1965 - Lew Alcindor and the Innovation of the Skyhook

The oldest video to show the classic skyhook in March, 1965

Lew Alcindor, who later changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, developed the skyhook - one of the greatest sports innovations.

It is a unique basketball shot that Kareem developed leveraging his height, physical abilities, perseverance, intelligence, and imagination in its creation.

It wasn’t just a shot, it involved a complex movement, a wind-up that had to be performed to perfection each time for the ball to glide over the rim and swish softly in the net.

The skyhook enabled Kareem to score at will when he got the ball in his most effective spot, down low in the right post with his back to the basket. His opponents were helpless to defend against the skyhook. Kareem claims no one ever blocked it.

When Kareem got the ball in his sweet spot, less than 8 feet from the basket, I contend that his make percentage on the skyhook was about 80%. I don’t have actual stats on that. I state this from my memories of live games. I had the opportunity to see Kareem’s elegant move up close, during his prime years, on many occasions, as my family had season tickets to the New Jersey Nets in the late 1970s when Kareem was winning the MVP most years (he won the award 6 times between 1971 - 1980).

There was a certain grace in the shot that Kareem exhibited that made the move a pleasure to behold. It was like watching a Michael Jackson dance move. It had the smooth flow of Sam Snead’s golf swing combined with the beauty of a Mikhail Baryshnikov ballet. And it devastated even the best NBA centers who were defending him.

No one else has ever been able to emulate the skyhook. Even the greatest centers after Kareem, most notably Shaquille O’Neal, have looked clumsy by comparison when attempting a jump hook shot. And Shaq never was able to elevate on his hook shots the way Kareem did to launch the skyhook.

The skyhook was a truly appropriate name for the shot, as Kareem’s right arm soared to nearly 11 feet above the court, fully extended before his wrist flipped the ball downwards with deadly accuracy.

The skyhook was the main tool that enabled Kareem to surpass Wilt Chamberlain as the NBA’s all-time leading scorer in 1984, and hold on to that title for nearly 40 years.

Given Kareem’s enormous success with the skyhook, many writers have conjectured why no one else has tried to perfect it, and why no one even attempts to shoot it today. There is no shortage of theories. Most contend the dramatic change in the game over the past generation is the culprit. Modern NBA offensive schemes de-emphasize the center setting up with their back to the basket and that has led to a lack of focus on big men developing a battery of post moves.

But I contend that no one shoots the sky hook because no big man besides Kareem has ever possessed the unique skills necessary to master it. If a big man had a move that he could shoot at a 70%+ clip, that would negate the benefit of the 3-pointer. The fact is that no one has such a reliable move today.

Kareem himself has described how he developed the skyhook. He said its genesis can be traced to a drill he practiced incessantly as far back as grade school. It was called, the Mikan Drill, after the first great NBA center, George Mikan. The drill involved standing under the basket and repeatedly making layups from the left and right side, off the backboard, without taking a dribble.

However, the motion of this drill is still several steps removed from the skyhook that Kareem devised. Kareem has never completely revealed the insights that led him to produce the other critical elements of the move that became his signature shot.

There has also been a question regarding when he first started deploying the skyhook in games. Many articles on the internet point to the NCAA ban on dunking, instituted at the start of the 1967 season, as a direct response to Lew Alcindor’s on-court dominance. As the story goes, Alcindor had to develop another way of scoring during the 1967 season at UCLA, besides dunking. And that led to the skyhook.

But this is simply not the case. My cousin-in-law, Bill Reese, who had a tryout with the New York Knicks in the early 1960s, played pickup games with Lew Alcindor frequently when Lew was just 12 years old and Bill was 16. They would play near the Ravenswood Housing Project in Queens at a court close to the Department of Sanitation on 21st Street.

Lew already had an early version of the skyhook in development in those playground games at age 12. Bill remembers telling Lew he didn’t have to dribble the ball before taking the shot.

In addition to Bill’s first-hand accounts, we also have video evidence of the completely developed skyhook, in its fantastic full form, as early as March 1965, when Alcindor was a 17-year-old senior at Power Memorial High School.

I recently became aware of this video, and so in the spirit of The Sports Time Traveler, I went back precisely 60 years to experience what was taking place.

The video highlights of the game (which I have posted below) were taken from the New York City CHSAA high school championship game played on March 7, 1965. Lew Alcindor was the superstar center for Power Memorial.

At this time, Alcindor is a high school senior averaging 30 points and 20 rebounds a game and shooting 75% from the field. He is arguably the greatest basketball player in high school history, and the most sought after college prospect, with the possible exception of Wilt Chamberlain.

Beginning in Alcindor’s freshman season at Power Memorial, the team began a winning streak that stretched to 71 games earlier in the 1965 season. It was finally broken the month prior to the championship game by DeMatha High School in Maryland. That game attracted national attention. It was played in front of 13,500 fans at the University of Maryland Field House. DeMatha swarmed Alcindor and held him to just 16 points in defeating Power Memorial 46 - 43.

Alcindor was crushed by the loss to DeMatha and blamed himself for the team losing. His coach told him, “If you take the blame for this, you’ll have to take the credit for the other 71.”

That was Power Memorial’s only loss going into the March 7th championship game in New York.

In the same newspaper article about the DeMatha game, the legendary St. John’s University basketball coach, Lou Carneseca, expressed such enamor with Lew Alcindor’s potential that he declared, “He will be the first $50,000 a year rookie in the pros.”

The championship game on March 7th turned out to be no contest. Power Memorial blew out Rice High School 73 - 41. Alcindor scored 32. And one of his baskets was a perfect skyhook.

You can see the skyhook at the 3:10 mark on this highlights video of the game from March 7, 1965:

On the video, at the 3:10 mark, you see the classic skyhook that Kareem used to make thousands of baskets over his hall-of-fame career. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.

I’d love to hear your feedback and anything you would like me to update in this article.

Thanks for reading.