Random thoughts, part 1: Who would be the best hang in the NBA?

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NBA (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images) /

With chugging beer taking the bubble by storm, I thoroughly break down which NBA players might be the most fun to go out with for a night on the town.

Over the weekend, NBA players J.J. Redick and Meyers Leonard displayed some of the more impressive beer shotgunning skills I have seen in quite some time. A more difficult task than it appears to be, a proper shotgun requires many talents. Posture, multitasking, poise, and speed are all crucial elements in the collegiate staple.

For the inexperienced, one cannot simply step into a shotgun without a bump or two in the road. Typically, one’s first time engaging in the beer-drinking medium is riddled with spillage on the clothes, a face-full of foam, and a handful of literal hiccups. The faint of heart often struggle to execute the maneuver properly, and for this reason, the most crucial aspect of being able to dominate a shotgun requires—like most things—practice.

By the looks of it, J.J. Redick and Meyers Leonard have had their fair share of that.

Sorry meant to post this earlier. Multitasking post practice. @budlight @NBABubbleLife pic.twitter.com/pBsau1SHoQ
— JJ Redick (@jj_redick) July 12, 2020

Redick gunned his Bud Light in a similar manner to which he shoots a three-pointer coming off of a down-screen—crafty, smooth, fundamentally sound, as if he had done so thousands of times in the past. Seeing JJ implement his immaculate form and his ever-so-steady pace in a setting off of the court was almost as beautiful as seeing him do so while he is on it.

https://twitter.com/MeyersLeonard/status/1282461490394664960

Likewise, with a Coors Light in hand, Meyers Leonard morphed into an embodiment of his basketball identity. Most publically known for his bizarre recurring beef with DeMarcus Cousins, Leonard has built a small reputation for being one of the NBA’s biggest pests. Though his performance does not always mirror his in-your-face style of play, Meyers—normally the underdog in most match-ups—refuses to allow his opponents to punk him.

This time around, in a setting with the scales tipped in his favor (well… and one in which his opponent was a 12-ounce light beer), it was Leonard’s turn to do the punking. In a dominant performance, the Heat big man took his beverage down in three enormous gulps. To add insult to injury, Meyers crumpled the ice-cold, Colorado-based can of suds in his gargantuan right hand before carelessly tossing the empty shell to the bedroom floor. With Mr. Leonard sending such a powerful message, one could only imagine that Sunday was a terrifying day to be a Coors Light within Disney’s beautiful Yacht Club resort.

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As Redick and Leonard posted their videos for the masses to see, I could not help but notice what a breath of fresh air their displays were. Oddly enough, though—and despite typing out roughly 400 words detailing the art of shotgunning and how these two athletes performed their renditions—this breath of fresh air had little to do with NBA players and their alcohol consumption. The relief was something deeper—something far more meaningful than a two-second beer chug.

This was about gaining valuable insight into who J.J. Redick and Meyers Leonard are as regular guys rather than as famous basketball players.

As teams patiently wait for the season to resume on July 30th, posts like Leonard’s and Redick’s offer fans a never-before-seen look into the personalities of the athletes we watch on television. So, with social media being one of the few things a player can actively engage in due to the NBA’s strict policies within the bubble, we are beginning to learn some fascinating tidbits about our favorite athletes.

Meyers Leonard, for instance, is really good at drinking beer really fast. Who would have guessed that? And, though Redick has had some great moments on The Ringer’s The J.J. Redick Podcast, I would have never pictured J.J. as a “sit in an ice bath and crush Bud Light” kind of guy. Because of these fresh insights, I immediately found myself obsessed with one simple question:

Who is the best hang in the NBA?

Desperate for answers, I began to scroll through each NBA roster. Most players were easy passes. Some players stopped me in my tracks. Even fewer received a resounding stamp of approval. But as I vehemently studied every depth chart from top to bottom, I came across a potentially detrimental hindrance to my research—I do not know these players at all.

Sure, we watch them on television, hear them on podcasts, and follow them on social media, but that can hardly be viewed as insightful. Everyone is a little bit different when the spotlight is on them. So with very little player interaction in my past, how am I supposed to judge a man’s level of ‘cool’ when I have never spent a single second with him?

After a day or so of exhausting pandering, however, I figured out a system. Despite my lack of in-depth, personal knowledge of individual NBA players, I devised an all-encompassing case study that—provided my information is correct—should be somewhat accurate.