What's the Most Creative Moment You've Seen in Pro Basketball?

Outside wrote:Interesting question that really got me thinking. I like BobC's post. Creative way to deal with Rodman overplaying Bird. I also like it because it's a play involving multiple people rather than an individual player doing some wizardry with the ball.

Unfortunately, for the NBA, all I can think of at the moment is individual wizardry, and the players that come to mind for me are Elgin Baylor and Pete Maravich. Sadly, there isn't much video footage of Baylor on YouTube, but there's fortunately lots of Maravich, so I'll go with him, and since this is a Celtic board, I'll go with the Red on Roundball segment that has Maravich demonstrating passing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ruz5VkBt0Q

The part I'm referring to in particular starts about 2:15 into the video. It's Pete's "wrist pass." It's an amazing piece of misdirection, and I don't remember seeing anyone else do it.

Now I'm going to cheat and mention the first thing that actually popped into my head when I read Sam's question, although it doesn't qualify because it wasn't a pro game. I don't remember the exact circumstances, but it was when I was playing in college, and there were some kids (middle school age, I think) playing before us. I have no idea why, since that shouldn't normally happen. Anyway, they were having their halftime meeting in the locker room while we were getting dressed and taped up before the game, and the coach told them that if they got an out-of-bounds play under their own basket, he wanted one player (let's say Johnny) to take out the ball, then after the ref gives him the ball, he wanted Johnny to say, "hey Jimmy, you take the ball out." Then as Jimmy walks casually toward Johnny, Johnny passes him the ball and Jimmy scores a layup. I started cracking up, and the coach looked at me, shrugged his shoulders, and said, "hey, we're getting beat by 20. I gotta try something." He just thought it up on the spur of the moment out of desperation, and I loved it. I have no idea if they got a chance to try it or if it worked.

Outside

Sam wrote:I have one that didn't happen on the court and not even when the ball was in play. It was around 1968 during a game at the Garden. The referee (might have been Mendy Rudolph, but I'm not sure) made what the Celtics thought was an atrocious call against Sam Jones. Auerbach immediately called for a timeout and went storming out on the floor, screaming. The ref finally walked Red back to the sidelines...right over to where Sam was standing (still with the ball) and absolutely fuming.

So the Sam got into it again with the ref, and all of a sudden, the usually laid-back Sam just slammed the ball down on the floor, and it flew about 20 feet into the air. All of us in Section 88 just waited for the "T" boom to fall on Sam.

But Sam was nothing if not a quick thinker. As the ball descended, he caught it, shook it a little, pretended to be listening for something inside the ball, dribbled it really low three or four times, spun it in the air as he studied the spin intently, finally caught it again, handed it to the ref, said, "It's okay," and turned back out onto the floor.
Sam, Just a great story...LOL
And he got away with it.

Sam was also a master at the old high school trick of passing the ball to himself off an opponent whose back was turned on an out-of-bounds play under their offensive board.

In my jaded mind, something of that ilk was or is worth 50 Sports Center highlight dunks.

Sam