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Basketball

jcstack6

Entry posted by jcstack6

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I often play pickup basketball with my brothers, the teams usually split up as me and Paul vs Nathan and Dave. Paul is garbage, however his terrible form and his "signature move" has a lot of physics involved with it. Paul believes the greatest shot is one where he dribbles along the three point arc and chucks up a shot one handed while falling backward. He believes the best way to make this shot is by aiming for the white square on the backboard. This is surprisingly not the best tactic however. Even though every coach tells their 5 year old players to aim for the magic white box, in Paul case, they shouldn't. Since Paul is moving sideways with some velocity, the ball is also moving sideways with the same velocity. Therefore, if Paul aims for the white box, he will end up missing it because the ball will not travel straight but slightly sideways due to Paul's velocity in the horizontal direction. Therefore, Paul should aim to one side of the white box so that the ball actually hits the white box and has a chance of going in. However, playing with Paul turns into an hour of pain and frustration. 

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