How Basketball Can Save the World: David Hollander Dishes on How Hoops Builds Community
Whether you’re an NBA fan, prefer watching college basketball, or just like playing the occasional pickup game, there’s probably no better college course for you than NYU’s How Basketball Can Save the World. We recently sat down with the man who created it, Professor David Hollander. In this article, we’ll explore that bold claim, dig into why basketball is such a democratic sport, and see how it can bring together people from different races, backgrounds, and nationalities as a truly global game.
For its first three decades, the NBA was largely an American league. But that all changed with the 1984 draft. Though it featured future Hall of Famers Charles Barkley and John Stockton and the man who is arguably the GOAT – Michael Jordan – the top pick was Akeem Olajuwon. Later changing his name to Hakeem, the nimble seven-footer who ran like a gazelle, exploded to the rim as the Rocket he would become, and popularized his patented “Dream Shake” and many other post moves. Not only was he a new kind of center, but also the first overseas player to be chosen first on draft night.
From Hakeem the Dream to the Dream Team
Hailing from Nigeria, Olajuwon was a late starter in basketball, preferring soccer, handball, and other sports as a youngster. But once his skills began to catch up with his size, it was soon clear that he could become a force to be reckoned with. At the University of Houston, he teamed up with Clyde “The Glide” Drexler as part of the famed Phi Slama Jama squad that ran past and jumped over college opponents with reckless abandon on their way to three straight Final Four appearances. In the NBA, Olajuwon formed the Twin Towers with fellow seven-footer Ralph Sampson, and later led the Houston Rockets to two championships, overcoming both Patrick Ewing and a young Shaq in consecutive Finals.
It's such a story that inspired David Hollander to consider how much of a worldwide phenomenon basketball has become since then. After the reign of Hakeem “The Dream” came the 1992 Dream Team, highlighted by Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird. Their unparalleled dominance at the Barcelona Olympics not only elevated MJ to icon status, but also brought the game to millions of kids worldwide who suddenly wanted to be like Mike and his illustrious, high-flying teammates.
The Rise of Dirk, Luka, Jokic, & Co
In the years since, David watched as other countries began challenging – and for a couple of years, even defeating – Team USA. At the 2004 Athens Olympics, both Argentina and Italy defeated the USA, pushing them back to an unprecedented bronze medal finish. Then came a new crop of international talent that made waves in the NBA. Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker won five titles with the Spurs, Dirk Nowitzki claimed an MVP, championship, and Finals MVP award, and almost every team had at least a couple of foreign talents on its roster. Next, we witnessed the reign of do-everything guard Luka Doncic and visionary big man Nikola Jokic.
One of the reasons David believes basketball is the most democratic and accessible of team sports is because people of all heights, shapes, and sizes can play and enjoy it. Even at the highest level, a seemingly unathletic big man like Jokic or slight guard like Steph Curry can become an MVP and a champion despite not having the gravity-defying hops of someone like Vince Carter or the superhero physique of LeBron James.
“You must be under control – there has to be a balance of force and skill,” David said. “Other sports are about speed and force and pushing past that vertical line for a goal or a touchdown. Basketball is different and was made for the outsider. It’s a human game that’s as social as it is physical. There must be a commitment that everybody out there is carrying five people together.”
Overcoming Isolation and Loneliness
During the pandemic, NCAA surveys showed that suicidal ideation, depression, stress, anxiety, and other mental health issues were up by at least 200 percent. Since then, subsequent research demonstrates that while sports practices, games, and tournaments have resumed, many of these challenges remain. David believes that basketball can be a tonic to such problems and that a court – whether it’s on blacktop, hardwood, or any other surface – can serve as a sanctuary for the mind and soul. Not least because all anyone needs to participate is a ball and a hoop.
“One of my other principles is that basketball is an antidote to isolation and loneliness,” he said. “It's one of the few sports you can do by yourself, so there’s no barrier of access. We need that thing to take us out of our own heads sometimes and connect us to others without having to try so hard. Whatever pain I was carrying around, whatever misfit sadness I may have felt, it was a space where I could imagine a whole world, suspend reality, but still be real. All the love, hate, sorrow, pressure, and sprawling ambiguity of life was just too much for a kid like me. So I needed that house of worship.”
Running the Fast Break of Life
One of the things that makes basketball unique is that while there aren’t the same kind of violent collisions as in football, rugby, or Aussie rules, it still involves plenty of contact. Plus, each of the five players on the floor has to play both ways, rather than just specializing in offense or defense. To David, this creates a different kind of community while also prompting individual transformation.
“It's not like the two sports that are the closest in movement, soccer and hockey,” he said. “The defensive players don't spend a lot of time in the offensive part of the game. And there's the goalies, have radically a different position. In this game, everybody does the same thing, and you’re going to run into each other.”
This frequent contact and the need to share one ball between five teammates creates a team-first mentality that David believes has the power to uplift everyone collectively.
“Anything that’s moving is changing all the time,” he said. “It sounds a lot to me like something called the fast break, where you're fluidly confronting new facts and circumstances with others and making a lot of decisions really fast. And the more you're able to do that, I think that's more akin to the human experience, then for me to say, ‘I'm running the show here.’ Basketball is human alchemy, and it’s about becoming something different. Basketball changes people when they interact with each other. I become an entirely different person on the basketball court, depending on who the four people are that are with me, and the five we’re playing against.”
Playing a Positionless Game
The Warriors are one of the teams that David believes can serve as a solid model for how the wider world can collaborate and come together in pursuit of noble goals. And their team-first approach was inspired by the “seven seconds or less” Suns who shared the ball and accolades.
“[Steve] Nash and [Mike] D’Antoni said, ‘We’re going to do things differently,’” David said. “‘We’re gonna have this positionless game.’ Then there’s no Curry [with the Warriors] without Klay and Draymond. It’s the beauty of basketball. That’s the kind of society I want to live in, where all these guys all have the same value. We can’t win without it, move forward, or get to this promised land of a better world.”
We’ve all heard stories of duos like Jordan and Scottie Pippen, Stockton and Karl Malone, and Kobe and Shaq coming together to dominate, and of selfless teams such as Bill Russell’s Celtics deferring personal stat lines for the greater good of the group. But David believes that even if people only play together once, they leave an indelible and positive mark on one another in a way that creates a stronger local community.
“When you play a pickup game with a total stranger for an hour, and the game's over, you leave,” he said. “But then weirdly, you maybe run into that person at a deli and you know each other in the way that only people who’ve played fives do. There’s just a little head nod, but now you trust each other. You understand each other in a way that is wordless. That is communal.”
You can listen to our full conversation with David here. Please consider rating and reviewing The Basketball Strong Podcast to help us grow, and subscribe so you get every new episode right away. And be sure to read David’s brilliant book.
