Video Quiz 4: Goggles

We’ll start with Quiz 4, then share the answers to Quiz 3.

Quiz 4 Question

Question (2 pts): what kind of play is being celebrated here?

One by the bench:

One by Stephen Curry:

EricApricot

Extra Credit: name the exact game and time of the Curry picture. You only get credit if you post the answer in the comments.

Answers tomorrow.

Quiz 3 Question

This is a subtle one, but my favorite one of all. It’s so subtle that if you don’t know that it’s happening, you may have never noticed it. So I’ll show a few clips.

Here’s Harrison Barnes raising his finger.

And Kevin Durant doing a similar thing.

And here’s Kevin Durant again doing it, with a bonus of Ian Clark on the bench doing the same thing.

Question (2 pts). What are they doing? Be as specific as you can.

Extra Credit (4 pts). Who invented this celebration?

Quiz 3 Answer

Okay, this is the most important celebration a player can make. Each player is “thanking the passer,” pointing at the player that made the pass that led to the basket.

Here are the full plays.

Extra Credit Answer.

This is a tradition that I’m told started with Dean Smith and John Wooden, the two most successful college basketball coaches of all time.

I like this account from Sefu Bernard:

In the 60’s and 70’s a conversation between Dean Smith and John Wooden triggered a basketball tradition of generosity and unselfishness. The goal was to initiate an overt gesture to build a team culture of acknowledgement and togetherness. In the end, Coach Smith asked players on his North Carolina men’s basketball teams to recognize the unselfish act of a teammate passing them the ball. It became a team rule. In practices, games, practices and even during the Tar Heel basketball camps, the man who scored had to point-to-the-passer.

To be honest, I wish the W’s would do this more regularly and obviously. Kevin Durant regularly points. Klay Thompson occasionally does it, like this play thanking Zaza Pachulia.

And Stephen Curry does it occasionally, but usually subtly, like at the end of this play.

By the way, this last clip is a classic example of the “relocation” action which I discuss thoroughly in Explain One Play: Curry stealth-bombs threes.