Rollin’

On a sunny afternoon in January, after milling about all day, I walked into Cameron Indoor Stadium around 5:45 p.m. for an 8 p.m. tip. I hadn’t been to the arena for a game since March, and it was, as always, awfully bright, though not as warm as I remembered, with drafts of cold wind rushing in through open doors. A small crew of technicians tinkered with broken bulbs on the video board, which had been lowered to the level of the floor for late repairs. Otherwise, in this empty space, it was positively serene.

At 5:54 p.m., before any other player, Nolan Smith walked out to the court wearing a long-sleeved shirt, white practice shorts and blue socks pulled midway up his legs. With a walk-on rebounding, standing underneath the basket and facing him, Nolan glided around the perimeter, canning mid-range jumpers, then three-pointers, methodically moving clockwise, counter-clockwise and clockwise again. After 20 minutes, he started to cut, feigning layups. He switched sides, walking past the video board, to float looping shots, higher every time, the basketball equivalent of the Eephus pitch. He started to sweat at his upper temples. At 6:21 p.m., he threw down an alley-oop and jogged into the tunnel, silently acknowledging a man in a Windsor-knotted necktie and shaking hands with a Durham police officer. There were still no fans in the arena. 

I decided, right about then, that I would track this game simply by observing Nolan. I couldn’t have picked a better night to do so. It was a marvelous performance—spectacular, his coach said afterward—with Nolan racking up 28 points, eight assists and one turnover, all while reducing his defensive match to his worst output of the season. This might have been the clinic that cemented him, even in January, as the ACC’s player of the year, and the easy nature of it all made it even more remarkable. Watching him, and only him, was sublime in a way I had never before experienced basketball: a sort of single lens with panoramic capabilities. I saw him swipe at his ears, chatting with Kyrie Irving, to make sure he had deposited his diamond studs in the locker room. I saw him quibble with a referee about a missed foul call, only to apologize, with subtle hand gestures, after a timeout and roll his eyes at another call on the very next play. I saw him, on a fast break, take off three steps from the rim, move the ball from his right hand to his left, initiate contact and spin the ball off the glass and through the hoop. I saw him cross up a defender by snapping the ball violently behind his back, only to take three steps in the lane and dish across his body to a forward, who flushed the dunk. I saw him point in appreciation to Kyle Singler after a 3-pointer, and I saw a teammate return the thanks right back to him. I saw him start in front of Duke’s bench, wheel his way through the right side of the lane and scoop the ball, with his arm extended, for a contested layup. I saw him laugh greedily after a missed layup that would’ve registered him an assist, and on the ensuing dead ball, I saw him pretend to ignore a fan, in the first row, who shouted, “Ndot, you’re unstoppable, baby!” I saw him, finally, throw on his shooting shirt and drape on a headset to answer questions from the broadcasting booth, and when I saw him slap a few hands before disappearing into the tunnel, I saw no one left in the bleachers. 

But even that night—and today, especially—one moment lingered with me long after Cameron cleared out. 

At the very end of this unmemorable Duke win, in his last defensive possession of the evening, Nolan was matching strides with his assignment on Boston College, a clever guard named Reggie Jackson, the best player on the other team and, at the time, Nolan’s fiercest competition for conference player of the year. This was right after a quick timeout. The two guards were almost bumping into each other, they were so close, and yet they weren’t chatting, just shuffling their feet in step. Walking in the direction of the four title banners in the rafters, Nolan glanced at press row to his left, one last time, like an instinct. I waited, wondering if he knew what he was doing. I had been there all night—all week, really—following him around, and while he hadn’t offered so much as a nod before the game, when we were two of the only people in the arena, I was sure he was very much aware I was watching. He paused. Then, his eyes widened, ever so slightly, and—yessir!—there it was: the sly hint of a smile.