The Art of the No-Look Pass

In terms of skill and excitement the No-Look Pass is right up there with the alley-oop, the bicycle kick and the back-handed glove flip byt the shortstop to the second basemen, who relays the throw to first, spinning around to set his body while jumping over the base-runner sliding at him to get the double play.

However there is a fine-line between the No-Look Pass and the Look-Away Pass, and the line increasingly gets crossed the more and more sports that make it on TV. At this rate when the Scrabble Championship shows up on The Ocho, somebody will blindly give up their turn, not even looking at the tiles. However if that same person contemplates their tiles for a minute and then looks elsewhere and says "pass," the result is the same but reached in a different way.

For example ... Steve Nash- No-Look or Look-Away? This one is a No-Look because when he releases the ball he can't see his teammate Grant Hill in the corner. But if you pay close attention, he pump fakes to him at 0:07, so he does sort of Look-Away

However this one ... Ronaldinho- No Look or Look-Away? At 0:12 which way is the "world's most creative player" looking??? DIRECTLY AT THE GUY HE IS GOING TO PASS IT TO!, if you didn't see that through ball coming than, there is no reason you should be playing in French Ligue 1. While Ronaldinho's passing takes skill to accomplish, a through ball of that variety is not easy, ask any high-school soccer player, he has single-handedly destroyed the No-Look Pass. He's made a name for himself performing the No-Look Pass by staring down his receiver as if he were Derek Anderson and then turning his head like Linda Blair as Regan MacNeil. Ronaldinho - No-Look or Look-Away 2, Ronaldinho - No Look or Look-Away 3, Ronaldinho - No-Look or Look Away 4... Is it essential that we need a 5th one? YES Ronaldinho - No-Look or Look-Away 5. And that is not the same play as #4, although they look pretty darn close. U14's make these passes and when succesful the coach (usually the kid's Dad) applauds as if he did something only Ronaldinho can do, while said father is halfway correct, his kid just made a big deal about a simple square ball, it is not that impressive because most 13-year-olds playing soccer have full mobility range in their necks and are capable of turning their head.

So here are a few more
LeBron James -No-Look or Look-Away?,
Jason Kidd- Definite No-Look!
Douchebag Wannabe- No-Look or Look-Away? Does it matter?

I checked Urban-Dictonary for a "hood" definition of a No-Look Pass. And needless to say didn't find what I was looking for. So I went to the next most reliable source Wikipedia. In the section Basketball moves, this one-of-a-kind pass is defined as ...

Blind pass

Also known as a no-look pass, the blind pass is performed when a player looks in one direction but passes the ball to his target in another direction. Blind passes are risky and infrequently attempted, but when done correctly, can confuse the defense. The no-look pass has been popularized by players such as Pete Maravich, Isiah Thomas, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Jason Kidd, Kobe Bryant, and Steve Nash.

As you can see clearly this is not a reliable soure, because Kobe Bryant hasn't made a pass since 2002.

So what can we do to fix this fairy-tale that is the No-Look Pass? The wikipedia definition gets it mostly correct. When a player looks in one direction but passes the ball t his target in another direction. GOOD. Blind passes are risky and infrequently attempted, but when done correctly, can confuse the defense. GOOD. But there is nothing about the release of the pass. In order for a real No-Look Pass to occur the guy who makes the dish should

A. be looking the opposite direction when "beginnning the motion to release the ball." When Ronaldinho begins to play his passes he is looking at his target and then looks somewhere else. As I have stated numerous times, NOT A NO-LOOK!

B. be looking the opposite direction for at least the final 2/3rds of the time involved in the play. If the exchange takes three seconds he better be looking a different direction for the final two seconds of that play. (Like in Steve Nash's pass earlier, he never actually looks at Grant Hill once the play begins, but the pump fake alerts the viewer that he knows he is there). If the exchange only takes 1 second, for those of you scoring at home, you should probably avoid that road next time. But the basketball player better be looking a different direction for .67 seconds of that play.