Virginia junior Justin Anderson broke his pinky in early February and missed almost five weeks of action. He returned at the ACC Tournament last week, but required tape around that left pinky on his shooting hand. Daily Press reporter Norm Wood described it as mummified.
Anderson played 26 minutes combined in games against Florida State and North Carolina. He missed all 6 shots he attempted and committed 2 turnovers. With UVa gearing up for the NCAA Tournament, that rusty return caused some Hoo fans to worry. Among the concerns: that the needed tape support was impeding Anderson’s ability to shoot and handle the basketball.
Rather than speculate, I decided to simulate.
Armed with the picture above from the ACC Tournament, I headed to the training room to get the same tape arrangement on my shooting hand. An athletic trainer secured the wrist tape, buddy-wrapped the ring and pinky finger, and then set up the anchor straps you see connecting the fingers to the wrist. At first, the tape felt tight and limited my wrist movement. A small adjustment to narrow the wrist tape, however, solved that problem. The buddy tape around the fingers felt unfamiliar, but not uncomfortable.
With the tape in place, I headed to the floor to get up some shots. For form shooting (within 3 feet of the rim, one-handed shots with no jumping), I detected no difference after the first shot or two. The follow through portion of a shot comes off the index finger and the middle finger last so under the rhythmic and uncontested close shots of form shooting, the tape was not noticeable. Moving out to stationary jumpers inside of 15 feet (free throw distance), I still had no issues with the tape. Shooting felt natural despite the wrapping. Once I moved back to 3-point range, however, I could feel the tape more – particularly around the wrist – and that led to some inconsistent shooting. Even so, I was able to adjust pretty quickly and make long-distance shots as well.
After taking mostly stationary shots initially, I began to work off the dribble and to shoot off the dribble (or off the catch) next. This is where I detected the tape the most. Dribbling with that much tape on your hand is definitely noticeable. Any move with the ball going from my left hand to right hand (opposite direction for the lefty Anderson obviously) felt like it required extra concentration in a shooting drills setting. I also could feel the ball slide on the tape sometimes. Pulling up to shoot with the taped hand had the same issue sometimes where it didn’t feel quite as clean in my hand on the way up. That too got easier the more I worked on it, though.
I think the buddy tape on the fingers had the most impact for dribbling and pull-up shots, but I noticed it much less playing later (more on that next) than in shooting drills. I think the majority of that feeling wasn’t the tape itself, but that my ring finger and pinky were much closer together than I am accustomed to so it was an odd tactile thing more than a discomfort thing. Of note, however, I didn’t have days of practice to get used to it either.
Finally, I left shooting drills to go play in a pick-up game. In this setting, the tape was not distracting at all once I got into the rhythm of the game. I could pass normally. No issues. I could shoot comfortably and didn’t notice the tape on catch-and-shoot shots or off the dribble inside the 3-point line. As was the case in the shooting drills, the 3-point shots created some inconsistency because the ball didn’t feel as comfortable sometimes with the wrist tape and buddy tape together. Every now and then the ball felt slightly out of position. Dribbling was the other time where I noticed that the most. None of it was major even with defense factored into the equation.
Overall, I did not think the tape impeded my ability to shoot or play. I didn’t have to make any adjustments to my style of play, but did have to adjust sometimes on 3-point shots. The biggest bother was with dribbling due to the tactile feel of the tape and to the finger position. I think most of those things would go away with practice, though. I quickly adjusted to the feel of it within one session so I can image after several days of practice that it would become even less of an issue.
I wasn’t playing against NCAA Tournament athletes of course. Keep in mind that I did not actually break my pinky like Anderson either. I know from fracturing my thumb a few years back what that can cause, though. It took a while to regain full range of motion and sometimes the ball would hit it a certain way and that would hurt when I played again.
Interestingly, Virginia coach Tony Bennett tried out a similar experiment.
“I just wanted to see it. I actually put it on to see how it felt,” Bennett said. “It’s interesting – I think I’ve talked to you guys about this before. The shooting not so much because you shoot with the big three, at least that’s what I was always thought and you kind of frame it. A little more of your handles and your catching because you can’t spread your pinky when you buddy tape it and put it on. The question, the more he gets used to it or practices with it, plays with it, the better you get at adjusting to it. I didn’t notice it too much shooting. I wouldn’t say it was like without it, it was a little more trying to handle it or catch that seemed like it slid out a little bit.”
The best news in all this discussion, though? Anderson won’t even have the full mummy job this weekend in the NCAA Tournament. He practiced with only buddy tape at the open practice session in Charlotte on Thursday. Evan Nolte has played with buddy tape since dislocating his finger (non-shooting hand) earlier this season and London Perrantes often has tape on his fingers as well.
Anderson, who hit a lot of jumpers in the practice session, said he thinks the whole tape question is overstated.
“Evan gets buddy tape and they don’t ask him all the questions,” Anderson said. “He still can shoot. It is what it is. You get reps up with it, you practice with it.”
Subscribe to TheSabre.com’s EDGE service for more great articles like this!
