APRIL 5, 1984 KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR
Picture Kareem Abdul-Jabbar taking a shot, and chances are, the shot imagined is his signature sky hook.
“Sometimes that beautiful sky hook… mmmmm,” teammate Magic Johnson once rhapsodized, “that’s the most beautiful shot that I’ve ever seen in basketball.”
The shot’s name was first coined by broadcaster Eddie Doucette in the mid-1970s, when Abdul-Jabbar was the star center for the Milwaukee Bucks. Doucette needed a way to describe the unusual shot.
“One night it just hit me,” Doucette told the New York Times. “It’s so different from anybody else’s hook. It’s not a flat hook, a baby hook, or a jump hook. It’s a pure hook. And it does come out of the sky.”
Abdul-Jabbar started using the sky hook early in life. “The first time I shot the hook, I was in fourth grade,” he once said. “I was about five feet eight inches tall. I put the ball up and felt totally at ease with the shot.”
His confidence in the sky hook never dwindled, and with good reason.
When done correctly, the shot is nearly impossible to block because the shooter’s body is between the defender and the ball at all times. To set up for the shot, the shooter cradles the ball with both hands near his chin. Then he jumps up off his left foot and turns his left shoulder toward the hoop in midair. At the same time, he shifts the ball to his right hand and then swoops it up and over his head, aiming for the center of the rim. Finally, he flicks the ball with his fingers toward the hoop and swish! In it goes!
Not everyone can do the sky hook, but for those who can, it is a very powerful offensive tool. For Kareem, it wasn’t just a tool — it was a devastating weapon, one that he unleashed with deadly accuracy thousands of times. At the buzzer, from the baseline, from the top of the key — Abdul-Jabbar stuck the sky hook so many times in the course of his twenty-year NBA career that it would be impossible to chronicle them all.
Yet there is one Abdul-Jabbar sky hook that outdid the rest. That shot came on April 5, 1984.
Abdul-Jabbar was the center for the Los Angeles Lakers by then, having been traded by the Milwaukee Bucks in 1975. He was nearly thirty-seven years old and had racked up an amazing list of achievements, including winning six Most Valuable Player awards and three NBA championship rings.
He had also racked up 31,398 regular-season points before that April 5 game — just 21 points shy of tying the all-time 31,419-point scoring record established by Wilt Chamberlain. Given that Abdul-Jabbar was averaging 21.5 points per game that season, there was no guarantee that he would meet or beat the record that night.
The Lakers were playing the Utah Jazz. The 18,000 fans who attended the game at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas knew what was on the line. Even though he was on the opposing team, Abdul-Jabbar received a standing ovation from the crowd that lasted a full forty-five seconds. He responded by waving and grinning broadly.
The Jazz were on their way to a first-place record in the Midwest Division of the Western Conference that year, but that night they were no match for Kareem and the Lakers. Abdul-Jabbar may have been one of the oldest players on the court, but from the moment he hit the floor, he played with the passion and energy of a rookie. Years of training and a strict exercise regimen that included meditation, yoga, and martial arts had kept him flexible and strong — and strong was exactly how he started out. The first four times he got the ball, he made three dunks and a fadeaway jump shot!
Those four shots brought him 8 points closer to Chamberlain’s record. As the game progressed, the announcer kept tabs on how many more he had to go. By the end of the first quarter, Abdul-Jabbar had chipped away 12 from the 21 he needed to tie. By halftime, he had added 4 more for a game total of 16. With an entire half still to play and only 5 more points needed to tie, 6 to break the record, it seemed inevitable that Kareem would nab the scoring crown that night.
Or would he? As the third quarter got under way, Abdul-Jabbar seemed more interested in helping his teammates score than scoring himself. Although he sank a sky hook to shrivel the points-needed total to three, he passed to open men and dished off a few assists instead of taking the ball to the hoop himself.
It wasn’t until early in the fourth quarter that he seemed to decide to finish the job once and for all. He was fouled, stepped to the line, and sank a free throw.
Two left to tie the record, three to break it.
The tying shot came in a thunderous way. Teammate James Worthy got the ball and powered through the defense toward the hoop. Kareem was there, too. Worthy fed him the ball high in the air. Kareem leaped and slammed it through the basket!
The crowd went crazy. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had just tied Wilt Chamberlain’s record of 31,419 points! If he could get just one more basket, or even make just one more free throw, he would be the number one scorer in NBA history.
The points didn’t come on his next possession. He shot, but it clanged off the rim.
The Jazz got the rebound and hurried to their end of the court for a shot. The ball bounced off the rim. Abdul-Jabbar leaped and swatted the rebound into the hands of Laker guard Magic Johnson. Johnson quickly dribbled downcourt. He handed off to Kareem near the top of the key. Kareem handed the ball back and moved to the low post. In the blink of an eye, Johnson flashed a pass to him.
Instantly, Utah’s burly seven-feet-four-inch center, Mark Eaton, rushed to put himself between Abdul-Jabbar and the hoop. Guard Rickey Green pounced as well, reaching out to try and rip the ball from Kareem’s hands.
Abdul-Jabbar reacted by faking a pass to teammate Michael Cooper. The defense followed his motion for just a split second — but that split second was all the veteran center needed.
“And the crowd is standing for Kareem…. Everybody is waving their arms,” announcer Chick Hearn called, his voice tense with anticipation. “Kareem swings left, right-hand twelve-footer — GOOD!”
Whatever the announcer said next was drowned out by the roar of the fans. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had just become the new NBA scoring king with a beautiful sky hook from twelve feet out on the right baseline!
The game stopped as Kareem and his parents were joined in the center circle of the court by NBA commissioner David Stern and throngs of cameramen and reporters. “You are one of the greatest athletes ever to play our game,” Stern said in his speech, echoing the sentiments of everybody there.
Kareem accepted the game ball from Stern. Notoriously camera shy, he nevertheless took the microphone and, looking somewhat uncomfortable with all the attention, thanked his fans, teammates, and parents. But in the end, he didn’t need to give a big speech. After all, as he pointed out, “It’s hard to say anything when all is said and done.”
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar retired from basketball in 1989 holding records in several categories including most points scored (38,387), most shots blocked (3,189), and most MVP awards given (6 NBA, 2 NBA Finals). The forty-two year old superstar owned six championship rings and had played in nineteen All-Star games. He had wowed fans, teammates, and rivals for twenty years, more seasons than any other player. Today he is a best-selling author and has starred in several movies, but it is for his signature sky hook that he will undoubtedly be remembered.