Missed Free Throws

"...comes back to haunt ya in the end." - Bobby Knight


You work on em first when you learn how to shoot. Nevermind the lay-up, this is the predecessor of the jump shot. The one you just stand there and whatever you do beforehand (bend knees, rotate the ball in hand three times, wink to the camera, rub yo' nuts, smooth out waves, whatever) you let that ball go with enough confidence that it's going in. Your routine says so, the countless times you done the same thing over and over because it's the first thing you learn before you start jumping with the ball. You become fluent in your actions and once mastered, it's like breathing. You know what you are doing before you do it, then you forget that you are doing it until you think about it.....

and that's when the pressure builds, the sweat comes, and all that shit you thought you would remember has come with the baggage of whether or not you perfected it enough.

*clank*

You want to go back to basics, you want to put yourself in the position of when you were learning to have 300 straight after hitting 299. You remember being there and want to go back. There's just one thing....

you're in the game, but you miss and there's practice and nothing but. You make it and there's not only just practice, but a victory.

Not just for you, but others. You thought about hitting 300 and going for 500. Instead you went out there and played hard, not relying on the one thing that helped develop your form, your release, your coolness under pressure. Instead you relied on the muscles, the ups, the people telling you you got it going on. Your team is the shit, its your year anyway.

*clank*

and no matter what you went out there and busted your ass, you took it there and gave your body a thorough workout and then some. You told yourself that you could take the shots, but you wouldn't need em' cause you were up and didn't think the other team could take over, yet they knew that you didn't have it on the line, the one fundamental that got you there you let slip away for that moment. Maybe you did need those extra 200 that you let go, because at that point you would've realized that it does matter, and in the end it does justify the means.

Keep practicing the free throws in life simply because they're free. Your supposed to hit those.

slack up and you might blow it in the end
ain't that right Memphis? (damn you)


The SoD