Is anybody else feeling really heartened by the fact that Duncan Robinson turned from an on-the-fringes scrublord who couldn’t get into games into a vital cog on one of the top teams in the East in the span of one off-season, solely on the basis of his shooting? Maybe I’m alone in feeling this way, but Robinson’s rise into a premier shooter has got me all heartened.
Usually I don’t let myself daydream about playing in the NBA. People my age are well past their ability to just break into the NBA like it’s nothing. I bet G-League tryouts are chock-full of guys my age who need one last reality check before they give up on the dream for good. Heck, NBA players often are washed-up has-beens by the time they reach my age.
But then I think, “Hey, I’m not the world’s worst shooter, so if I just practiced shooting for hours every day, I could be just as valuable to an NBA team as Duncan Robinson is.” Then I go to the gym all excited for my new mission to become an NBA player (or at least a higher-level pickup player) and shoot jumpers for a while until I get bored and go home. Clearly I don’t have the willpower to make it to the NBA.
But Robinson should be an example to all the high-school players out there who think that just being a shooter isn’t a valuable thing to be. It’s totally valuable. And it’s even more valuable if you’re six foot six and can shoot over every defender and just embarrass people with your shooting. I wish somebody had told me that while I was in high school so I would have done something other than play Civ III every day and only get exercise by playing Dance Dance Revolution at the local bowling alley. I guess nothing other than leg transplants would have made me six-foot-six, though.