J.J. walked to a storage closet and pulled out an inflatable kiddy-pool, already inflated and filled with water. He dragged it to the center of the practice court.
“We goin’ swimming?” DeAndre asked sarcastically.
J.J. turned to his teammate and issued a ten-second-long blast on his whistle. “Fifty pushups for your impudence, Private Jordan!” he yelled. Once these pushups were reluctantly completed, he handed DeAndre a tennis ball. “Perhaps this modified type of free throw I have invented for you will prove to be better-suited to your uniquely deficient shooting ability, Private Jordan.”
DeAndre took the tennis ball. “I just have to throw this into the pool? That’s too easy. I could do that in my sleep.” He positioned himself roughly fifteen feet away and lobbed the ball gently into the pool, where it landed with a splash. This success was met with a shrill note from J.J.’s whistle. “What now?” DeAndre asked, exasperated.
“Proper technique, Private Jordan!” J.J. shouted. “You must SHOOT the ball into the pool. Not throw! Not toss! SHOOT! Or is your puny brain too stupid to realize what the point of FREE THROW BOOT CAMP is?” He grabbed the waterlogged ball from the pool and pelted it at DeAndre’s head, where it bounced off painfully.
“Hey!” DeAndre yelped, clutching his forehead. “Watch where you’re throwing that thing!”
J.J. blew his whistle again as he ran up to DeAndre and got in his face. “I’M THE ONE GIVING ORDERS HERE! FIFTY PUSHUPS!” he yelled, spittle flying from his mouth. DeAndre sighed heavily and again completed the fifty pushups, this time with an airhorn blowing directly into his ear. DeAndre was given the tennis ball again, and this time, he shot it towards the pool with his normal free throw form. The ball sailed past its intended target and rolled to the end of the gym.
“Private Jordan! It is not my job to enable your INCOMPETENCE by retrieving your misses!” J.J. said. “Get your ball back and try again! Any lollygagging and it will be laps for your sorry ass!”
DeAndre, now looking very annoyed, jogged over to where the tennis ball had rolled, grabbed it, then jogged back. This time, when he shot the ball, he did it with high enough arc that it landed in the pool.
“Well done, Private Jordan! Against all odds, you succeeded at something!” DeAndre made the next twenty tennis-ball-in-kiddy-pool free throws in a row, accompanied by a constant backdrop of whistle blasts.
“Can I go home now?” DeAndre asked hopefully, seeking to take advantage of J.J.’s improved mood.
“There is no home anymore. Forget about home. There is only sweat, pain, and free throws!” J.J. shouted, his words obscured by a single loud wail of his airhorn. “You’re not leaving this gym until I have molded you into a free throw assassin!”
“What about breakfast?” DeAndre whined.
“What about breakfast? I’m so huuuungry!” J.J. mocked, doing a dainty, girly dance in place. “My name’s DeAndre Jordan and I want my mommy! Waah waah waah! Man up, you big baby. Our next drill is free throws from three-point line.”
“Why would I do that?” DeAndre inquired. “That’s not where you shoot them in game.”
J.J. sounded his whistle. “Who’s the 90% free throw shooter here? I’m forgetting right now.”
“You are, but-”
“I MAKE THE FREE THROWS, I MAKE THE RULES!” J.J. roared, his face turning red with anger. “Given your mutant, steroid-induced arm muscles, a free throw from a longer distance might actually do you some favors.”
“I don’t do ‘roids,” DeAndre muttered as he walked to the top of the three-point line. He received a bounce pass from J.J., squared up, shot, and airballed. The whistle blew.
“Pathetic, Private Jordan! Absolutely pathetic!” J.J. yelled. “Shoot it again!”
By the tenth attempt, DeAndre had gotten used to the new distance, and was at least drawing rim on all of his attempts. He finished the drill making seven out of fifty.
“A poor showing indeed, Private Jordan,” J.J. said, blowing one sad toot on his whistle. “But now the regular-length free throws should be easier, or as easy as they can get for a lumbering idiot lacking any semblance of fundamental basketball skills.”
DeAndre shook his head and stepped up to the conventional free throw line. He made his first two shots, but quickly fell apart, not even making half of the fifty shots that J.J. had him take. By the end, both the whistle and airhorn were constantly blowing, and J.J. was screaming obscenity-filled insults at the top of his lungs.
When the fifty shots were finished, J.J. took the ball and punted it to the other side of the gym. “Hopeless. Absolutely hopeless, Private Jordan,” he said.
“Well, maybe if you actually tried to fix my shooting motion, I would do a little bit better,” DeAndre said angrily.
J.J. didn’t have the energy to address this challenge to his authority. Instead, he pulled out his phone, dialed a number, and put it up to his face. “Yeah, Doc, this isn’t going to work. He’s beyond my help. Can I still get my money?”