We think of NBA stars as living glamorous lives in huge mansions, but as a new New York Times piece points out, many haven’t shot a basketball in weeks thanks to the coronavirus quarantine and the fact that they don’t own a basketball hoop at home.
After hearing from many of his teammates that they didn’t have access to a hoop to practice for whenever the season eventually resumes, Jimmy Butler paid a company in Utah to ship portable basketball hoops to 30 players and coaches. “This is what we do,” Butler told The New York Times. “This is our coping mechanism. We shoot.”
“Whoever thought times would get like this where you can’t even have access to a basket or a gym?” he added. “Nobody thought it would come to this. But it has.”
As the publication notes, many players live in high-rise apartments, condos or hotels and don’t have access to a hoop at home. Players like Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, Oklahoma City’s Chris Paul and Portland’s C.J. McCollum have all said that they’ve gone weeks without shooting. The Dallas Mavericks and the Washington Wizards each told the Times that only two of their 17 players initially had access to a basketball hoop, and only two of 16 Denver Nuggets had a basket nearby. Before Butler stepped in, only two of 17 Miami Heat players had something to shoot on.
“I can’t remember a time in my life, since probably the third grade, that I had gone this long without shooting a basketball,” Butler’s teammate Meyers Leonard said. “It’s been a weird feeling to not shoot, practice and compete. So it felt amazing to get a ball back in my hands and shooting.”
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