What did that play mean?

People who are connected at all to the sports world, and most people who are not, know that last night something happened that involved two fellas named Blake Griffin and Kendrick Perkins.  It happened at Staples Center last night during the 3^rd quarter of a professional basketball game in which the Oklahoma City Thunder had traveled to play the Los Angeles Clippers.  People who pay attention to twitter will know that the twitterverse started blowing up in response to this happening.  And it hasn’t stopped today.  At some point this afternoon I noticed that Kendrick Perkins was still trending.  Bloggers have been blogging, radio commentators have been commenting, regular people have been talking about it.  In short: people really give a fuck about this happening.  So what happened? Watch:

Blake Griffin jumps really high and throws the ball through the basket while Kendrick Perkins tries to stop him.  Blake makes the basket anyways, A foul is called on Kendrick, and Blake and then gets to shoot an additional free throw. 

First off, to be moved by this play requires that you know what you’re looking at.  Probably by now most of you have witnessed others watching this video.  What’s interesting is how other people’s reaction varies dramatically depending on whether or not they play, watch, or know anything at all about basketball.  Show this video to somebody who never watches basketball (or is occasionally forced to watch but cares not at all) and you are likely to get an enthusiastic, mundane, or even sarcastic “wow.”    So the happening is not naturally, eternally, or objectively amazing.  It requires you have some skill to pull out what’s amazing about it.

Now, for people with that skill, this play is REALLY amazing.  Not just to me.  Kendrick Perkins’ Wikipedia page was alteredafter the play to say that Blake Griffin had “forcibly removed [his] soul from his body.”  What does that even mean??   More mild responses often invoke that strangest of basketball verb-noun hybrids: “posterize”.  So for those who can see the amazingness of the play, it’s really amazing.  Saying why is a tricky thing and I’m not ready to claim I have the full answer, just some directions for the answer which I find productive and counterproductive.

Basketball insiders might try to tell you that this kind of play matters a lot because there is some objective cost-benefit calculation that says making this kind of play helps you win.  In addition to citing the fact that the Clippers’ earned three points on the possession, they’ll say things like “this is a momentum changing play”, “this gives the whole team new energy”, “this demoralizes the other team.”  Some of those things might be true, but they don’t explain why this play matters so much.  There are game winners (shots that put a team ahead at the very end of a game) that don’t receive this much buzz.  There are four point plays that don’t receive this much buzz.  Heck, at this point in the game the Clippers were comfortably in the lead so the play didn’t actually change the course of the game at all.  And I’ve NEVER heard any of those plays be described in reference to “removing souls.”  Anybody who tries to say that the play mattered in relation to winning and losing is missing a lot about the story.

The answer must come from the fact that basketball plays are more than just pieces of a micro-economic story about winning and losing.  It’s not just that this play put the Clips in a better position to win.  It’s that different plays MEAN different things.  Meaning is layered onto or extracted from basketball plays that resonate with other kinds of sensibilities we have about the world (at least for those of us who have learned to read those meanings).

So what does it mean that Blake removed Kendrick’s soul?  Why is that a reasonable interpretation?  Well, it points to the fact that Blake took something from Kendrick.  He turned Kendrick into a victim of theft.  And the thing he stole is something like Kendrick’s metaphysical respectability.  Just look at his face afterward.  With the crowd cheering, Kendrick looks entirely dejected, lost, lifeless, soulless.  This phrasing also implicates Kendrick as part of the story.  What the dunk MEANS is not just that Blake dunked, but that he dunked “on top of” a victim.  Can thieves practice their art without a victim?  No.  Could Blake have made this dunk without Kendrick? No.  Watch closely in slow motion.  Kendrick’s attempt to block Blake is part of what propels Blake up and over.  It’s what makes Blake reach out and extend the ball over him.  The “posters” that will be made of the moment of maximal humiliation would not be possible without Kendrick.  I doubt Blake could physically put his own body in that position. 

So part of the humiliation of the play is the fact that Kendrick was seduced into trying to stop Blake, and in the process of trying actually assisted Blake in making the play. It’s like a victim of a con who voluntarily enters into a gambling circuit only later to realize that he was in “over his head” and would be taken for all he was worth.  (I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the phrase “in over his head” works metaphorically in one example and physically in the other)

It’s kind of sad for Kendrick because he was more or less going about the play normally.  The first players to get “beat” on this play were his teammates Russell Westbrook and Serge Ibaka.  Kendrick then stepped up to help them out like a good teammate should.  His mistake, to the extent that he made one, was coming just a little too late to try to bail out his teammates.  Realizing they were about to lose a hefty pot in the gambling ring, Kendrick went all in to try to save them from their mistake.  Perhaps if he had arrived just one round of betting earlier, he could have diverted Blake's winnings.  In that moment he didn't have time to stop and think that Blake was primed to make him a victim also.  With his mark all in- soul and all- Blake’s play meant a whole lot more than 3 points.