrie Irving took three hard dribbles to the right, a Thunder defender tied to his left hip escorting him on a slight angle away from the rim. On the rise of the third bounce, he pushed the ball from front to back under his left leg, its trajectory pulling him toward the middle of the floor. Pay dirt. The stage where the yo-yo artist does his most damning work. Gliding and sliding--forward, then backward, then two inches in and two inches out--the point guard and the pebbly ball move like Fred Astaire and Ginger, as if they are attached by a never-slacking-never-too-taut string.

Rhythm. Rhyme. Art in Action. Defenseless defenders put on skates.

A player can dribble too much, but he can never dribble too well.

P.S. The Art of Dribbling