When the self-lob goes hilariously wrong
When the self-lob goes hilariously wrong
Chicago's Torrey Craig and Andre Drummond pushed basketball into a new realm on Tuesday night.
When Trey Kerby and Zach Harper co-sign a basketball highlight with that kind of reverence, you know it’s gonna be good.
And it was.
Torrey Craig tried to throw an alley-oop to himself and it went hilariously wrong. His teammate Andre Drummond trailed behind him and thought he was throwing the lob to him. It was a beautiful disaster.
Subscribers to The Finder know I have a little fetish about self-lobs. I think about them way more than I should. There was the Chet Holmgren one that sent me down a rabbit hole. Then Tyrese Haliburton tried a self-lob kickout that made my brain melt for a variety of reasons. There’s something cosmic about self-lobs.
This one, in particular, is magical. It goes in the pantheon.
has the video in and I can’t recommend watching (and reading his newsletter) highly enough. There are multiple angles, one of which that gives us this:
Just perfect. A few things about this play that just tickle me to no end:
Chicago’s coach, Billy Donovan, was said to be a candidate to replace John Calipari at Kentucky this week. How quickly do you think Donovan called the Kentucky AD after this game? Did he even wait until after the game? Did he send a text at halftime? Because that’s another thing…
LOOK AT THE SCORE. The Bulls were DOWN NINE in the SECOND QUARTER. This is the type of stuff you’d see in a rout in the fourth quarter. By the way, they lost by 11.
The Bulls are fighting for a playoff spot! You might expect Shaqtin’ A Fool shenanigans from Jordan Poole and the Washington Wizards, who were eliminated months ago from playoff contention. But the Chicago Bulls are ninth in the East, which means they’re going to host a play-in game if they can stay ahead of the Atlanta Hawks. There are only three games left. Every possession matters. I guess!
I’m always fascinated by how the scorekeepers record this sort of play. I’m guessing if Drummond catches it and slams it home, Craig gets the assist. But if it went as planned, and Craig self-lobs it successfully, it’s just scored as a dunk. Instead, we have this beauty:
I’m really bummed we didn’t get the NBA’s first pbp collab. I don’t know what I was expecting, but part of me wanted to see, “Andre Drummond and Torrey Craig missed dunk.”
This seems like to me the sort of thing that will create a vendetta between Drummond and Craig. Not only did Craig try to take it for himself, the opportunity wouldn’t have happened if Drummond didn’t poke the ball away. That’s bad juju. I know there’s no such thing as deserve in life, but Drummond deserved to get the bucket there. He caused the turnover. He stole the ball. Craig should pay him back.
Did you notice the way that Drummond quickly ran back on defense without checking in on Craig who was on the floor? That felt personal.
I do feel bad for Drummond since he really hurt his ankle on the next play. He really deserved better. The basketball gods should not have punished him. That was all Craig.
After the game, Craig was asked about the play. His response:
“I just wanted to try to create some excitement.”
You know what? Mission accomplished.