Shaq and Kobe

I had a vision of being one of those hockey dads, but in the nicest possible way. I figured that I would devise various ways to play fun games with my daughter while simultaneously turning her into a basketball savant. I hadn’t been introduced to the game of basketball until I was ten years old and a neighbor had put up a hoop in the alley. My dad, seeing that I was taking to the game, put up a basket in our driveway. It was just a little over nine feet off the ground and, looking back, I am certain that the lost decade of training, the lack of instruction and the improperly calibrated equipment are what kept me out of the NBA. I developed into a decent canadian high school player; rode the bench until my senior year, when I became the starting point guard, the fourth-best player on a team that would surprise everyone by winning the city championship for the first time in a long time for my Catholic school.

But Anna would have all of the opportunities that I had been denied. We lived on a fairly busy street in Northwest DC with a small yard and no parking. This meant that a hoop outside was out of the question, but as Anna was barely walking by now, this wasn’t the time to worry about regulation size equipment. I bought one of those toy baskets that comes with a small soft basketball, and on Christmas Eve, after Anna and her newborn sister, Evie, were asleep, I spent several hours trying to put together what a number of handier friends could have done in fifteen minutes.

I don’t remember Christmas morning all that well. Evie was sick and we ended up taking her to the emergency room, where she lay intubated (in an induced coma) for a couple of very difficult weeks. My wife and I traded watches at the hospital, and Anna, who wasn’t so keen on sharing her parents with a sister in the first place, was feeling neglected.

I figured that i would fix this by introducing her to the game I loved with the toy that she hadn’t yet showed much interest in. “Do you want to play “Shaq and Kobe?” I asked her.

“Sure.” she answered. She was always up for a game.

We went into the living room, and I cleared out some space around the hoop. I showed her the ball. She looked at me.

“Shaq and Kobe” play for the Lakers I told her; and they work together to make the team the best in the world. I am going to show you what they do. I will be Kobe and you can be Shaq. Ok?”

“OK.”

I positioned her with her back to the basket. “We need buckets.” I told her. “It’s the 4th Quarter and we’re six points behind. I will throw you the ball. You catch it, and put it through the hoop.” I had positioned the height of the hoop so that she could dunk it if she stretched out on her tiptoes.

“The fans at the forum are going crazy.” I yelled. “Kobe has the ball at the top of the key. He’s looking for Shaq in the middle. He passes it in.” I gently lobbed the ball into the clearly interested Anna, and it bounced off of her chest and onto the floor. Time for Lesson 1.

“OK, sweetie, you want to make a basket with your hands, catch the ball, turn and put it into the basket. Let’s try again.”

We did, and, although she had her hands in the right position, and was following the ball with her eyes, she didn’t really integrate the two actions.  The ball again bounced off of her body and onto the floor.

No worry, I told myself. That’s why we are starting young. We tried the drill a few more times, and I tried to maintain the level of excitement by describing the screaming fans, the cheerleaders, the tv cameras and all of the things that make the NBA so fun.

But something you need to know about my daughter--which I was only then just learning: she is very much of her own opinion and single minded. It was, and always has been extremely difficult to get her to do something for which the value of the action is not readily apparent.

After a few reps, she picked up the ball before I could pounce on it and reset the offense.

“Kobe invited Shaq on a picnic.” she announced. And she walked into the sunroom with the ball in her hands, spreading out a small blanket on the floor in front of the sofa and sitting down.

What to do now. “But they need us in the game.” I reminded her.

“It’s time for a picnic.” she announced, inviting the stuffed animals strewn around the room to join us. “C’mon Shaq. Sit down.”

I sat down, as she was distributing small plastic teacups and plates to everyone. How was i going to get us back on the court.”

“We’ll be back to the game after a short break.” I announced.

She ignored me. “Would you like a cookie, ApplePeach?” she asked a small stuffed horse. “Is everyone having a good time?”

It was clear to me at that time that Anna’s interests lay elsewhere, and she hadn’t shown any indication of prodigial quality . I would have to introduce her to the game more gradually.  But I still believed that it could work.

As it turned out, after turns in a couple of mite leagues, trying basketball and soccer, Anna had no love and not much talent for athletics. She was bound for a youth focused on dance and theater, and I was not going to be realizing my lost athletic potential through her. I would be attending plays and recitals instead of playoff games, and that would be fine.

After awhile, the hoop lost its seat of honor in the living room. It was exiled to the basement, where it sat for the next two years, a reminder of my failed initiative to develop my daughter into a baller.