One of the reasons I got interested in bird watching as a kid is that I liked the idea of flying. Superman stuff.
When I started playing basketball, I worked to get enough spring so I could grab the orange metal hoop of a basket. It’s ten feet. I’m not quite six, so that’s flight. Sort of.
But the other night I saw a guy on a basketball court who really could fly.
Derrick Rose, a smallish guard on the Chicago Bulls wears the number one, and he’s number one on the team, maybe in the whole NBA. Because he flies.
Rose did a move that reminded me of a Northern Harrier I’d seen recently. Anti-gravity in action.
There’s a guy on the Lakers named Pau Gasol, seven foot something, and he reached high for a rebound, his gigantic wingspan making it easy.
Gasol’s hand was over the basket, about to scoop the ball as it came off the rim. Then Derrick Rose…rose.
He’s only six-three, so you’ve got to call it flying. He’s suddenly above Gasol. Rose’s hand is above the rim, and he grabs the rebound.
I had to rewind, see it again. My interest in bird watching and basketball had linked. This was a sport about flying, and here was a guy who could do it.
I’d seen Rose make amazing dunks before, and knew he could get up there, but this rebound over Gasol could’ve gone from the sports channel to the nature channel.
It’s about a Peregrine Falcon out-maneuvering a Turkey Vulture. A Blue Jay dive-bombing a Raven. Small outperforming big. Strong beating heavy. Flight beating height.
Years ago, there was a Celtics star actually named Bird. But he didn’t fly. When I watched Larry Bird, the phrase “bird watching” never occurred.
But watching Derrick Rose fly over Pau Gasol and snatch that rebound away, man, I thought about birds. I also thought about Superman, but this is a bird website.
So we’ll leave it at that.
Of course, the Bulls once had another player who could fly—Michael something or another.
And speaking of dunking, I’ve always liked watching NFL players who celebrate scoring a touchdown by dunking the football over the crossbar of the goal post. That’s ten feet, same height as a basket. And these aren’t just Ravens, Eagles, Cardinals, Falcons and Seahawks either.
Yeah, Marc, but could they dunk?
Interesting post — Bull Watching. Three other noteworthy human flyers:
Nijinsky, Nuryev and Baryshnakov. People who have seen them dance claim that at the zenith of their balletic leaps they seemed to hang in the air in defiance of gravity.