A Modern Kyrie

Lord, or whoever is commissioner at the time, have mercy upon us,

and fill our basketballs with thy spirit;

O Lord, let’s say the late David Stern to be safe, have mercy

and inflate thy commandment in our hoops.

O David, hit us (we’re open)!

-Anonymous Basketball Prayer

 

Basketball is a spiritual game. A holy game. But it is not a game of inches. It is a game of feet. Makes sense since there’s all that running back and forth. It is a game of constant motion, except for the timeouts. Players sprint from one end of the court to the other, trying to place the ball into a bottomless basket. It’s a fruitless, Sisyphean task, given how, unlike crumpled garbage tossed into a receptacle, the ball never stays put. It falls through and bounces on, back to the other side for more running and gunning. 

 

Yet the game offers plenty of time to ponder. How come you stick a needle into a basketball, filling it with air only to see the very same pumped-up rubber orb gradually deflate over the course of regular wear and tear. Shouldn’t once be enough? If the world really is round, why is the court flat? And why does a deflated basketball resemble a floppy stack of orange flapjacks? Makes you think. 

 

In olden times when people wanted answers to life’s toughest questions they ventured into gothic cathedrals to get them. That’s where society’s brightest lights resided. Exchanges usually took on a Seinfeldian display, with the questioners asking lowly candle-lighters and high priests, “so father, what’s the deal with existence?” It worked until it didn’t.  

 

Nowadays, the postgame press conferences where athletes are left to their own devices (iPhones mostly) has turned into a forum for weighing in on any subject deemed necessary. The lapping up of sports liturgy is essential in the zoom age where the beads of sweat on their brows are taken for granted if the pixel ratio isn't up to snuff. I don’t particularly understand epidemiology. But if you can dribble well, I’m listening to you over some nerd with a stethoscope and a PhD.