Sabrina Ionescu: Ball don’t lie
Bullies shrink our sense of the world and what’s possible. Sabrina Ionescu reminded us just how limitless our world can be.
A popular basketball axiom is “Ball don’t lie.” Many offer it up as a form of prayer, especially when one thinks they’ve been the victim of an unjust whistle but their opponent fails to take advantage, generally by missing a free throw. For years Rasheed Wallace was the NBA’s imam, leading calls to this prayer.
Another popular one is “Ball is life.” It’s often twisted in marketing to deify putting basketball ahead of everything else, or in fandom in demanding the players care more about every win and loss — especially the losses — than anything else in their lives. In truth, the truth is simple and lovely: ball is life means it’s found all throughout life.
The precision and anticipation in a perfectly run 3-on-2 break? You see the same calculus in morning rush hour. The syncopation of a sweet Euro step? Teachers use it every day in their lesson plans to spark wonder; musicians use the same misdirection to tickle your ear. You know how some players show court awareness and others really don’t? Bet you know people in your life who come right to mind in both categories. Basketball literacy means seeing beyond small sample sizes and knowing how to read runs and momentum turns, as in love and war.
My kid is around the age I was when I got into basketball. The first Knicks they knew were Carmelo and KP, their first favorites Allonzo Trier and Obi Toppin. They also root for the Liberty. They were with their mom Saturday night, but I told them beforehand about the special Steph Curry vs. Sabrina Ionescu 3-point contest and promised to tape it we could watch it together later. I wondered if something magic would happen, something I’d be writing about after. I did not think I’d end up writing about Madonna and Al Pacino. But life, like ball, is full of surprises.
You should watch the clip below. It’s short; I get that reading’s faster, so I’ll summarize it anyway, but I promise you my words can do neither Madonna’s body language nor Pacino’s delivery justice.
Madonna plays Breathless Mahoney, the lead attraction at a nightclub owned by mob boss Big Boy Caprice, played by Pacino. We first see the artist in her element, singing and dancing and doing it all well enough to attract Caprice’s eye early in the film; she’s confident and captivating and neither is by accident. The second half of the clip is the same artist in the same venue, only now it’s off-hours, and the mob boss is no longer a customer at the club but its owner, entitled because he’s empowered and thus giving the artist criticisms she neither asked for nor requires. Do you see where this is going?
A little over a year after Dick Tracy was in theatres, Magic Johnson was the lead story on every TV news program in the country, announcing he was retiring immediately due to contracting HIV. A little over a year after that, Magic appeared in the first NBA All-Star game I ever saw. True to his name, Johnson capped an incredible weekend with a magic ending.
I was left with a feeling of limitlessness, that the world was bigger and more full of possibility than I could ever imagine. There was comfort in that sense of scale. If we’re to be surrounded by anything, let it be light.
When Ionescu, one of the faces of the WNBA, stepped up for her first shot in Saturday’s 3-point contest, she’d already done the same thing Magic did back in ‘92, both for literally millions of human beings. This wasn’t equality in a theoretical sense; this was a safe space for competition, merit and justice, and if you care to sit around and name other spaces that exist for most people outside of sports I’d put in your two weeks’ notice now, ‘cuz you’re gonna be thinking a while.
Magic merely suiting up that long-ago Sunday in Orlando was enough to shock people who couldn’t imagine seeing someone with HIV enjoying their body around people who were free of the virus. Others got the good kind of buzz seeing HIV-positive Magic not only show up, but show out. Speaking of showing out:
Some tried diminishing Ionescu’s performance, bizarrely belittling her for using her usual WNBA ball and not the different, larger NBA ball mere moments after she’d finished a round as good or better than anyone in the NBA 3-point contest that preceded her put up, and despite her being in the middle of her offseason and not in midseason form like Curry. Did anyone bother to ask Steph which ball he wanted to use? I doubt it. Even if he had been, would anyone have expected him to choose one he doesn’t work? Would anyone think Steph using the WNBA ball would give him an advantage? Why even bring it up with Ionescu, then? You know why.
Ionescu had the choice of shooting from the WNBA 3-point line or the NBA’s version and chose the latter, saying afterward she did so to “continue to push boundaries.” Somehow, after all that, people who could never shoot as well as her still had things to say about what Ionescu should or shouldn’t have done. Dick Tracy was 34 years ago, but there’s still a lotta Big Boy Caprices out there. Madonna didn’t need him then. Ionescu doesn’t now.
Ionescu was a winner before she took her first shot. By the time she finished her round, she was something greater. With all that she’s already accomplished, she continues to push herself, to discover worlds within her she could only find by breaking new ground. A whole lotta people learned the same watching her Saturday night – about themselves and about others. There is a place in this world where merit matters, where drive and desire don’t bump up against ceilings designed specifically for certain people with certain identities. A place where justice is possible, where there are gods who care about justice, and who sometimes show it by way of a missed free throw. Sabrina Ionescu was better than second-best Saturday night. Ball don’t lie.
