57 pages • 1 hour read
Randy RibayAfter the Shot Drops
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Basketball
Basketball is the backdrop for much of the novel and is a symbol woven throughout the narrative to illustrate some of its main themes. The game parallels many of the facets of life explored throughout the novel, including the tension between individual and group efforts. As in all team sports, the best teams are not just those that have the best players but the ones where the players support and communicate with each other effectively. Even the best basketball player in the world cannot win a game by themselves.
On the other hand, individual ability is integral to how well any given person plays. In basketball and life, many of these abilities are innate; they are not “earned.” Bunny won the genetic lottery given his height, speed, coordination, and other attributes necessary to be a star basketball player. People born without these traits cannot become professional athletes, no matter how hard they work or how well they communicate with their team.
Bunny, however, does not rest on his laurels and bask in his advantages; on the contrary, he works hard to maximize his potential. Thus, a combination of luck, skill, effort, and community reinforcement coalesces to create a superior basketball player. The novel implies that this combination is necessary to succeed in other domains of life. Whether people can succeed when they lack one or all of these factors and who is responsible for their failure is the text’s central theme.
The Kitten
The kitten Wallace rescues is another important symbol in the novel. It stands in for the weakest and most vulnerable members of society who, like the kitten, are frequently cast off and defenseless. There is some irony in the fact that the kitten is rescued by Wallace, another acutely vulnerable creature. Although Wallace may come across as menacing to outsiders because he is a Black man with criminal involvement, he is actually a young man facing extreme difficulties with little to no familial or societal support. This makes him vulnerable, and yet he helps a creature even weaker than he is. This leads Nasir to muse:
I’m thinking about how funny it is that people can act so hard and then turn around and give you a glimpse that there’s more to them. I know some people around our way have it rough and have to toughen up to survive, but my theory is they’re all putting up the same front as Wallace. I wish we could all agree it’s dumb and drop the act. Then everyone could go around doing stuff like saving stray kittens (104).
Wallace’s treatment of the kitten suggests that if society properly cared for its people, they could reach their full human potential and contribute more productively to their communities.
The kitten is also a mirror for Wallace’s character. It shows that despite his tough demeanor, he has a caring and compassionate side. However, by naming the kitten “Bunny”—because he is a “pussy”—the kitten also demonstrates one of Wallace’s many human failings. Wallace tends to displace his rage and anger onto those who are not responsible for it, like Bunny. Instead of funneling his anger in productive ways, he reserves his most virulent animosity for Bunny, who is only trying to escape the world in which Wallace is doomed to remain trapped.
