Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Attempt at fame leaves kid befuddled
Robinson recalls youth was ‘weirded out’ and did not recognize him
When it comes to missing 3-pointers, Duncan Robinson refuses to be humb jinled by such moments. The Miami Heat guard appreciates the need to keep firing.
But when it comes to what turned into a somewhat creepy moment recently for an unsuspecting South Florida youngster, that’s another story.
Robinson explained during a recent episode of The Long Shot podcast he hosts with longtime friend Davis Reid.
“We were driving around Miami,” Robinson said. “We were picking up some food, and we see these two kids playing basketball. And I just had in mind, ‘Dude, wouldn’t it be funny if I just pulled up and just like asked for a jumper?’
“I was in the passenger seat, and I was like: Shoot a quick jump shot, say ‘What’s up?’, pop back in the car and left.”
Robinson said he thought it would be similar to the previous social-media “Dunk Challenge,” of pulling up to a random driveaway hoop, videoing a dunk, and
then driving off, NBA players leaving awed fans in their wake.
“I get out of my car. I asked for the ball,” Robinson said of how the recent moment unfolded. “The kid is like startled and confused, and is like, just kind of like weirded out, like, ‘Who’s this random guy getting out of a car, asking me for the ball that I’m playing with?’ He like reluctantly throws me the ball.
“I shoot. I miss. I’m might have airballed, I don’t know — it wasn’t regulation. I missed. There’s like this uncomfortable moment.”
Robinson said his expectation was more like, “You know, in your head, it’s like you get out, you like swish it, and that’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, is that Duncan?’ “
Didn’t happen.
“Kid doesn’t even recognize me, doesn’t even care at all,” he continued. “There’s this awkward moment where I’m just standing . . . like, ‘Dude, what do I do?’ I just get in the car and we drive off.
“Kid has no idea.” To Robinson, perhaps written off as a sign of the pandemic times.
“It must has been the mask,” he said. “I think I was wearing a mask. The kid didn’t recognize the mask, whatever it was.
“I will say it somewhat scarred me. I certainly won’t be pulling up to any courts and making any jump shots anymore, because that was a shot to the ego.”
The anecdote was offered as part of a podcast mailbag that began with the question: “How do you balance your celebrity status with want for a normal life?”
To that, Robinson, 26, laughed.
“Celebrity status is a severe stretch,” he said, having gone undrafted as a University of Michigan reserve in 2018, after previously playing at Division III Williams College. “In terms of the ‘normal life’ comment, I very much live a normal life, nothing like particularly glamorous about what I’m doing on my day to day, except for playing basketball at 7:30, or 8 lately.”
Viewing himself very much of an everyman, as seemingly was the perception from the aforementioned unsuspecting youth.
“I think the large part of it is that I’m relatively unassuming. I think I teeter that line between being abnormally tall,” he said, listed by the Heat at 6 foot 7. “Like if you’re 6-10, 6-11, walk into a room, it’s egregiously obvious that you must play basketball, I think. I get mistaken, like, ‘Oh, you’re so tall. Are you like 6-4?’
“So the general comments of like, ‘Oh, you’re tall, do you play basketball?’ I just say, ‘Yeah, sometimes, I do.’ “
While remaining mostly humble, except for that one random drive-by attempt at a moment of celebrity.
“It’s nice to just kind of be anonymous,” he said.