It sounded almost unbelievable.
Making the basketball bounce back to you during a free throw—and land right where you were standing—demanded extraordinary precision.
The rim was circular, and every point on it curved away. The ball would bounce to a different spot depending on where it hit.
What's more, even if it struck the same point, the ball would bounce back to a different place if you used a different amount of force.
Yet Wang Yi was confident he could do it.
He'd pulled it off more than once before, and every time, the ball had bounced right back into his hands.
James understood now, and said with sudden realization, "Wang Yi wasn't doing nothing. He'd been working on this the whole time. As soon as Spo started using the Hack-a-Player Tactic, Wang Yi had already figured out how to take his free throws this way and keep Team America from getting the ball. He just didn't use it right away."
"He knew Spo was a very good coach, too. If Wang Yi came up with that kind of free throw, Spo might come up with a way to counter it. So Wang Yi held off, waiting until the final few seconds to suddenly start doing it."
"That way, Spo wouldn't have much time to figure out how to stop him."
Michael Jordan nodded beside him. "Exactly. If Spo hadn't called that timeout, Wang Yi would've kept shooting until the game was over. You tell me to shoot free throws, I'll shoot them until the game ends. Spo would've been shooting himself in the foot."
Shaquille O'Neal added, "Wang Yi's a seriously clever guy. The thing is, he can actually pull off whatever he thinks of. If I were shooting, I couldn't make every ball bounce right back so I