Airball : From choke to tears – Basketix Lexicon

Published on November 20, 2025 3 min. reading

Definition of the term

An airball is a shot, layup, jump shot, or free throw… that hits neither the rim, nor the backboard, nor even the net: just air. The 24-second clock doesn’t reset, and the ball stays live, which makes the blunder even more obvious… and often humiliating.

The place of the term in basketball culture

It’s a shameful moment, painful for a team’s own fans and absolutely delicious for the opposing crowd. As a Knicks fan, Mitchell Robinson gave us some serious heartbreak in the playoffs with his unorthodox form — and more importantly, with shots that sometimes missed the rim by a mile… or even the net entirely.

The airball has a special place in the collective imagination of basketball. It’s tied to awkward, almost comedic moments for fans, because it represents a major miss. Duke’s Cameron Crazies used to chant “airball! airball!” to bury the poor soul who committed the unforgivable.

An airball reveals both a lack of touch and the weight of pressure. It’s a punchline in highlight reels (Shaqtin’ A Fool), in memes, and in playground conversations. Throw an airball and you’re guaranteed to get cooked by some premium trashtalk. And don’t fight it — you earned that smoke. What was that shot??

But paradoxically, some legendary misses become formative moments in great careers. They can forge a revenge-driven mentality… or not.

The 5 players most often associated with airballs (ouch…)

#	Player	Why his name comes up
1	Shaquille O’Neal	An icon of the Hack-a-Shaq: his shaky free throws include some historic airballs (like his infamous 0/11 FT game on Dec. 8, 2000).
2	Russell Westbrook	A few airballs on FTs and threes fed into the “Westbrick” nickname, repeated endlessly by fans and even on the French Wikipedia page.
3	Kobe Bryant	As a rookie, he fired four straight airballs in crunch time of Game 5 in Utah in 1997 — a trauma he later turned into fuel.
4	Ben Simmons	His viral clip: a wide-open shot during a public event at Brooklyn Bridge Park… ending in an airball. The end of his career? I’m just asking.
5	Giannis Antetokounmpo	His slow free-throw routine included multiple notorious airballs during the 2021 Playoffs, against the Hawks and then the Suns.

A legendary airball (plural, actually)

May 12, 1997, Delta Center, Salt Lake City: rookie Kobe Bryant (18 years old) gets the ball for the game-tying shot against the Jazz. He shoots… airball. Overtime: he tries again… airball. In total: four straight shots without touching the rim. The Lakers are eliminated, but Kobe would later describe this moment as the “turning point” that forged the mentality of a future five-time champion. Failure and shame build legends, the Black Mamba didn’t throw many more airballs in the playoffs. And anyway, he kept on shooting.

An airball isn’t just a simple miss; it’s a truth moment where technique, confidence, and pressure collide. A word of advice to anyone facing Paris Basketball: don’t miss the rim or the glass, the crowd is waiting for you.