If Dirk Nowitzki can pull this off, defenders will absolutely helpless to stop him. After already quickening his shot release this summer, the Dallas Mavericks’ future Hall-of-Famer is apparently working on adding a sky hook to his offensive repertoire.
Unfortunately, Dirk isn’t quite comfortable enough with the move to utilize it in-game – for now. As told to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, though, Nowitzki says he’s not giving up on the sky hook, either.
“The sky hook is still a work in progress,” Nowitzki said. “I might keep that for year 18. We’re still working on it…”
“The sky hook is a tough shot, especially if you have no move, if you don’t come out of the rhythm and just turn around and shoot it,” said Nowitzki, who ranks 10th among all-time scorers, a mere 11,601 points behind [Kareem] Abdul-Jabbar. “That’s why no one else is shooting it like Kareem. I don’t know how he did it. That shot is unbelievable.
“Out of the move, it’s OK. Once I’ve got a running start, I can actually shoot it OK. The problem is I’m 36. I don’t get a lot of running starts anymore, so I’m screwed.”
Shame.
But it speaks volumes of the sky hook’s difficulty that it takes time for a player like Nowitzki to master it. Old-hands ask time and again: “Why don’t any modern players use Kareem’s move?” The answer, as Dirk intricately describes, is because it’s an incredibly hard shot to make.
But if anyone can do it, Nowitzki is the guy.
What do you think?
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