Hoops and LinguisticsManabu can’t say his ls and rs. He told me my girlfriend was arrogant, over and over, until I nearly slugged him. Then, I realized he was calling her elegant. In basketball, he couldn’t use his left hand. Force him left, he dribbled right-handed. Give him an easy layup on the left side, he’d shoot it right-handed. We were the only foreigners in a Chinese village and spent most of our lives together – Chinese lessons before dawn, hoops whenever we could, dinner every night.
“I have come here to grow up,” he told me the first time we met, huge brown eyes staring straight into mine. “Physically, mentally, teaching Japanese, speaking English, playing basketball.”
To me, Manabu Kawahira came as a 27-year-old, 5-foot-nothing nickname factory. Within a week, I went ESPN on him, and didn’t quit for the whole year. Manaboom-boom Kawabunga. Manainthedesert. Manamong boys. Manaboomerang. Kawawowsa. Hirashima. Hirandnowa. KawaBowWowa. The Big Dolla from Okinawa.
Manabu loved it. We told the villagers we were twin brothers when they'd swarm us, which happened everywhere we went since the farmers and merchants weren’t used to a 6-4 white guy and a 5-foot Japanese guy.
But mostly we called each other “mathafucka.” Manabu in his halting English called me that word once, and it was too funny not to repeat. And repeat. And repeat. We’d scream it across campus at each other. Ni hao mathafucka! We’d greet each other at 5:30 a.m. for Chinese lessons with it. Morning mathafucka! We’d start text messages with “mf.”
Why did I go along with it? Maybe because it expressed brotherhood in a very foreign place. Maybe because no one, including Manabu, knew what it meant, which made it hardly seem like cussing. Maybe because strangers screamed “hello” at me everywhere I went, so I felt license to scream asinine things, too. Maybe because it made Manabu blush like a guilty child.
Manabu has got to be the politest gangsta rap fan ever. He made time for his students whenever and wherever they wished, and never bothered to sleep as a result. He gave public lessons to rude Communist Party officials, for free. But walk into his room any time he was there and you were nearly knocked over by Snoop Dogg barking about bitches and hos. Or Wu Tang Clan rhyming about this or that motherfucker. His obsession with gangsta rap knew no limits, even though he had very little idea what they were saying.
We hooped it up most Saturday mornings. He wanted to improve, be ready for the NBA draft within a year. Shaq would be leaving the Lakers, and Phil Jackson wouldn’t quit calling him, Manabu told me.
We started with chest passes, shuffling up and down the length of the cement court, passing back and forth. Put a hole in my chest, I told him, as Mr. Hilling told me in second grade.
Then we’d do zig-zig dribble drills, alternating dribbling and playing defense. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, like Pacman, I’d tell him, as Mr. Einan told me in sixth grade. On the balls of your feet!
Then we’d shoot around the world. Imagine your middle finger going straight over the rim when you follow through, Mr. Heather said through me. Use the board, Mr. Thompson added.
One-on-one, Manabu held his own, especially when I played left-handed. Being 16 inches shorter didn’t stop him from posting me up. Or from talking smack. “Mathafucka, you are like grandmother,” he’d tell me. He called his opponent “my enemy.” But he still couldn’t use his left hand.
I watched him fumble the ball with his left-hand, and I thought of Larry Bird, the hick from French Lick and my childhood hero. Legend has it he practiced so hard with his left hand it finally became stronger than his right. I spent my whole childhood testing that theory for myself in my driveway court.
And I thought of the sentence I had taught Manabu to practice his pronunciation: “Larry really likes rowing the boat along the lake.” And a new sentence emerged: “Larry Bird really likes left-handed layups.”
I taught it to Manabu. And ordered him to dribble up and down the court, using his left hand, finishing with a left-handed layup, while reciting the sentence.
Up and down the court he went, at a walk, doing his best to keep his head up while dribbling left-handed. And doing his best to get the “l”s right while reciting the sentence.
More often than not, the ball bounced off his foot, and he had to start over. And more often that not, he talked about “Rarry Bird” and his “reft-handed rayups.”Over time, though, he learned to hold his dribble left-handed and get the sentence mostly right. Which inspired me to add a clause – and new skill – to the sentence: “Larry Bird really likes left-handed layups and right-handed rim-rattlers.”
Manabu, at five-foot-zip, may need to practice that one for awhile. Mr. Hilling and Einan and Heather and Thompson never succeeded in teaching me rim-rattlers. But he doesn't need me anymore. He's all set to make his debut in the Staples Center. He's Phil Jackson's prodigy now. I'll stay tuned to ESPN.
