Return of the Chucker

No, not Chuck Kloos (we wish). Loved this item from ESPN.com earlier this week. Enjoy—and let me know if you will or will not be playing at St. John's tomorrow. We tip off at 8:00 a.m., as usual. (Hat tip: Dowding)

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Return of the Chucker

Ray Allen is a shooter. Paul Pierce is a scorer. And Ben Gordon?

He's a chucker. Bless his unconscionable soul.

No hesitation. No remorse. Nooooo ..... yes! Beyond the fantastic finishes and gasping, shorts-tugging effort from both squads, the best thing about the ongoing Boston-Chicago NBA playoff series has been Gordon's emergence as a full-blown, bonafide chucker—species: chuckimus maximus—the sort of fire-and-forget player whose definition of a good shot is the one he's about to take.

The sort of player basketball can't do without.

We're taught to despise chuckers. For being selfish. For gumming up the flow of a pass-first, me-last game. For being pickup teammates from hell. And yet: chuckers are wildly entertaining (rookie Kobe Bryant). They make big shots (Nick Van Exel, Chuck Person). They get paid big money (think Cedric Ceballos, perhaps the greatest garbage time scorer in league history). They even win (Allen Iverson, definitely the greatest chucker of all time, almost Tommy-gunned his way to a championship). And all the while, the thrill is ours as much as theirs. In their dedication to—ahem—"volume shooting," in their insistence on launching the rock with the discretion of a jet-powered catapult, Gordon and Co. are vicarious stand-ins for everyone who ever put up and tore down a Nerf hoop, for anyone who ever spent a hour shooting baskets in their driveway.

Deep down, chuckers are us.

Late in the fourth quarter of Tuesday's Celtics victory, Gordon dribbled toward the right baseline, picked up the ball and staggered forward on his pivot foot, effectively out of options. The score was tied at 91. The clock ticked down. For a second, Gordon half-heartedly looked to pass; he then jacked up a leaning, one-legged non-jumper with a defender on his hip, a preposterously ill-advised shot that left color commentator Doug Collins incredulous.

"What is he doing?" Collins exclaimed.

Swish. The ball dropped through the net. What was Gordon doing? The same thing the rest of us wish we could.

—Patrick Hruby, ESPN.com Page 2