Shooting shot after shot in the Clippers’ practice gym, Landry Shamet couldn’t help but notice that one of his teammates, Montrezl Harrell, was staring at him. As far as Landry could tell, he wasn’t doing anything particularly noteworthy; certainly nothing that was worth being stared at. His clothes were normal, his hair looked the same as it always did, he shooting mechanics were consistent, and he was hitting about 70% on catch-and-shoot threes, which was average for him.
When Landry’s shooting drill came to an end, Montrezl walked up to him. Montrezl still had a look of awe on his face when he asked, “Can you teach me how to do that?”
“What, how to shoot?”
Montrezl nodded eagerly. “Yeah.”
Landry looked around at all the trainers helping his teammates with various parts of their game. “Did you ask one of the numerous professionals that the Clippers employ for exactly that purpose?”
“No I didn’t. Why would I ask them when I could ask the guy who came into the league ready to shoot threes like prime Steph?”
“I don’t want to discourage you, man, but your value is outworking people inside for dunks,” Landry replied, deciding not to address the obvious fact that his own shooting ability was nowhere near the level of prime Steph Curry. “Don’t you think you’d lose some of that by turning yourself into a jumpshooter?”
“I just need to be able to take the shot if the defense is giving it to me. This isn’t like a Brook Lopez situation, where I forget about what made me a good player in the first place and just spam three-pointers like a big walking meme.”
Landry shrugged. At least Montrezl was doing it for the right reasons. “Uh, I guess I can help you. Do you wanna start now?”
Montrezl shook his head adamantly. “No way. Nobody can know I’m doing this. Coach said that I can work on my midrange, but he doesn’t want me to add the three to my arsenal.”
Now Landry was feeling apprehensive. If he helped out Montrezl, he would be in direct conflict with his coach. That would be fine if Montrezl turned out to be a competent three-point shooter, but Landry would be complicit if Montrezl came into the season bricking threes. “So, what, we go to another gym?”
“No. Even better. You make a series of instructional videos for me and privately upload them to YouTube so I can watch them on my phone.” Montrezl seemed very excited by this concept. “Then I can even play them on repeat when I’m sleeping, as long as you come up with some wisdom-filled shooting mantra that can subconsciously affect my subconscious.”
Landry wanted to protest, but a trainer was coming over, and Montrezl bolted from the conversation before any more could be said.
—
Setting up his tripod in the empty gym, Landry wondered why he was even doing this. Maybe he thought that Montrezl would pay him a large amount of money for personalized shooting instruction videos. He would at least reimburse him the cost of the fancy new tripod to hold his iPhone, right? And the cost of renting out an entire gym for a day so that no randos would show up on screen?
When the phone was positioned correctly and ready to record, Landry went over the script again in his head. He would start with a demonstration of proper shooting form: planted feet, squared shoulders, smooth follow-through. Then he would shoot the ball a bunch of times, reiterating key points as he did. Then he would get up close to the camera and say the shooting mantra so that Montrezl could become a better shooter while he slept. Easy enough, he thought as he hit “record”.
The filming went well, but Landry did multiple takes of everything just to be safe. He had deleted almost everything off his phone in order to have ample space to record. There was a stretch where he made forty three-pointers in a row, so he knew he would include that. If the video worked for Montrezl and turned him into a shooter, he might even make it publicly available on YouTube and fashion himself as an instructional video entrepreneur.
—
“Hey Trez, I just sent you the link to the video I made,” Landry said, walking up to Montrezl in the practice gym.
“Thanks, but I don’t need it anymore,” Montrezl said, holding up a DVD case. “Check out what Paul was selling!”
Landry looked closer at the DVD packaging. “Paul George’s Shooting Secrets” said the title. A quote from Paul was in big text at the bottom: “I played with Russell Westbrook so I know what NOT to do when it comes to shooting!”
Upset that all his hard work was for nothing, Landry angrily replied, “Can you at least pay me for the gym I rented?”
“Oh yeah, I already wrote you a check,” Montrezl said, handing Landry a check which was made out for $200,000. “Ballmer just gave me a bonus so I’m loaded right now. Thanks for trying to help me learn to shoot.”
Landry looked at the check, then back up at his teammate. “No problem.”