#basketball #trickshots
May 23, 2014 12:12 AM   Subscribe

 
Now, I'm kind of a fan of these trick shot compilations, but what always sticks out to me is how similar the majority of them are, and these are no different. White college students, almost always guys, the same smug 'Pssh, whatever, I can do that all the time' look after the shot lands.
Hell, even the suburbs, cars and colleges are out of a mould to my non-American eyes.

Basketball followers come from a pretty broad spread of demographics, right? I just figured on seeing a few more of them represented in these sorts of things.

Cool footage, though.
posted by Legs11 at 12:45 AM on May 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Take it from a former white college student guy - no one has more time on their hands to do 1,725 takes of a 300 foot bank shot than a white college student guy.
posted by GamblingBlues at 1:24 AM on May 23, 2014 [16 favorites]


I had forgotten how boring my teenage years were.
posted by devious truculent and unreliable at 2:14 AM on May 23, 2014


In essentially the only non-cycling athletic achievement of my entire life, in middle school after school programs/summer camp i became an utter god at landing shots in garbage cans like in #12. I could do it every single time corner to corner in a full size gym. Most of the length of a long block outdoors, even with wind. from a balcony 3 stories up off a 90 degree opposed wall and then UNDER the balcony, you name it. With most objects too. Overhanded OR underhanded. Half empty soda bottles, pretty much any kind of ball that wasn't a wiffle ball. I have no idea what happened to this skill, as now i can't throw anything at/in anything and when i recently tried to chuck a soccer ball above my head 15 feet or so to try and dislodge my quadcopter from a tree it was just an utterly pathetic display of failure in which i almost nailed myself in the face.

I wonder how many of these were 1st takes though. Once my reign of garbage can annihilating was established, i probably landed 9/10 shots. I loved doing really quick freethrows with half empty 20oz soda bottles during a meeting/assembly clear across the gym(narrow ways) and demolishing a mostly full can behind whoever was talking and blowing garbage everywhere. If it was a really slick underhanded throw, no one would even be able to tell where exactly it had come from unless they were staring straight at me beforehand. You aimed for the lip maybe 3 inches below the top of the can, and unless it was full of REALLY heavy stuff it was going down. I could hit that sweet spot like a laser guided bunker buster. The middle of the wider flange for the first 5 or so inches of the can before it tapers down.

Man, i was a little shit.
posted by emptythought at 2:29 AM on May 23, 2014 [15 favorites]


"#futurelebron" oh my.
posted by rhizome at 2:49 AM on May 23, 2014


Being an ultimate player, I prefer watching the frisbee version.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 6:07 AM on May 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


oh man, emptythought, we would've been best friends in middle school
posted by stinkfoot at 6:16 AM on May 23, 2014




The problem with most of these, for me, is that being "able to make" most of these shots is a trivial accomplishment. Anyone capable of chucking the ball is "able" to make these shots. What distinguishes real skill from simply having time on your hands, a camera and being able to throw a ball is how many attempts you need per bucket. You'd think that the gold standard of these kinds of videos would be unedited series of shots. Hit any of these three or four times in a row and, yeah, that's inherently impressive.
posted by yoink at 8:26 AM on May 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


White college students, almost always guys, the same smug 'Pssh, whatever, I can do that all the time' look after the shot lands.

Yeah, but even as a Canadian I sort of loved the guy posing on the bed of a pickup truck in front of a waving American flag. Nice touch, kid.
posted by Hoopo at 9:00 AM on May 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


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