New City, NY (March 3, 2017) – Despite wearing a shooting sleeve on his right arm, thirteen year-old Marcus Cook is still scoreless twelve games into the 2016-2017 Clarkstown Recreation Basketball season. With only the playoffs left to go, league officials do not anticipate Cook, a member of the Red Hawks, hitting a single shot in any future games. Anything to the contrary would be deemed a huge surprise.
After nearly hitting a layup in last year’s seventh-place consolation game, Cook begged and pleaded to his parents to take him to Dick’s Sporting Goods to purchase a shooting sleeve for his right arm. The sleeve, he argued, would enhance his blossoming basketball talent, as well as intimidate opposing players by looking like an NBA star. Unfortunately for the basketball scholarship hopeful, the shooting sleeve has done absolutely nothing to help is cockeyed, jerky shooting form. In fact, Cook often complains that he loses feeling in his right hand due to the restrictiveness of the sleeve which promised to improve his scoring average by fifty percent.
Opposing coaches have devised special defensive schemes when facing Cook’s Red Hawks. “I saw a kid on the other team (Cook) with a shooting sleeve so I figured he was their star. So I had my best player shadow him the second he crossed half court. After his first six misses, we decided not to cover him at all and instead, doubled their big man,” explained Dennis DeMott, coach of the Ravens. “Now any time I see a kid with a shooting sleeve we just let him bomb away and start boxing out for the rebound.”
Cook’s shooting sleeve which has not helped to produce a single basket.
Cook’s season has been tumultuous at best. After shooting 0 for 17 in his first two games, he and his parents attempted to return the sleeve to Dick’s, claiming it was defective. After nearly an hour of arguing, Dick’s Assistant Manager Ken Molina removed the acrylic circle which prevents shoppers from shooting on the display hoops to allow Cook to show how the product was indeed faulty. As Cook took shot after shot, knocking down fishing poles, tennis rackets, and roller blades several aisles over, Molina allowed Cook to exchange the sleeve for a new one. “The sleeve costs ten bucks so I figured I could let him keep shooting and destroy hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise or I can make the kid feel like his ineptitude was the fault of a stretchy tube of spandex,” a sympathetic Molina remarked.
As of press time, Cook has yet to score but is confident that new compression leggings will undoubtedly improve his jump shot. Upon scoring his first basket, Cook is planning on dabbing for the crowd to celebrate his accomplishment.
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