Trevor Booker Shot An Historic Buzzer Beater

Jan 9, 2015; Oklahoma City, OK, USA; Utah Jazz forward Trevor Booker (33) gets a rebound in front of Oklahoma City Thunder center Kendrick Perkins (5) during the second quarter at Chesapeake Energy Arena. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports

By now you’ve seen “The Shot.” The Shot being the ridiculous volleyball loft Trevor Booker shot with two hands over his head with his back to the basket. What we lack is context for it, which is what you’re going to get here.

Just in case you live under a rock and happened to miss it, here is Booker’s preposterous make with 0.2 seconds left on the shot clock:

And it was on purpose. No, really. Booker has actually practiced shots like these on the playground and in the backyard with Los Angeles Lakers cousin Jordan Hill when they were kids in the southern summers way back when.

Trevor Booker got a text about his wild tip shot from the Lakers' Jordan Hill after the game. The cousins practiced shots like that as kids.
— Jody Genessy (@DJJazzyJody) January 10, 2015

Jordan Hill lost his mother to breast cancer at the tender age of three, and spent most summers with cousin Trevor in Whitmire, South Carolina where they’d play outside, mostly sports, until after the sun had set.

Back in the 1989-90 NBA season a new rule was born, one that dictated how long it took to get a shot off. It was the first season the league had added tenths of a second to the game clock. On the evening of January 15, 1990, New York Knicks guard Mark Jackson stood on the Madison Square Garden sideline with the score knotted at 106 against Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, intending to inbound the ball to Patrick Ewing for a tip-in and subsequent game-winner.

Only Ewing was covered so the ball ended up in Trent Tucker‘s hands. Tucker caught, turned, and released a jumper over Scottie Pippen that hit the net’s bottom. All in 0.1 seconds. Phil Jackson, in his first season as Bulls coach, was denied the protest filing that followed. However, the “Trent Tucker Rule” was born of it.

This wouldn’t be the last time Phil Jackson was on the sideline for an historic buzzer beater, either. More on that in a moment. But first, the Trent Tucker Rule.

In the course of protesting the seemingly impossible feat from Tucker, the league largely defended the night’s officials, the lone exception being Rod Thorn, who was then Vice President of NBA Basketball Operations, recently promoted to President of Basketball Operations after Commissioner David Stern retired. Thorn is a former general manager of the Bulls, so, surprise!

The NBA determined, after studies, that in order to catch and shoot a basketball, a player had to have a minimum of 0.3 seconds left on the clock, rendering a shot such as Trent Tucker’s impossible to pull off in the future. Fair enough. If only 0.1 or 0.2 seconds were left on the clock the shot had to be a tip-in or deflection of some sort.

There was the matter of time-keeping to address as well, humans being the fallible sort of creatures that we are. To help alleviate various potential problems in this regard, in 1999 new technology was placed in the hands of the officials closest to the action, rather than with Johnny-knows-who at the scorer’s table.

"In 1999, the NBA installed a new system developed by Mike Costabile, an NCAA referee who previously officiated in the NBA. Each referee carries a small transmitter attached to his or her belt, with a button. When the clock is to start, each referee pushes the button at the exact instant at which he or she believes the ball to be in play. The first button push triggers an automatic start to the clock.The system also includes a microphone that is sensitive to the particular frequency of the whistles used by NBA referees, and stops the clock when the whistle is blown. In order to activate the clock, at least one of the referees must push a button at the instant he or she believes the ball to be first touched.–The Null Hypodermic"

Five years later, with Phil Jackson once again on the sideline, the Lakers’ Derek Fisher would hit what would be the definitive NBA clock buzzer beater for a decade to come.

A couple of years later, David Lee, then a New York Knick, ironically, would win a game once again in Madison Square Garden, ironically, and once again with 0.1 seconds on the clock. Ironically.

Oh, and guess who was in attendance for that unreal tip-in for the win? Michael Jordan, Charles Oakley and Patrick Ewing, all of whom participated in the original Trent Tucker game. Did I mention irony already?

Earlier this season, the Memphis Grizzlies’ Courtney Lee pulled off something that was sort of a combination of a catch-and-shoot and a tip-in all at once. And he did it twisting in the air with 0.3 seconds remaining on the clock.

This is pretty incredible. It took a perfect pass, aerial acrobatics and body control to pull off. And it was for the win, even if not in a playoff game like Fisher’s was.

But the context of buzzer beaters is another discussion entirely. We’re concentrating on merely beating a short clock in the most incredible of ways in NBA history. All of the aforementioned shots have one thing in common: the basketball never hit the floor on the inbounds.

This is where Trevor Booker’s intentional shot really stands out in historical context. It was a bounce pass, perfectly placed by Gordon Hayward, who couldn’t possibly have known Booker and cousin Hill used to actually practice improbable scenarios like this as children in South Carolina. I mean, he couldn’t have known, right?

Video: Trevor Booker on his absurdly ridiculous over-the-head circus shot. http://t.co/WNMJiLwHmb
— Eric Walden (@tribjazz) January 10, 2015

Like the original Trent Tucker attempt, the play was for a lob that didn’t pan out. Credit to Trevor Booker for being aware of the rule, and Gordon Hayward for an inbounds bounce pass right on the money for a shot that won’t soon be forgotten in the annals of the NBA’s buzzer beaters.

Even if it wasn’t for a playoff win, or even an NBA regular season win, Trevor Booker’s shot is quite unforgettable, and unlikely to be duplicated intentionally for some time to come.