If Lovin' Jeff Hornacek is Wrong, Then I Don't Want to Be Right

Brothers and sisters, thank you for joining us here at the Fundamentalist Church. Following the service we’ll have a luncheon in the courtyard featuring Ms. Pittman’s delicious string bean casserole, but before our final hymn, I have some very important words for you.

I’ve long hoped never to deliver this sermon, but this All-Star Weekend, an evil that constantly threatens to undermine the tenets of the Game will bare its ugly face yet again. As you all know, Quentin Richardson, possessor of deviant two-handed jump shot form, will attempt to win his second consecutive Three-Point Shoot-Out.

Over the years, we Fundamentalists have seen treasured elements of our beloved Game erode. Basketball’s glory days have long since passed; never again may we revel in the beauty of a crisp bounce pass or a judicious close-out. I ask you all, fair congregants, who is more likely to be drafted, John Paxon Jr., or another untutored and unwashed behemoth who learned his basketball from a Playstation controller and by dunking on bent rims with chain nets?

Yet despite all of the moral degradation our game has experienced over the years, the jump shot was the one cherished institution that had remained untouched by the grubby hands of “progress.” We lament how lay-ups have hideously morphed into “dunk shots” and point guards spend more time trying to “fracture ankles” than execute solid entry passes; players today seem to spend more time smoking “the marijuana” and listening to “the rap music” than focusing on boxing out and denying the ball. However, through all of that Godless degradation, the jump shot remained unchanged. We were comforted that, during those tumultuous times, there was only one acceptable jump shot technique, as written clearly in the Gospel of Dr. Sure Shot.

“And Buzz Bramen said to his disciples, ‘Thou shalt form a 90 degree angle with thine shooting arm, hold thine off-hand perfectly still, and follow through so that thine wrist takes the shape of the neck of a goose.’”

For years, proper-shooting marksmen like Mark Price, Steve Kerr, Dale Ellis, and Craig Hodges won the Three-Point Shoot-Out and demonstrated to America, that one cherished institution of the Game could not be perverted. Those were good years for our land and our Game; Regan was President.

But last year, tragedy struck the purity of the jump shot. Quentin Richardson, called “Q-Dog” by the heretics, won the Three-Point Shoot-Out. In Galatians 1:6-7, the Bible tells us that Satan builds a false church to distort the gospel; in 2005, Satan struck again, broadcasting to all the notion that two-handed jump shooting is acceptable in the eyes of the Game. Fundamentalists know better; in the eyes of the Game, Quentin is a sinner and the last morally unadulterated vestige of our beloved Game depends upon our preventing him from winning again.

Over the past year, there has been much excitement in this country over loosening the requirements for properly upholding this sacred institution. These “progressives” say that how you shoot doesn’t matter, that the ball need only go through the rim. They shout that everyone deserves the right to shoot, no matter their preferred choice of technique. I am here to tell you these are simply lies spewed from the mouth of the Devil himself. While Richardson’s first victory amounted to a test of our faith, a second victory would be the harbinger for the end of the Game as we know it. Dark clouds will descend upon the heavens, blood will rain from the sky, lions will give birth in the street.

Quite simply, in the eyes of the Game, there is only one true, acceptable, and natural way to shoot a basketball. This technique maximizes shot arc and minimizes the motions our body must commit to muscle memory. It accommodates our bodies’ unique construction and is a natural extension of the Game’s designs for us. To shoot any other way is unnatural, and therefore a sin against nature and the Game itself. As long as we as human beings have shot this way, points have been fruitful and multiplied. A proliferation of shooting styles put the game in peril and threatens to bring scoring to halt altogether.

If we condone Richardson’s two-handed technique, proponents any of number of hideous shooting permutations will cry for acceptance. If one man can shoot with two hands, what will prevent someone from shooting with his feet, or dare I say, with his doodle? If we were to unmask those who truly advocate for accepting all shooting techniques, we would simply find a select group of perverts who want nothing more than to shoot in ways even the sickest minds cannot begin to imagine.

And as always, we must consider the impact that all this will have on the children. In an age where morals have progressively loosened or disintegrated, it is the children who have suffered most of all. Sadly, today’s juveniles are shooting three pointers at younger and younger ages. If our impressionable youth come to think they can not only shoot where they want, but also how they want, then the Game faces damaged beyond repair and we may as well resign ourselves to following soccer.

We don’t have much time, but I urge all Fundamentalists to write Commissioner Stern and urge him not to allow Richardson into the Three-Point Shoot-Out. We simply cannot allow the Game to be corrupted further and I urge you to motivate your Fundamentalists brethren to make themselves heard.

But we also have an obligation to reach out to all those with improper form. We must remind them that Fundamentals is the true path to the Game. For the two-handed shooters, the temptation to shoot unnaturally will never fully disappear, but we may guide them to refrain from further damaging the Game.

So for Fundamentalists, this is the time to rise up and protect our sacred shooting form and wipe the tarnish from our treasured institution. No less than the health and the sanctity of the Game depend on it.